Hip Hop Sales and the Late 30s Model

Props to Horton for pointing this out to me:

http://www.sixshot.com/news/13537/

There's a lot of interesting conversations that can come from this list. The easy one is the general lack of sales in the music industry, which is fine but is an ongoing conversation that I'm fairly sick of at this point. The CD has been dead for a bit now and that won't be changing (I assume these numbers indicate CD sales, though I'm not quite sure).

The more interesting points relate to the independent artists on there. From my count Ice Cube, Atmosphere, Tech N9ne, Scarface, Devin and maybe Webbie are on independent labels (feel free to add to that list). Cube, Atmos, and Tech specifically have stakes in the labels they put these albums out on and are certainly making more per album sold than many (if not all) of the other folks listed on here.

I look at Atmos and Tech N9ne specifically as models for this new era of the music industry and how to be succesful without the major labels (as they are dying anyway). Relentless touring, major distribution (but not the concessions that come with a major), a good product and a loyal and ever-expanding fan base are key ingredients to both artists, with a great deal of the loot pulled down on doing shows.

An interesting note though, both Slug (36) and Tech N9ne (37) are well into their 30s and have been in the Hip Hop game in some capacity since the early 90s. What they've been able to accomplish is certainly encouraging for those of us involved in music in some form, but serves as a reality check that if you're really trying to make it, the grind is a long and hard one.