Or as Bob Lefsetz puts it:
[...] Every endorsement, every sponsorship, takes years off your career, just like smoking takes years off your life. Your audience needs to believe that THEY own you, not the man. That if you’re beholden to ANYBODY, it’s them! [...]
Except that with Hip Hop, “the game” is celebrated as much, if not more than the content or the musicianship of the actual artist.
The shit makes my head spin.
UPDATE: And the campaign hits TV:
I’m so not the target audience for this shit.
(via Nah Right)
“Q: Are there any long lasting effects to Be KANYE?
A: Elevated confidence, enlarged ego, and heightened creativity.
Q: Can I operate heavy machinery or drive a car while taking Be KANYE?
A: No, have someone else drive you and do any heavy lifting for you.
Q: Can I use Be Kanye if I’m allergic to peanuts?
A: Yes. The only allergic reaction will be against things that are not done to your liking by others.”
Is Be KANYE right for me? Who is Be KANYE right for? Anyone at all. Be KANYE is not just about what’s outside. It delivers the passion to beat the odds. The take no prisoners confidence and willingness to see your ideas through. The focus on creativity. The inspiration to be a positive force for those around you. While the appearance of Kanye is temporary - the internal effects are long lasting. And the makers of Be KANYE believe that in an ABSOLUT world, you too would have those traits.
ahh it’s a commercial for absolut vodka.
would tribe not have taken the same offer if it was even offered?
ah, the redirect into “no way i could know” land.
i’ll tell you this much; chuck d would’ve laughed at the offer.
yep you wouldn’t know.
and chuck d probably would’ve laughed at the offer
and dr. cornell west or even afrikabambaataa probably would have as well.
also, the hip hop legends/founders were making jack compared to those in other genres of music, those who were doing those sponsorships since it wasn’t offered to hip hop as none of those big companies marketed with it/to the people that was associated with it.
music has always been used as a great marketing and emotional tool. hip hop has integrated into everyday life as many now believe in the success and the possibilities. give credit or fault, kanye is part of why it is where it is today.
you do realize that this video with kanye is all a joke, right? his personality is not real. common, for instance, might not be this mild tempered nice guy that he seems. we happen to know kanye’s is not real. i honestly thought everyone knew that. my mistake to assume.
also, when nahright sarcastically said “Being Kanye = very relevant in rap these days (scroll down).” they were referring to absolut using kanye as the epitome of hip hop for absolut to become “very relevant in rap these days” as smirnoff is trying to be.. kanye’s just one facet, as we all know.
you fashioned this post from a respected hip hop blog and you’re gonna say one of the few actual “hip hop” artists is irrelevant, referring to their blog and they didn’t even say that? : /
evolve or die.
i wasn’t referring to nah right; i was referring to artists following kanye’s footsteps and becoming irrelevant themselves.
evolve or die? really? hm…
nice addition to your post but who is bob lefsetz to say what is going on in hip hop, or any genre for that matter? that’s like you giving your opinion in a blog, it’s the same as mine in one as well. i went to his blog to find more info but nothing was immediately available, please send me some more info on him.
When it comes to hip hop west is the best producer that is a rapper as well. he plays the instruments into his computer write and records himself. is that not more musicianship than just a rapper or just a producer? there are so many other genres (like rock, americana, blues) with the same ol styles that sound just like the people who inspired them. that doesn’t take musicianship to mimic and slightly alter words for different songs. if we always made music that sounded like what we had before it, we wouldn’t have any of your favorites now.
-so we have kanye creating his own style of hip hop..
(just like rock splits into americana, soft rock, metal, etc….)
-being inventive and succeeding even when people said his stuff would never be successful. (which you can’t deny even if it’s not to your liking.)
-those who follow in his footsteps become automatically irrelevant how?
