Lil Wayne Bundles New Album With ‘DefJam Rapstar’

By NewRockstarPhilosophy • October 13, 2010 • Money, Music Licensing

When Soundgarden used clever accounting to reach platinum status for their new album WolfyWolfandTheStarryNight we, at The New Rockstar Philosophy, were turned off by the idea.

Well, it turns out no one cares about that noise when there is dollar bills to be made because bundling albums with Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, or DefJam Rapstar is THE ONLY WAY to sell a million copies. Ah a million copies, the good ol’days, eh boys?

Seeing Soundgaden’s success Lil’Wayne, an artist that I though had far more relevancy, has tagged along to DefJam Rapstar. A game that will no doubt be just swell. Featuring a rap karaoke sharing element.

For some reason with the Soundgarden incident it kind of meant something to me. I think it’s because they used to rock my world and came out of a grunge ‘fuck the Man’ culture. With Lil Wayne, an artist who’s label is called Cash Money, I’m not sure this will be a bad thing for anyone involved. It will definitely make him more money.

But I wonder, is this just clever marketing? Or a sign that an artist can’t reach his audience through his music alone?

…Lil’ Wayne, who has partnered with the makers of “DefJam Rapstar” and Best Buy to give away his latest album “I Am Not A Human” to anyone buying the game. There are limitations. The giveaway only lasts from Oct. 12 through Oct. 19, and only in Best Buy locations.
The deal was struck between Rapstar creators Def Jam and 4mm Games, and Wayne’s label Cash Money Records. Wayne’s single “Milli” is also featured in the game, which is a sort of rap-centric karaoke game that lets users record and share video of themselves performing.

This practice of bundling albums with games inspired the RIAA to revise its rules on awarding Gold and Platinum status to albums. “Telephantasm” for instance was given Platinum status as a result of the 1 million bundle, as the units were non-returnable. However, since the product was scanned by retailers as a video game, sales were not able to be counted by SoundScan as an album purchase and therefore were not reflected on Billboard’s charts.

–Billboard.com