AllHipHop.com: Few rappers market themselves as well as you do. How do you choose what Snoop Dogg puts his name or image on?
Snoop Dogg: I got to like the s**t for one. For two, they gotta get they paper together, ya dig? That's important.
Once you get all that together, it's gotta be something effective and efficient enough to go along with Snoop Dogg; it's got to be the same cup of tea. It can't be no s**t that’s out there..
.you ain’t gonna see no Snoop Dogg Speedos. F**k that.
While I'm sure many are relieved at the assurance that Snoop Dogg Speedos are not in our future, Snoop had a more startling revelation regarding the Slave Trade:
AllHipHop.com: You mention unity. You recently went to Nigeria.
Tell me about your trip to Africa, 'cause I have not yet been. Many people say that such experiences give them clarity on what it means to be Black in America. Did you have any such experiences?
Did you learn anything?
Snoop Dogg: I got more in tune with my spirit musically out there, which I knew that I would. That American/African s**t, I’m not into all that s**t – I'm happy where the f**k I’m at; good look for bringin' us n***as [as slaves] over here, we appreciate that.
Good lookin’!
The thing is, Adisa assures me Snoop wasn't joking. And I have no further comments.
J. Space of tPC: the People's Choice recently wrote me about some of their marketing activities and I invited him to expand on his email for ProHipHop:
With your focus on marketing, I want to point out the approach my group has taken to promote our newest release, [zip download].
First, Welcome to the World was created as a traditional mixtape; and when I mean traditional, I mean blended by a DJ with turntable skills , rather than compiled by a DJ with Pro Tools who then does some drops with too much delay .
We worked with , Muggs's protege at Soul Assassins. He brought a real hip-hop edge to the project that we feel is missing in a lot of the mixtapes out today.
Given the crowded market, we were not sold on the idea of putting the mix out as a hard copy CD, competing with DJ Warrior, Aphiliates, etc.
etc. Instead, we focused on streaming it as many times as possible directly from , via a . Once we hosted our music through the web, it was extremely easy to set up the player, as Webjay offers an easy code generator for MySpace.
Secondly, we recognized that international hip-hop fans are often quicker to accept progressive, new hip-hop artists than American ones. So with the help of our trusty MySpace , we aggressively added friends around the globe. After all, the mix is called Welcome to the World .
We found that a lot of overseas heads are a lot less jaded about MySpace than Americans, and were very quick to hit us back with positive feedback. The bot can get you in trouble with MySpace, so you have to use it wisely.
Lastly, since we are using a non-Myspace player for Welcome to the World, we added a World Visitor Map, courtesy of so that industry types could get a sense of the reach of our project.
Just as a note to all you MySpace rookies, when you add outside content like the World Visitor Map, strip it off the included ad tags. They can interfere with other design elements on your Space, including Top Banners, aka Mastheads.
The map shows right away where our project has gone in only three short weeks.
At present, we have been heard on every continent, with particularly good Australian and European response. Compare our World Map with many other artists, and you will see the difference our approach has made. In fact, we are probably better known in Sydney than in San Francisco.
I do not know if commercial success is guaranteed to us or not. But, the truth is, many aspiring artists will waste years of their life starving for American attention. I do want the States to show us love, but I made music for people to HEAR it, not to be worshipped as a pop culture icon.
I think our marketing efforts will do more to establish tPC in the long run as global act that can tour and market our brand worldwide. We feel that by giving them the music for free, other commercial opportunities will present themselves, given that they continue their support.
By J.
Space of
In particular, Roger has a nice take on marketing to your emerging fanbase rather than to journalists and other folks I would describe as gatekeepers. He describes the mistake as Targeting People Who Respond To Demand and Not the People Who Create Demand .
That very much reminds me of the Web 2.
0 perspective of launching early, making mistakes and adapting rapidly. In fact, the focusing on fans rather than gatekeepers approach to marketing is also a perspective that could be associated with current developments online, though bloggers are one element that blurs the distinction.
Overall, Roger's observations suggest that on and offline may not be as far apart as we tend to think.
That wouldn't make any sense except for one thing, there are actual humans involved and what's working is human contact and conversation, whether facilitated by a weblog or a local coffeehouse. doesn't appreciate the fact that Already Platinum only went gold, so he plans to take a proactive approach to next year's release of Boss of the Bosses:
I thought it should have went way farther, he said. I was an independent artist that did all the work myself.
Once I signed a major deal, I kind of felt like, 'I'm signed to a major label, oh, they gonna do all the work now.' But this album I'm gonna work it myself first, I'm gonna do all the work as if they don't exist and whatever they bring to the table, cool.