(since you meant “artists following kanye’s footsteps and becoming irrelevant themselves.”)
bob lefsetz is a music lawyer who writes a newsletter about the state of the music business and comments on all types of trends. i don’t hold all of his opinions as “the truth,” but i do tend to agree with the concept that once you start selling yourself to corporate sponsors, on one level or another your image is beholden to them.
or as krs-one might say, you’re selling your soul:
i didn’t mean to belittle kanye’s musicianship with my comment. i meant to comment on how an up and coming artist might think such corporate sponsorship — no matter the degree of “irony” or “sarcasm” absolut vodka is still a liquor company — is a good idea in this day and age in hip hop (or any other sub-culture of music for that matter). not many artists can allow such a degree of “in bedness” with a corporation, especially a liquor company, and not take a hit in the eyes of music fans.
maybe kanye is one of those artists that can.
i’ll add — and this is the head spinning shit i referred to above — to some degree, hip hop fans seem to differ from other music sub-cultures in how they respond to corporatism. people seem to appreciate an artist getting paid, no matter who is paying. maybe it’s not an indictment of “hip hop” fans, rather fans of “pop culture” in general, where the marketing and business side of things are merged into the process of creating art itself. i dunno.
kanye made it because he’s talented and busted ass, so i’m not sure how you link his style of hip hop and people following those moves with my commentary about choosing to engage in this form of sponsorship.
unless you’re saying the two can’t be separated, which i would argue against. i’m not ready to annoint kanye west as the andy warhol of music.
as much of a hip hop fan you are, you have the same opinion as a lawyer who’s telling you about hip hop. does he even appreciate the genre?
i think the problem is that you are trying to explain your frustration for wack rappers coming up and using the worst example with kanye who’s actually one of THE hardest working rappers who’s paid more dues than MOST that is currently living. he created a rather unlikable image for himself but in doing so he is doing a great job at keeping his name out there.
this blog for example.
“lock yourself in a room doing five beats a day for three summers, that’s a different world like cree summers, i deserve to do these numbers … i’ve been working this grave shift, and i ain’t made shit, i wish i could, buy me a spaceship and fly, past the sky”
-”spaceship” - kanye west
also, from that video it would seem to me that krs-one is talking about the epidemic of people who “sell their lyrics” to other rappers. not sponsorship which i think you’re getting mixed up. instead there’s a huge problem with rappers “selling their souls”, their lyrics, to others who are on their way up; those rappers perform pieces of someone else’s “soul”. i have friends who sell their rhymes, as much as i don’t agree with that, they just don’t think they could reach the same stardom, they’re just like lyricists for singers but they are not respected and remain in the shadows. When people find out about those rappers that don’t “spit” their own rhymes, their career is over, hopefully.
and why would you use kanye as the goat for why rappers are reaching for bad goals that are coming up after him? and what is so bad about them wanting to get sponsors? is it bad that they will strive to be the best and be asked to be sponsored? why is that such a hit in your opinion? it’s a mutual business opportunity. we all know hip hop sales are in the trash, i’m glad that they are gonna give him some more money like he and most other hip hop artists deserve..
this is the first sponsorship i’ve seen from kanye.. let’s name a few others in hip hop.
p diddy - pepsi or coke. (that’s worse than vodka)
p diddy - ciroc vodka (he’s so all over this one i thought he created it)
john legend - bailey’s liquor
outkast - jet one jets
jay-z - hp computers
pharell - hp computers
50 cent - vitamin water
(and that’s just in hip hop and just the ones i know of)
so would it not instead be the fault of these others who did this before him? some say the latter artists i described don’t have as much talent as, for example kanye who writes and produces all of this music.
kanye wasn’t the first to get sponsored and he wont be the last (at least he was joking around with his commercial the others are dead serious, his fans see the difference unlike with diddy who did take a hit for being so serious in his pepsi commercial). again, why randomly choose kanye unless there’s a underlying reason? artists need nothing to create their art, not even money. those who want it spread need tons of money. if you don’t want to spread your art then in my opinion you can’t be called an artist because artists work to get their art seen and heard.
the reason why hip hop was the way it was in the past is because they weren’t respected and weren’t making money. the videos they made showed that because they just had enough money to get it filmed. the reality was as it was seen for the most part. everything was less flashy because that was the realities of the situation. if kanye would do the same thing as they did in the past it would be fake. kanye is appreciated because he’s doing things his way and we know he’s not trying to be anybody else.
