The rise and fall of labels

jigglypuffstuff

Death Row
Aftermath
Murder Inc
So so def
Bad Boy

Just to name a few

Did any of them suprise you??

Personally Aftermath was a shocker for me, They were literally unstoppable at one stage and were all over everything. Couldnt go a day without hearing something from that label at one point

Anyone else got opinions on any of these? Or want to add to them

kryogen

Aftermath put a lot of money into duds (they do still have some money makers though and talent)
Death Row was never going to have a long shelf life, same goes for the fad-tastic Murder Inc which was basically Death Row for the Jut Bierber generation tbh
Bad Boy suffered in the same way as Aftermath really, too many duds

Boom_Bap

If you look at the labels listed, all bar Death Row (maybe Murder Inc) made a lot of money, and it's when the people at the head of the table started to move in other directions because of thier accumulated wealth, that's when the label was affected and started to freefall.

Jermaine Dupri at SoSoDef got so rich that he could buy any sample (long before Kanye could) and go out with Janet Jackson, he started to take a different direction with clothing and whatever other endorsements and let the music drift away. Probably didnt help that Da Brat got locked up, Kris Kross had thier issues, and RnB in general declined.

Bad Boy lost thier star, thier second rapper that they pushed in the begining turned to God (Craig Mack), RnB declined, and Diddy went into evry other outlet he possibly could and left he music neglected.

Aftermath signed all these ridiculous artists, and Dre couldnt work with them, or let focus drift away from them, then he took other avenues with headphones and probably alot of gym time and whatever other endorsements and focused musically on one or 2 principal artists on the label.

Alot of these labels lost thier way when trying o make money in other areas outside of music. I wouldnt say it was a case of signing duds, it was more a case of not working with the signees properly.

Bobby Baccala

Bad Boy just had shear bad luck, big gets shot, craig mack flopped and Mase had his career pretty much ended by ghostface breaking his jaw, the L.O.X forst album flopped and they pretty much disbanded. Diddy signed wayyyyyyy too many duds as well, shyne (who is actually pretty good but a commercial flop), boyz n tha hood, yung joc, the list kinda goes on.

They were on the top of the game for a very brief period and pretty much entered a downward spiral when biggie died, only diddy himself was making big numbers and nobody wants to listen to a full diddy album.

Boom_Bap

P4DDY2K11 wrote: »

Mase had his career pretty much ended by ghostface breaking his jaw

Mase gave up hip hop to make Gospel Albums, he thought his music and environemnt was to negative and wanted to get closer to God.....at least thats how i remember it.

conor.hogan.2

Aftermath is really down on their luck...

A still successful sub-label (shady) with a semi-successful somewhat defunct label (g-unit) and has kendrick and TDE which and as k. dot said "aftermath gets the last laugh" hardly a fall.

ColmH81

Boom_Bap wrote: »

If you look at the labels listed, all bar Death Row (maybe Murder Inc) made a lot of money, and it's when the people at the head of the table started to move in other directions because of thier accumulated wealth, that's when the label was affected and started to freefall.

Jermaine Dupri at SoSoDef got so rich that he could buy any sample (long before Kanye could) and go out with Janet Jackson, he started to take a different direction with clothing and whatever other endorsements and let the music drift away. Probably didnt help that Da Brat got locked up, Kris Kross had thier issues, and RnB in general declined.

Bad Boy lost thier star, thier second rapper that they pushed in the begining turned to God (Craig Mack), RnB declined, and Diddy went into evry other outlet he possibly could and left he music neglected.

Aftermath signed all these ridiculous artists, and Dre couldnt work with them, or let focus drift away from them, then he took other avenues with headphones and probably alot of gym time and whatever other endorsements and focused musically on one or 2 principal artists on the label.

Alot of these labels lost thier way when trying o make money in other areas outside of music. I wouldnt say it was a case of signing duds, it was more a case of not working with the signees properly.

Wasn't it Ma$e who turned to God?? Tried his hand at a comeback.. And failed...

ColmH81

Who can forget No-Limit... Master P, Silkk Tha Shocker, Mystikal... What ever happened there...

Jimmy Iovine

Independents is where it's at these days.

Boom_Bap

ColmH81 wrote: »

Wasn't it Ma$e who turned to God?? Tried his hand at a comeback.. And failed...