Apparently he's also done some market research:
The feedback I got from my fans [about the] last album was that they wanted to hear a lot more Houston records.
So I worked with people out of Houston, a bunch of producers I came up with. I did like 30 songs with these cats, so I really got the album done. I'm gonna get, like, two from Pharrell and maybe work with a few other big producers, but keep it Houston.
Posted by Clyde on September 21, 2006 in I had an interesting conversation with Bone Crusher yesterday beginning with his perspective on self marketing in relation to his on . I was particularly curious about why an artist who is still building and has achieved a great deal would want to appear in a television genre that was more generally associated with celebrity has-beens, whether or not that perception is fair.
Bone Crusher's responses were pretty interesting, most of which I'll paraphrase since I don't trust the talking on the phone while typing approach for accuracy.
His initial response was that he wasn't ultimately interested in fame so much as feeding his family well and, though he has no problems appearing in front of the camera as he did in ATL and will in an upcoming flick, he's ultimately about taking care of his home and that's why he's in the game.
What especially interested me is that Bone Crusher seems quite sincere in using his appearance on Celebrity Fit Club to inspire personal growth and change. At one point, it hit me that I could probably do an awesome interview for Psychology Today, because he really has a lot to say on the self-knowledge tip.
As he pointed out, I could be rich as hell and then die tomorrow, name checking one of his favorite comedians, Chris Farley.
He also pointed out that most criticisms are ultimately about one's own inadequacies (obviously I would have balked there if we were friends but I also see the wisdom in that perspective, except when I 'm discussing, say, George Bush) and that people will say anything about you. Can't argue there.
Only after a strong series of such clarifications did we get to what will be more recognizable as a marketing perspective though I found it all quite relevant.
Bone Crusher strongly advocates for the perspective that all publicity is good publicity. He believes that the more people think about you, the more money you make.
In fact, he feels that even a lot of hip hop's criminal headlines are useful publicity for artists, unless you're doing something stupid, like Pee Wee Herman .
To be honest, I found that a bit unconvincing but I understand the perspective. However, seeing how artists' careers seem to be more disrupted than benefitted by such occurrences, it was a little hard to take at face value.
Since I knew a fair number of folks from up North might be scoffing at some of this, I asked him about North/South beefs, a topic that he at first did not want to acknowledge. When I clarified my perspective, he decided to open up with a view that I've been hearing more of lately.
Bone Crusher's basic take is that Southerners have always been big fans of hip hop from all over the country and that, to him, true fans are the essence of music .
He stated that we're not trying to be the most lyrical guys in the world and that he believes that part of the current positive response to Southern styles such as crunk has to with the love and energy that Southerners are putting into the music.
While I know that will be an unacceptable response to many, I found it in keeping with his general take on things during the interview.
Ultimately, he stated more than once that beefing about musical taste is kind of ridiculous, and I have to agree with him there.
I asked him what advice he had for young artists and he emphasized persistence , saying that you can't stop and that it was often more important to listen to the people that don't know you because your friends will often praise you but when strangers start cheering, that's when you know you're onto something.
Bone Crusher also spoke of persistence in terms of focus or tunnel vision and revealed that he had gotten similar advice from both Russell Simmons and L.A.
Reid. I asked him a bit more about how he perceived those guys, since I'm certainly curious, and he said that what he's always appreciated about both Simmons and Reid is that they're actually fans of the music and then pointed out how that differentiates them from music industry execs who are rock fans and are truly only interested in hip hop for the money.
Sounds like the music industry still hasn't changed too much from the last century.
I have to say talking to Bone Crusher showed me some aspects of who he was that surprised me in a really positive way. Since I'd first found out about him through Tamara Palmer's and then only followed in a superficial manner, I wasn't really sure what to expect.
In looking for Bone Crusher's sites on MySpace, I could not find his without using Google though I did eventually find the without leaving MySpace.
Which isn't a criticism of Bone Crusher crew so much as a reminder that figuring out how to optimize one's MySpace page for Google is always a good idea since the MySpace search engine leaves so much to be desired.
I was disappointed to discover that the release of Bone Crusher's lastest album, , still has no cover art up on Amazon.
I generally recommend that artists whose labels aren't on top of dealing with Amazon post their own cover art as a customer image.
It's easy to do and though it might not appear in the initial search result, it will show on the Amazon page and you'll look that much better.
Even the graphic above from a UK site looks like the site owners took a picture of the CD, showing that they know what helps move product and that they're not waiting on the label to support them.
The sad reality is that one has to step up when these things occur, though one also has to decide where best to spend one's time, so I recognize that such things are also a factor.
I just hate to see folks undermined by weak online strategies from their labels.
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