you want people to look and act like those in the past as you think it is seen as authentic? do you know anything about lupe fiasco? funny story actually. lupe is praised as the new real authentic “hip hop” artist. like he was influenced by the past and it’s just who he is. the ironic thing is that although he sounds like the tribe and slum village of the past he wasn’t influenced by them and actually didn’t even listen to him. he was influenced by busta rhymes. the reason? he says that busta rhymes was more popular why would he listen to slum village and others that weren’t doing as well?? lol. now people respect him less because his “authenticity” is lacking, i’m glad he spoke the truth and didn’t just appease those like you who are so about “hip hop HAS to be this or that”. he was authentic in speaking the truth about who he is. hip hop began as those expressing themselves differently to pump up the crowd (think busybee), then to pump up who they were as a person (think back to grand master caz). then it became political which is your favorite movement, then it came back to pump up a person, then to shoot up the person/pump up self, to pump up crowd as kanye does………
hip hop to everyone else is so much more than the box you put it in.
i grew up listening to krs-one, slum village, tribe called quest, busta rhymes, dmx, snoop actually. i couldn’t get to the underground stuff that you love so much. one because you’re older than me, two because i didn’t have cable and only had 102 jamz as my radio source, my friends in the little country town i grew up in didn’t listen to hip hop for me to know what was going on outside of my radio, didn’t get the internet until i was in high school….. i grew up in the same reality as tons of other kids my generation. we appreciate the old but loved the commercial stuff on the radio. we appreciate it all and are confused as to why it has to be a certain way. we love it and want to share it with the world. hip hop was my first favorite genre in music, it’s still my favorite.
kanye isn’t the andy warhol of music. i am saying that you are biased against commercial music as you feel you are an authentic “hip hop head”. you feel like him being commercial and a smart business man that he’s selling out. the thing you don’t realize if you knew more about those artists of old it’s that they were not doing the things they were because they wanted to be underground. they wanted to be just as famous as the rock stars but they had no clout. kanye is respected because he is paving the way for hip hop artists to be more respected. those arists of old were shafted because they did not know business, people ran over them because they didn’t know their worth, the same with many other minority enterprises. kanye demands what he feels is his due, when it’s given, that helps shatter the glass roof that is over hip hop artists who have been held down for so long.
kanye fights the power. and is changing the environment to help others be more successful. as the ORIGINAL hip hop artists wanted the fame and fortune. that’s the more authentic part. who shouldn’t want to be very successful. i’m an artist and business woman i too should aim to change the world. kanye helps me believe i can. you really should read his book.
erica, i don’t like the sponsorship angle. that’s all. i’m not saying kanye is a wack artist, no lawyer is telling me what to think about hip hop and i’m not telling you what to believe about hip hop.
i’m just sharing my perspective.
relax.
sean, i’m relaxed. you don’t seem relaxed with the never-ending kanye posts.
did you read my comment?
–i said you respect him in my comment.
–i didn’t say he’s telling you what to think i merely said you share an opinion with someone who’s seen as corporate by hip hop artists…..then you’re mad he’s “in bed” with corporations.
–what’s your problem with sponsorships?
i know you’re not telling me what to think, but since you’re sharing your perspective i just want to understand why you feel the way you feel because it doesn’t make sense to me. i’ve never heard that pov before for your reasons which i’m not getting.
i genuinely want to understand why you feel that sponsorships are a bad thing for hip hop artists and how they’re ruining the future of hip hop.
if you want to know why i feel what i do about the corporate world in general, this isn’t the place for it. let’s chat on m’coul’s deck when you get back to gso. my story is too long and deep for a comment thread.
i actually respect artist/corporate relationships that support one another in a manner that makes sense. of course the definition of “makes sense” is highly subjective.
my take on pimping vodka is that it’s a short-term play to a party crowd, which simultaneously disregards the ills that alcohol has on our society. those are two messages that are being released in the name of kanye now. chock up the same take on the other artists you mentioned in your comment who are in bed with liquor companies.
