The 50 Cent Kanye West Epilogue

Written by J-Didda 

September 2007

So the numbers are in. Officially 50 Cent has lost to Kanye. People are saying Def Jam bought back albums or whatever. I even read a blog yesterday saying that the “Hip Hop bubble” has burst. The American public is no longer interested in hearing about the plight of inner-city youths. All because Kanye Beat 50 Cent and came out with a better album.

Let’s be real about something. First of all, as long as there are “struggling people” there will always be “struggling music”. I take offense at people’s stance that 50 is real Hip Hop because he is the streets and Kanye isn’t? Why? Because 50 sold drugs and was shot up and Kanye was an average person that happen to make it in the game. Since when did the prerequisite to be a musician was depended upon one’s criminal past or “street cred”. Pound for pound, Kanye West is a better musician then 50 Cent (pound for pound). Not saying that 50 isn’t’ great in his own right but lyrically, musically and the originality factor goes to Mr. West. But with that said, that’s not why Kanye sold more or his music received better then 50 Cent

I was reading an article on SOHH.COM which I have posted below about 50 being dumbfounded that Kanye West sold more then him first week. He says Def Jam bought albums back but even still they would be dead even.. 50 says “Kanye West’s whole career doesn’t’ equal his first album “Get Rich Or Die Trying” (Which is really his second album) ” This is true, however, what 50 fails to understand is that the 50-Cent/G-UNIT Brand is not worth what it used to be.

What people in our business fail to understand is that Music is a BUSINESS, meaning that the rules and laws of BUSINESS of Economics ultimately will play itself out in regards to any Business or Brand.

There is an economic law called “THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS” here is the Definition:

In economics, diminishing returns is also called diminishing marginal returns or the law of diminishing returns. According to this relationship, in a production system with fixed and variable inputs (say factory size and labor), beyond some point, each additional unit of variable input yields less and less additional output. Conversely, producing one more unit of output costs more and more in variable inputs. This concept is also known as the law of increasing relative cost, or law of increasing opportunity cost. Although ostensibly a purely economic concept, diminishing marginal returns also implies a technological relationship. Diminishing marginal returns states that a firm’s short run marginal cost curve will eventually increase. It is possibly among the best-known economic “laws.”

Simply put, any new product will never be as hot as it was the first day it was put out. It’s like a new car, no matter how hot, how expensive, it depreciates in value the moment you drive it off the lot.

Any artist has a life span. some can last the test of time and have successful long-term careers but they will never be the “It Guy or Gal” forever. There are a lot of factors for this. Some are age, time, sounds change, the core fans becoming older and having less money to buy your music. This is why an artist always must re-invent themselves. 50 understands that G-Unit isn’t poppin anymore, thus the distance from his G-Unit family on this campaign. The Alliances with Jay-Z and Puffy ; agreeing to this joint campaign with Kanye (which people was drawn up by Universal execs Interscope and Def Jam are the same company)

A friend of mine said that Jay-Z was stupid to sell Roc-A-Fella and take a job as an exec. Saying “He is a fool, he went from being a Boss to a worker”. No Jay-Z understood that the Roc-A-Fella Brand had ran its course. Think about it. Kanye West was a lucky accident. He was the only artist that can stand outside of Jay-Z’s shadow. Memphis Bleek couldn’t, Beanie Siegel, who is a musical genius in my opinion couldn’t.

Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin did the same thing. You build something and once that law, that damn law of diminishing returns kicks in, you readjust. You have three options, 1) Introduce a new product (for an artist this means re-invent yourselves); 2) Merge with another company (or be bought out) ; 3) close up shop and say goodbye.

G-Unit is done. “The Massacre” album didn’t sell as much as “Get Rich Or Die Trying”, Lloyd Banks’ second album didn’t do as good as his first, Tony Yayo Ugff!!! Forget it. Mobb Deep flopped, Olivia are you serious? M.O.P. will never come out, The Game left, I mean it’s mathematics.

