Rick Ross Seems to Be More of a Priority Than Jeezy at Def Jam Currently

 

I guess Rick Ross seems to be a top priority at Def Jam Records right now. While Jeezy struggled for many months to get a release date for his fifth album, Seen It All: The Autobiography, Rick Ross has gotten two release dates for two albums in one year. He dropped his sixth studio album, Mastermind in March, and has gotten another release date for his seventh album, Hood Billionaire, set for a November release date. Record labels likes to do this with their top selling artists; DMX released two albums (It's Dark And Hell Is Hot, and Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood) in 1998 on Def Jam, and Nas also released two albums (I Am, and Nastradamus in one year (in 1999) on Columbia Records...and yea, Tupac did it with All Eyez On Me, and The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory in 1996 on Death Row Records.








Labels like to maximize the buzz an artist currently has in a particular year by releasing a follow up to a commercially successful album. Ross's Mastermind sold 179,000 copies first week in March. This may seem low, but for a gangster rapper in 2014, it is pretty decent. Def Jam probably compared Rick Ross's Mastermind first week sales (179,000), with Jeezy's Seen It All first week sales (121,000), and decided to throw Rozay a budget for another album this year. Ross is currently getting a lot of buzz from his guest appearance on Chris Brown's New Flame and some other songs, which would keep him hot and relevant on the music scene till the fourth quarter of the year, so why not let him have another shot at it.




Even if he doesn't match the sales of his Mastermind album, he is sure to do at least 130-140k first week off the buzz he currently has, which is not bad for someone with two albums in one year. The countdown begins for Hood Billionaire...November 24th. Let's see if Def Jam made a good gamble with this one.