such a decision affects my perception of kanye, just as it does with anyone else acting similarly.
i’m less troubled with a sponsorship like HP, though the vibe of the artist is tainted with stuffy big business for me; i’m annoyed by the soda affiliations just because they’re everywhere; i like the investment mind of 50 cent with vitamin water… do you see the non-pattern pattern here?
on the flip side of liquor sponsorships, i’d be highly supportive of an artist sponsored by music companies like Sam Ash or Mackie, or a deal with an ECKO or similar. and i’m sure there are plenty of other potential artist/sponsor relationships outside those particular lines that wouldn’t make me shake my head.
all of this is my take on music and business and the choices artist make to receive support for their desire to perform and be heard. and yes, my degree of corporate sensitivity might not be the norm.
so it’s very well possible that future up and coming acts — in and out of hip hop — can craft a career chock full of loyal fans and co-exist within a world of corporate sponsorships, cross-promotions and tie-ins.
it’s not where i’ll be hanging, that’s all.
which society are you talking about? “the ills that alcohol has on our society”.
alcohol when consumed responsibly is not an ill.
oh okay, i see you’re upset about the product not just the mere fact that he’s getting money from a sponsor.
i don’t see the non-pattern though, more so it seems like you’re giving them a pass because you probably have amicable opinions of their personality. i feel that if you didn’t like their personality you wouldn’t give them that pass. … my perception. for example sean combs, i’m guessing you don’t like him that much.. you said the other day that you liked john legend’s song and is he prostituting (selling himself in bed) with a liquor company as well?
how much money could ecko give compared to absolut? not much.
kanye’s looking for world domination.. lol. you can’t do that with pocket change, per se.
i was working with inflowential to get them some sponsorships and the amount you need depends on what you need done. we could have worked with just a small amount and at this point not have been asked by the big guys until the album was completed.. we still reached.
the difference is still the genre, though. rock bands sell more cds than hip hop artists. check the numbers. i listen to rock and have friends who do as well, no one talks about downloading but when the album comes out. like j smooth was saying people [mostly with hip hop] wait for the leak/dj advance date instead of the release date of the physical copy. the reason i brought that up is because a rock band can have 10,000 fans and a famous hip hop artist (the more famous the easier to not buy) could have 20,000 fans. both could have 9,000 buys of their album and that would be normal for both. high percentages of sales for those rock artists compared to low for the latter.
i can say that i’ve never bought a kanye album before, youtube helps and my sister/friends who buy it (since he’s so popular many people have it) help. since i’m not supporting him in this way i feel that it’s great that he’s getting money since he’s not getting it from me (btw, i am broke and not proud to say that). other than going to his concert which i know he’ll get a higher percentage of money off of. there’s a new mindset for better or worse.
thanks for the view about how you feel about the sponsor, i can understand that better now. most people i know don’t feel that way though. most of them are about the music and not so much what happens in other parts of their lives unless they do things that are degrading or hurtful to a group of people. ( i see how you might get offended by his criticism of George Bush, though, since he was attacking one person). like none of my friends keep up with the tabloids or rumors unless it’s all over the news and radio (aka rumors/lies with more reputable names..)
awesome thanks for that!
see you in gso!
I think in the long run the work of a truly talented artist will outlive any corporate connections or ideological missteps. I mean, no one remembers that Pete Townsend of the Who made commercials in the late ’60s encouraging people to enlist in the U.S. Air Force. He also refused to allow Michael Moore to use “Won’t Get Fooled Again” in “Fahrenheit 911.” I could argue with both those decisions but ultimately they’re his songs to do with as he pleases. Anyway, he has no control over how I or anyone else interprets his songs, or how we fit them into our lives. No songwriter really does. Once someone downloads it or buys it or hears it on the radio, it’s become a part of their life experience and memories. That’s what so wonderful about music. It’s a living thing, and gets reborn every time we hear it.
so true.
it really doesn’t matter.