Doin' the Numbers

Yes, it's me again, and the numbers are officially in. The infamous bout between hip hop icons Kanye West and 50 Cent has been squared away by the final count. After many on location and studio interviews, standard and late show performances, and even surprise guest appearances, the two stars have managed to grab the attention of the world and bring what you may call a "corny coincidence" to the music industry; they brought the experience to the fans, and in return, the fans bought it. With sales of 1.1+million units sold worldwide, West defeats Cent by a near 232,000 units, but they both win in this event.

To me it seemed like simple genius and intuitive awareness. If you didn't know, from my side of the tracks, downloading was never a ploy to completely dodge the purchase of albums, just bad ones. Think about it. It's no coincidence, however, that the highly sold are also the highly downloaded. After all, I was apart of the original mp3 machine. When Napster first started, I was in high school, buying albums like a regular kid and burning mix Cd's for myself and my friends (and clients) alike. But one thing that stands in every entrepreneurs line of sight was standing right in mines and in the sight of Napster co-creator, Shawn Fanning of Northeastern University; he found the pain.

Finding the pain is essential to embarking on a true entrepreneurial endeavor, whether it's real pain, like waking up early in the a.m, or a perceived pain, like not having an iPod. Back then I wondered, "why should I pay $18.29 for an item that didn't suit my needs?" And I boldly opposed supporting albums with two great singles and a track listing of straight garbage. Once you break that plastic packaging, there's no return like the CD player you played it in. Others like me used the Internet to survey the artists and pick and choose who we will support and who we wouldn't, meaning even though Jay-Z would be on my friends hard drive, we both had the premium packaging to go with it because we loved to know who did what and keep the items as a collection. One things for sure, we're not pack rats, so the garbage gets tossed, this time without our money with it.

The marketing ploy used to grab listeners back out of the slump of low expectations was a fine example of how many people still support the artists despite the downloads, and the attitudes of 50 and Kanye resembled that when they stated on Sept. 11th to download it, buy it, whatever, just get it, on BET's 106 and Park. So for all of you new age artists out there getting hip to worldwide platforms and digital distribution, don't be scared, just be true to your craft and the people will follow. In the city, getting your records bootlegged was a sure sign the demand was high, just create the type of experience people want to be apart of. The pain in the industry right now is bad music. Make good music and get clever about it. Go ahead, switch your style up, and if they hate then let'em hate and watch the numbers pile up.

- JP