Now a lot of people say that Rap Music as a business is also suffering from this rule.The Latin market is leading the charge that Rap is out and “Reggaeton is in”. I hate to break it to you, but it’s still Rap, its still Hip Hop and Daddy Yankee’s album flop harder then Britney Spears on MTV.

Rap Music is in a period of oversaturation and greed. The Corporations are more concerned with turning out hits then developing artists. A lot of that has to do with the fact that it cost almost as much to promote and make an album that it does to produce a movie accept music doesn’t have the fail safe mechanism of DVDs but now we do have ring-tones, so the artist’s goal now is to create that one super smash hit that will be poppin for 8 to 12 weeks and get them ring-tone sales simply so they can break even with the label.

But 50 did actually win because his worldwide numbers for “Curtis” was 2 Million. Kanye’s album wasn’t released worldwide yet, but Kanye can hold his head up high that he sold nearly Half of what 50 sold world wide in only one market the U.S.  And since the American dollar isn’t worth as much as the rest of the world, 50 kind of made out better..

But folks, I will digress from continuing on this rant and give you people too much for free.. lol for more info you can email getitpoppinconsulting@gmail.com and for the right price I can help your career lol hahahah just playing but I’m saying..

Reference articles:

From allhiphop.com
By Mike Winslow
The official numbers are in and Kanye West’s album Graduation has emerged as the United States’ #1 album on the Billboard 200 Chart.

West’s album Graduation moved over 957,000 copies its first week in stores, besting 50 Cent’s album Curtis, which sold 691,000 copies.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, West also earned the largest opening-week sales total in over two years, since 50 Cent’s album The Massacre opened with 1.1 million copies in March 2005.

Billboard reports that Graduation also snagged the largest week for a digital album download with 133,000 copies, breaking the record of 102,000 set by the Maroon 5’s album It Won’t Be Soon Before Long.

“When we decided to go head-to-head with 50 Cent, we knew the rivalry was going to make a lot of noise,” admitted Island Def Jam Chairman Antonio “L.A.” Reid. “But now we’ve made history. We couldn’t b e more thrilled to have orchestrated such a monumental first week success. Kanye has made an incredible album and I have always maintained that great music will always win.”
 

Def Jam CEO Jay-Z, who ironically appears on the “I Get Money” remix featuring 50 Cent and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, was excited about the first week sales.

“This is a great day for Kanye West and Roc-A-Fella Records and a fantastic day for Hip-Hop and artistry,” Jay-Z told AllHipHop.com in a statement. “It’s a good sign that heartfelt, sincere and honest music can do these types of numbers.”

In related news, 50 Cent is already planning to release his fourth studio album before the end of the year titled Before I Self Destruct
 

From Sohh.com
50 Cent has reportedly accused Def Jam Records of manipulating Kanye West’s album sales.
According to New York’s Daily News, 50 (born Curtis Jackson) made the accusations during an interview with British based magazine Uncut.

“He’s never had a fraction of the sales 50 Cent has,” Fif said. “They could have only one scan and have it count four times. West’s entire career hasn’t sold half what I sold on my first album.

Both rappers’ released their third solo albums last week. As of Friday, Nielsen’s SoundScan figures showed that West’s Graduation had shifted 600,000 discs while 50’s Curtis had reportedly sold 430,000 copies. Over the weekend, several music industry trade publications like Billboard and Hits have estimated West’s projected sales around 800,000 copies, with 50 selling in the range of 600,000.

Billboard’s Geoff Mayfield countered 50’s claims saying that there is a slim chance that Def Jam would have doctored the sales figures.

“The people who built SoundScan put safeguards in place to track sales that don’t look kosher,” Mayfield explained.
Representatives for 50 Cent and Kanye West did not return calls when contacted. Ironically, both artists are tied to the same corporation, Universal Group, which owns Def Jam and Interscope.

Originally published at SOHH.com [http://www.sohh.com]