Jay-Z has been riding high on a few succesful creations recently. His collaboration with Kanye West broke was critically acclaimed, his performance at the VMA’s was huge, and he knocked up Beyoncé which turned out to be big news. But behind every success there are probably more failures than you know about. That’s because Sean [...]
As you can see from the photo above the world of the sample can be a long and winding one. Ethan Hein created a step-by-step explanation of how Alan Lomax is credited as a co-author on a Jay-Z song, even though Lomax didn’t write anything. Lomax just had a passion for folk songs and went [...]
Well it appears Weezy is about to turn his baby money into big boy money because the man has already sold 300,000 digital copies of Tha Carter IV and is now expected to sell close to one million digital albums. WHAAAAAA! That is nutz. Just a few weeks after Jay-Z and Kanye West broke the first [...]
I’ve been noticing a trend in big Major Label releases. It’s all about the first 24 hours. More and more superstars like Kanye, Lady Gaga, and Lil Wayne are pushing for big sales up front because they know the longer their music is out after the opening day, the easier it will be for kids [...]
You may heard the hype for the recently released “Watch The Throne” album from heavy-weights Jay-Z and Kanye. What you may have not heard is how they set-up a pop-up store to sell the album. Why this has marketing magic sprinkled all over it: 1. It’s fresh. Pop-up stores have been around for some time, [...]
South By South West is known for being a buzz amplifier. Whether Metallica’s doing a club gig to promote Rock Band, Tim Ferriss launching the 4 hour week there, Ipad2 launching on SXSW opening day, or Jay-Z and Kanye doing a secret show for their Watch The Throne project (I don’t know if they are [...]
There isn’t much more to add to these 3 solid clips from Jay-Z’s feature on Oprah’s Master Class series. Jay-Z speaks about his goals, motivations, fears, hopes, struggles, and much more. The videos are short and worth your time. Watch them below. (Via AllHipHop.com) 1/3 2/3 3/3 Take Control of Your Music Voyno
The full video for Kanye West’s epic track Monster isn’t even out. But with the Kanye West hype machine on overdrive, Monster is generating controversy. Monster, one of the many epic tracks on Kanye West’s fine album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, is the first video to be released from Camp Kanye since his “visual accompaniment” Runaway. [...]
One of the biggest laments I hear for the record industry of yesteryear (like 60-70s) is that today there is little time for a young talent to develop and mature on a major record label. If you don’ t have a substantial hit off your first release then you stand a good chance of getting dropped. [...]
Was just reading this Jay-Z article in Forbes. The article was obviously about his wealth and business success, but there were takeaways worth sharing. 1. Remembering What Made You Successful The album had all these emotions and complexities and layers that a typical hip-hop album didn’t have if you were making it at 16, 17 [...]
