HipHopMusiq.com

A poem about the power of economics  from the street level to the corporate level.

Top Albums for the week 4/04/2008

1. Day 26 - Day 26
2. Danity Kane - Welcome to the Dollhouse
3. Rick Ross - Trilla
4. Snoop Dogg - Ego Trippin
5. Flo Rida - Mail on Sunday
6. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah: Part One(4th World War)
7. Keyshia Cole - Just Like You
8. Mary J Blige - Growing Pains
9. Various Artist - Now 27
10. Rocko - Self Made

Top Digital Singles for the week 4/4/2008

1. Mariah Carey - Touch my Body
2. Madonna featuring Justin Timberlake - 4 Minutes
3. Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
4. Lil Wayne featuring Static Major - Lollipop
5. Jordin Sparks duet with Chris Brown - No Air
6. Usher featuring Young Jeezy - Love in this Club
7. Ray J & Sexy Berg - Sexy Can I
8. Trace Adkins - Your Gonna Miss This
9. One Republic - Stop and Stare
10. Yael Naim - New Soul

For those in the know Janelle Monae has been bubbling in the underground for a minute now. Now her struggling has been rewarded by attracting the sights of the puffy one himself. Although his artist have been notorious in the past couple of years for having high profiling signings but not much in follow up, Janelle should be able to break that trend by being such an original and groundbreaking artist. It should be interesting to follow her career and see how it ends up, just being talented and original is not always that formula to success. Hopefully with backing of Diddy this should be more than enough.

Following in the footsteps of Madonna and U2 major superstar Jay Z signs music promoter Live Nation for 150 million dollars. The deal has an array of stipulations to it that pretty much play out to Live Nation backing a ton of Jay Z’s business ventures, as well as getting a percentage of touring and merchandise revenue.

There has been speculation wether this was a good deal or not for Live Nation as well as Jay Z’s part. We would have to conclude that not only was it a good deal but it’s the smartest deal out right now. This is where more music deals are going eventually end up because the old model is hanging on by life support. The only problem that we see right now is that this model is great for older established artist. There has to be a way for newer artist to be able to reap the rewards of their music as well as not being jerked around by the industry games that have been around for so long. This is just the beginning of this new world economy, not the end.

For more information about this deal go to this link from the New York Times, Jay Z Live Nation Deal.

First Radiohead now Trent Reznor, rock and alternative artist are starting to understand the true power of the internet and its respective communities, now it’s time for Hip Hop artist to get on board. Rappers have a hard time understanding a model unless it gives you cash in hand. That’s why Hip Hop artist are so proud of their ringtone money. That is money that is in your hands quickly and its a pretty basic and simple formula. But the ability to utilize a web audience has so much greater potential than the ringtone audience. But it takes more than just have a basic site and a myspace page.

Myspace is a good first step to utilizing the web properly but it’s just that, a first step. A Myspace page is a very basic and limited way to use the power of the internet. You can not set up the proper forms to get the email and other information of your core audience. You can not get the stats of what time did they visit the site, where did they come from, did they get to your site through a mobile phone or through a web browser. Did they use Firefox, Safari, Opera, or Internet Explorer to get to your site. These are all questions that the artist may not be able to take advantage of but his marketing team can. these are all concepts that will get you closer to your audience and therefore able to target them better. With your own web page you are able to get this information and more. Every artist has a web page now but mostly it’s just the record company set up web page. It may look nice but they are getting the valuable information and not you.

Remember that there are other social networks out there. Myspace is just one of many social networks out there. The most obvious are Youtube and Facebook but that is only the beginning of a long line of social networks. Bebo, hi5, Twitter, Pownce, Imeem, last.fm and others. Here is a nice list on wikipedia to help give you a large list of others. Instead of having 20 body guards on your team get someone who knows the net and not just the guy who set up your Myspace either. A real tech guy. This is the guy who can decide wether you sink or swim in the new media. Don’t depend on your record company to handle these details for you. They hate the Internet, it takes away their control of the product. So they are trying to fight against instead of utilizing it.

Make sure that you hire the right people to handle this tech excursion for you. Yes not re re’s cousin who does Myspace in the afternoon either. Also not a the record companies site guy because he is going to be to busy to talk to you. You need your own team to handle this. You need a tech guy, an SEO guy, a designer, and a programmer. They do not have to be full time but they must have enough time to handle

your needs and help you squeeze all you ca out your web presence. You also must build a community of blogger contacts that you talk to on a regular basis. These can kill a career and they know it. Remember to be nice. 

This list isn’t for Jay Z, Kanye West, 50 Cent(who by the way is doing a good job on thisis50.com) and other A level artist. This post is for B level and below artist who are signed to a record label but are not top priority. This is also for artist in indie labels as well. You have the ability to take control of your own future through the Internet and not just wait for the label to notice you. Use it!. Chuck D is a good example of someone who is harnessing the power of the Internet and he started early. The only problem that chuck has is that his name recognition is not what it use to be. Somebody who has a buzz on the street right can really take hold of that power and get things moving.

Jay Z is a making sure that all of his bases are covered with the music industry in the slumps right now. He along with Steve Stoute are creating a new advertising agency  named  Translation Advertising. The purpose for this venture is to bring Clients that are trying to reach the Hip Hop community closer to their targets. For more on this story check out the New York Times link.

There has been a lot of news reports lately that people are only into Obama for his political speeches and not for his stance on the issues. That is totally false and here is proof with one of his supporters outside at one of his political rallies.

On a bunch of different Hip Hop and Black blog sites yesterday the Forbes list of the top ten Celebrity Black  Earners made a bunch of waves and commotion. There was a lot of different reactions to the story yesterday, most of it positive. But of course there will be a few haters that will show their true colors on a post like this. There were two comments that really stuck with me though. One was that there was no way that these people could make that much money, and another was the negative reaction towards Oprah saying in a magazine article that she feels funny when her relatives ask her for money.

To address the first statement,  yes people do actually make that much money in one year. And yes Black people do make that much money. Unfortunately the only Black people that receive shine for their monetary achievements are in sports and entertainment. We might not have a bunch of billionaires on the list (two form last count) but we do have a good amount of none celebrity millionaires running around. In all different fields as well. We have millionaire inventors, scientist, financial gurus, computer programmers and the list goes on. If you are really interested in taking control of your own financial life and maybe even making the bank that you see Jay Z and Puffy make, then grab a couple of financial books, a couple of business books, a subscription to Black Enterprise, Forbes, and Fortune and then get to work. If you want to make money like that you have to understand not just your business but business in general and how the monetary system works. Watch CNBC in the morning for at least an half hour. Even if you are not going into the finance game realize that watching a network like CNBC will help you understand the business trends that are going on around you. That is always a big help. You will not understand the lingo at first but it will catch on. I am not rich but what I have learned in the past couple of years has really help me understand the monetary system in America and how true economics really works.

Now as far as the Oprah thing I really don’t have too much to say about that.  Nobody knows the true story about that women and her family but them and  god. They may have their side and she apparently has hers. If I was treated bad constantly by family and then I came into money I would not give them any money either.

For the Record here is the list and a link to the list with more of a description of each celebrity.

1. Oprah Winfrey - 260 Million Last Year
2. Tiger Woods - 100 Million Laast Year
3. Jay Z - 83 Million Last Year
4.  50 Cent - 33 Milllion Last Year
5. Kobe Bryant - 33 Million Last Year
6. Shaq - 32 Million Last Year
7. Michael Jordan - 31 Million Last year
8. Will Smith - 31 Million Last Year
9. Beyonce - 27 Million Last Year
10. Lebron James - 27 Million Last Year

Forbes List