"Stop Giving Out So Much Free Music"

[King Lance]

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.2 ... free-music

So fucking true

[LK5]

All music is free for me

[Chet Starr]

All music is free for me

[cheeseburger]

What a douche... Just because he "cant" afford to give away his projects for free.
Its all up to the artist if he wants to do a free project or not. If you feel threatened by that then fucking go fill in a colouringbook, fagget.

[King Lance]

I agree with this comment tbh :

"Easily. Taylor Swift and Lady GaGa can sell a million in a week, and Susan Boyle and Adele can go multiplatium with her album, but rappers can barely top 500k these days.

This is not a generalization, it is the truth. The fans have ruined the genre by supporting free music, both legal and illegal. Rappers never used to put out so many free mixtapes, because it wasn’t necessary, now it is the norm. As a result, many rappers are becoming more “mixtape rappers” than “album rappers,” and they are becoming played out before even putting out an album!

Also, record labels are realizing that rap fans are not buying albums, and thus, they force their rap artists to make music that is more appealing to a wider audience. This causes the rapper to deviate from their original, signature style, which almost every time is a bad thing.

The talented rappers can’t sell because their music isn’t on the radio and their videos aren’t on TV. That is the only way music sells these days, especially in rap. If a rapper is popular on the internet, his album will most likely get leaked, and a lot of people will just d/l the leak and not buy the album.

Rap is also way too “exclusive” of a genre. What I mean is that you have to reallly understand rap to genuinely enjoy it. If you are not a consistent consumer of rap music, you probably won’t understand most of it, and thus, will not like it. Rap is one of the only genres like this. Pop, country, rock, R&B etc. are a lot more approachable genres of music because they are easier to understand. There are limited examples of complicated metaphors or similes, wordplay, intricate rhyme schemes, or allusions in other genres. Granted, all those characteristics of rap are why I love it, but it makes it hard for more people to like the GOOD rappers, the ones who utilize those tools, instead of basic rappers like Flo Rida, Big Sean, Waka Flocka, Gucci Mane etc."

[tadpole25]

Not really. Pop just naturally appeals to more people than hiphop and other genres of music, and always will.

[JamaicanPattlez]

I agree with ScHoolboy Q. You can't always just give out free shit all the time, artists need to eat too. He's not saying "Stop giving out free music at all", he's saying that maybe you should be easy on what you release for free and how often. That's not unrealistic at all, that's completely understandable. Especially coming from a guy who just signed to Interscope and his homie just blew up the mainstream like crazy. As I recall, J. Cole alluded to the same thing some time ago.

[JamaicanPattlez]

Some artists are giving away mixtapes like there albums.

People will download the music anyway.

That's the issue I think. When artists probably do so much, fans go "Well what's the difference between the mixtape and album?" and then download it without any desire to buy and support the music. That's what I think Q's getting at.

Rappers tend to fall into the Mixtape vs. Album battle... like with J. Cole, people seem like they prefer his tapes over the debut album back in 2011.