the decline of album sales in hiphop

I think except from EMINEM, JAY-Z, LIL WAYNE, KANYE WEST and T.I, everybody else is scared of the low numbers they would do when their albums drop. I can say that if jay would have dropped BLUEPRINT 3 right after the first un-official single, JOCKING JAY-Z, dropped, he would not have sold as much as he did. He dropped that single, and the “Brooklyn we go hard” joint, but he was not getting the right amount of buzz to drop an album, so he went back to the drawing board.



He strategize, and knew that controversy always sells, so he came up with DEATH OF AUTOTUNE, and after, he knew he was ready to drop the album. You see, jay is very wise, and he has a lot of good analyst behind him. Check out the make up of blueprint 3, almost all the tracks were made with a commercial appeal to it. He got KANYE WEST producing a lot of tracks, because kanye reaches out to both rap lovers, and white geeks; that alone guarantees him thousands of kanye fans, checking out for him. And then, with the next single, what does he do, he gets kanye west on it, and the hottest rising R&B star, RIHANNA to sing on the chorus. Then, the rest of the album is full of guest appearances of up and coming./rising stars; J.COLE, DRAKE, KID CUDI, MR HUDSON. All these would get him the new rap listeners, without him doing what they do, and he pulled it off perfectly.

I am not disputing the fact that jay is a great rapper, on of the best ever, but if he had just dropped the album just off the hype that he is JAY-Z, he sure wouldn’t have done those numbers.

From 50 CENT, YOUNG JEEZY, THE GAME…they are all scared that there albums wouldn’t do as much as they want; or to put it this way, they are scared of the embarrassing numbers that their albums would do. I just got off sohh.com, and read how young jeezy dropped a diss track aimed at RICK ROSS; he is going at his on label mate just to get a buzz. For real, nobody is selling records anymore; apart from the 5 I mentioned above. I don’t think jeezy can go plat again, I don’t care if he drops a banger right now, he wouldn’t go platinum.



Game knew that; his DOCUMENTARY album sold 2.5 million(in the u.s alone), DOCTOR’S ADVOCATE (1.0 million copies), L.A.X (760,000), with decreasing numbers in sales like that, he had to do something before he dropped his next album, or he might find it hard going gold. That is why he has been pushing the album back all year, and I guess he has finally found a winning formula. His new, solely produced by COL AND DRE, mixtape, BREAKLIGHTS have a lot of people checking for him again. I guess he should just ditch PHARELL, and record more cool and dre tracks for the RED album.



As for 50 cent, I think his case is worse. He was pocking fun at FAT JOE just last week, saying joe’s album had only managed to sell 5,000 copies in its first week(which was a lie, because even though the numbers are low, THE DARKSIDE VOL 1 sold 12k in its first week), and feeling like he killed someone’s career. Fat joe has never been a huge seller; I think he has only one album, out of the 10 so far, that went platinum; he is a GOLD artist, and with the atmosphere of hiphop right now, coupled with the fact that he is 100% independent on KOCH RECORS right now, he is still okay. You can’t compare him with someone(50 CENT), whose first two albums, GET RICH OR DIE TYRYING and THE MASSACRE, sold in excess of 5 million each, and that is just in the U.S; and his last album, that dropped last year, BEFORE I SELF DESTRUCT, just managed to sell 467,000 copies, now, who is the real loser? And I am sure he spent way more than that to promote the album.



Back to the state of album sales, even the southern rappers(apart t.i, wayne and luda) are not longer selling records. Everybody that has come out in the last 10 weeks, from BIG BOI, to FAT JOE, to every other rapper that I can’t remember their name, because they just be popping up every minute, are struggling to sell 200k copies. That is why I laugh when people say TEFLON DON is a flop; how can an album selling 180k in it’s first week be consider a flop in this climate. That is just 220k copies less than DRAKE did with his THANK ME LATER debut, and me and you know all the money that has gone into marketing that project. I can bet on anything that if 50 dropped an album right now, he might not even sell as much as 100k in his first week. With all the hype he gave the last one, he only sold 140k first week, so he better stick to the acting he currently engages in.



I think 500k is the new platinum, lol! It is just so bad, but the fact is that the people selling records are still selling records so you can’t completely blame it on downloads. Eminems recovery is flying off the rack; he has sold 1.6 million copies in the U.S, and way over 3 million copies worldwide. The only person I don’t understand how he does it is T.I. I have followed his sales since that KING album, and he has been very consistent with it, always selling between, 500-600k in opening week. I would like to see what his new album, KING UNCHAINED does.