Mase did, Craig Mack also was disillusioned with the swearing and lifestyle so moved away from it to do gospel rap.
If rumours are to be believed, Mack is now in a God/Jesus style cult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORao2RELfeY

Boom_Bap

ColmH81 wrote: »

Who can forget No-Limit... Master P, Silkk Tha Shocker, Mystikal... What ever happened there...

No Limit is style quite large in New Orleans, it just doesnt help that thier forefront artists got locked up for murder, assault, attempted murder, narcotics, gun charges etc etc.
Master P has made a comeback recently, and he sounded quite good, but as the 'market' is saturated with rappers who have pretty much cloned him, he's not made an impact now.

Mase is one of those artists whose conversion seems like nothing more than a handy marketing tool or a way to get out of the crosshair. His conversion took place right around the time the whole East versus West exploded and then pretty soon after all that was done and dusted he decided to go back to the genre. He's announced that he's working on or planning a new album but I doubt it's going to be anything special given how long it's been since he released anything half decent.

iamstop

Rawkus what on point and then just disappeared.
Stones Throw is still banging out classics.
Def Jux anywhere these days?

Boom_Bap

Def Jux are on hiatus, probably forever.
El-P just wants to focus on music, and not being able to make music while running a label.
Alot of the artists from Def Jux have gotten deals elsewhere. El-P isnt even releasing on the label anymore.

danbrosnan

i dont know about aftermath being a failure or fallin off, thats just crazy...

Dre, em and 50 cent are huge... Eminem is the biggest selling rapper in the music industry...

Even aftermaths back catalogue would be the envy of any record label...

Just because young money and cash money are sellin big doesn't mean they will last, they a fad for sure, all there albums are not classics in my opinion...

Boom_Bap

danbrosnan wrote: »

Just because young money and cash money are sellin big doesn't mean they will last, they a fad for sure, all there albums are not classics in my opinion...

Cash Money has been around over 20 years now

beano345

iamstop wrote: »

Rawkus what on point and then just disappeared.
Stones Throw is still banging out classics.
Def Jux anywhere these days?

god how i miss rawkus records.

HalloweenJack

Loud Records?

Circa 2000, they had the likes of Wu Tang, MOP, Xzibit, Mobb Deep and dead prez.

Boom_Bap

HalloweenJack wrote: »

Loud Records?

Circa 2000, they had the likes of Wu Tang, MOP, Xzibit, Mobb Deep and dead prez.

They just got absorbed into other labels and taken apart. Steve Rifkind has gone on to have his own label, not so successful.

Shapey Fiend

There's so much more money in vodka, headphones, fashion, real estate etc. than music these days it's not surprising they go off and concentrate on those instead. When you've got millions in the bank your presented with all sorts of investment opportunities the common man doesn't have access to. It's hard for any label to reinvent itself over and over. Establishing new artists is expensive and risky.

I think No Limit probably didn't pay their artists what they should have been paid so they all left. Then when they sued he declared the label bankrupt to weasel out of it. He's on like the 3rd incarnation of the label now. Master Ps new stuff is pretty good. His daughters got tunes as well.

weemcd

http://www.getondown.com/blog/2012/08/get-on-down-investigative-reports-breaking-down-gzas-labels/

Last month I saw a tweet that I found to be very interesting, and shocking. My respected colleague, and a fellow hip-hop purist, Combat Jack, [attorney, author, king of marketing strategies] claimed that 85% of the record labels mentioned in GZA’s classic 1995 cut “Labels,” are no longer around.

Compelled by this nugget of rap nerdery, I retweeted, highly impressed that someone had dissected his lyrics and analyzed the current status of each label mentioned. Taking into consideration the obvious shift from the physical state of the record business to the digital era in which we now live, 85 percent seems like a pretty logical number, right? I mean, think about how different the rap game has become in the seventeen years since the release of GZA’s Liquid Swords. Ipods have replaced the Walkman, iTunes is your new neighborhood record store. It’s a new – and sometimes cold – world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFQekXk7CYo

Good article, ties in nicely for this thread.

mufcboy1999

I never would of classed murder inc as a big label they were the same as g unit, TDE, Diplomats. They were successful alright in their prime with several platinum records but a long way off the aftermaths,bad boys and def jams of this world.

What about the original Roc before the split, crazy roster of talent they had back then... dipset, kanye, beanie etc