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Monday, November 29, 2010 | 11:20am
[RAPPER'S SOAPBOX] Nelly Rips MoTown on Twitter For Low Album Sales
Whose to blame? Technology? The Fans? The Economy? The Artists? The Labels? Obama?
nelly_mo #5.0
There was a time when Nelly was so hot that he could sell a million records in his sleep. For Nelly as well as the industry that employs him, those days are long gone and not coming back. I guess you don’t ever appreciate what you had until its gone. While I never checked for a Nelly album he did at one time have a very large following. But sales of his most recent studio project “5.0″ are sluggish despite landing at number ten in the US with sales of 63,000 copies. Whose to blame? Well Nelly recently took to the popular sounding board, Twitter to voice his displeasure with his label Motown Records and how they’re promoting it or lack there of.
nelly_mo: “A record deal is a 50/50 partnership! As an artist its your job to provide the record company with music that they can sell!”
nelly_mo: “Thing about the partnership is that in the public eye the responsibility is not 50/50! The artist is always the one who catches 90% of the blame. When a artist doesn’t deliver sufficient material they gets [their] budget cut for next album or worse dropped from the label!”
A frustrated Nelly points to the labels gunshy attitude and under shipment despite the success of his current single “Just A Dream.”
nelly_mo: “So whose fault is it when a artist gives the label not only a #1 hit but there first top40 #1 in label history! Sell 2mill n singles n 2.5month?
nelly_mo: “Who should be held responsible wen an artist has a history for selling records…but if folks say they didn’t even no wen the album came out?????
nelly_mo: “Every1 luvs da album and say its crazy! So wen u hear folks say they didnt no it was out r there were hardly any in the store! WTF?”
nelly_mo: “5.0″ marks the star’s lowest charting album, after his last five efforts peaked within the top three.
While I understand where Nelly’s coming from he’s also gotta open his eyes. Entertainers have to realize the land of milk and honey is all dried up. No longer are fans going to blindly buy your album because Funkmaster Flex drops bombs on it or you took your shirt off on 106 & Park or have your breast out with the ill camel toe on your album cover. People HAVE to be smarter with their money and are spending it on things like BREAD, RENT, GAS… so its exposed the industry for its flaws.
So while Nelly might complain that the label isn’t helping out enough, perhaps he needs to realize that before they helped TOO MUCH. I can remember being at West Virginia University and seeing two white Lexus’ drive through town with “Nelly/ Country Grammer” written on the side. I had no idea who or what that was but would soon learn. Point its all supply and demand. There’s no demand for music SALES anymore. You can just download it. No sense in going on Twitter crying about it. Instead use the platform to get your promo game together and find a way to make money. We’re all hustling out here and even the once-well-paid rappers better get on board if they want to survive.
FILED IN Business & Marketing, Music, Technology, Web 2.0
Hear comes the Bad Guy!!!!
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Understanding and totally cosigning what Juan said; “People HAVE to be smarter with their money and are spending it on things like BREAD, RENT, GAS…”… lets stick to the obvious, NELLY IS LOWER MID TO SUB PAR AT BEST!!!!
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I thought his career was way past done and he was totally relying on that Apple Bottom money. But that must be dwindling fast due to reasons Juan has stated.
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These third, and fourth rate “MCs”, and I’m using the term “MC” VEEEEERRRRRRRYYYY loosely, need to stop and realize that if you are not of a Jay-Z, Eminem, OutKast caliber MC(s) (sales and skill wise), out grinding at any and every venue possible world wide (Roots, Talib, Lupe, Dead Prez and affliates), new and emerging (Drake, Nicki and affliates) or classic/ heavy grinding (Wu-Tang, Snoop Dogg), then absolutly, positivly nothing is guarenteed and people really dont give a FUCK about your next project!!!!
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Period.
Quality points. So in this climate if you’re a QUALITY artist and want to make people care about your music what must you do. Grind!
HELL YEAH!!! SHIT, when album sales dropped, Snoop Dogg was doing everything from hosting porn to kids shows and still drops an album once in a while to show where he came from.
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I guarentee any member of the Nation can get Snoop to Crip Walk at your kids birthday party on a slow Saturday for alot less than you think…
I don’t care about no damn Nelly album. Dude is wack and his music sucks.
Addition: Think of P. Shitty (Sean Combs). The reason why he is still relavant and making money, besides having a never ending supply of fresh booties to rape, is because he associates himself with the new and emerging (Nicki Minaj/ Rick Ross, while clinging on for dear life to the classics (B.I.G/ Mary J.)….
Ahhh the old coat tail riding methodology.
It’s pretty simple: Albums don’t sale anymore. He might have a good single out (which I’ve never heard), but nowadays, that doesn’t translate to record sells because one can simply download the single.
I remember watching the 2nd edition of “BEEF” when KRS-One was being asked of his position at the time, “beefing” with Nelly. I remember how he held a boycott against the “NellyVille” album and pretty much lost that battle. SO it is very ironic to see Nelly in the same position maybe 3-4 years later. HE is now what KRS-One was at that time…….”a has been”. I am a Hip-Hop baby; we were both born in 1973…. So I have had the pleasure of witnessing the many changes of hip-hop in it’s time period so far. But I also realize that hip-hop is more a business now and not a hobby like back in the day or some artists’ life. Big business robbed the true spirit of the music….made it repetitive(remember everybody had a “right thurr” type track back then) and now it’s autotune. So maybe the Nelly album is good(I haven’t heard it yet…..go figure) but it won’t sell…..I think he needs that rapper’s pension plan he was talking about in that beef. Or maybe just watch that episode. Cuz he ain’t gonna be “#1″ ever again.
This is a sad hip hop music news article about Nelly and his disappointing sales of his latest album 5.0. You would think that his record label will get behind his album especially as his first single Just A Dream reportedly sold 2 million copies. Just A Dream had a very popular hip hop music video too which was one of the hottest rap music videos on MTV at the time so you would have thought that Nelly`s record label would have had the confidence to get behind his album especially in its first week of release.
I live in St. Lou and i don’t here none of Nelly’s music, not even on the station that he visit when he’s here in St.Louis. I heard his single Just A Dream and i like it. Yes it’s easy to download music now but for Nelly just to sell so low and even in his home town thats bad! The only time i see anything about his new cd is on a Target commerical. Maybe he needs to get out and do tours, music cd’s just don’t sell like they used to.