Marketing Hip-Hop Online

These girls are actually not hip hop, but the theory is the same. Their name is Kemistrie. Not Chemistry. Not even Khemistry or Kemistry. It’s Kemistrie. Here’s why I think that is bad.

I find that often, I hear about a new group or artist by name, and interested, I attempt to go to their website, or Google them. Sometimes, I run into the problem where I don’t know how to spell their name. This happens a lot in hip hop, due to the (over)use of intentionally misspelled names.

You know. Cuz it’s cooler.

But what happens, in my case anyway, if after a few tries, I can’t find them, I forget it and move on.

Think about this when you choose the name or moniker you go by these days. Remember that this is an internet/search/Google world we live in, especially as entertainers trying to make a mark. And while Google’s oracle-like genius will “suggest” what you might have meant, their clairvoyance is helped by there being a lot of entries online with something near to what you typed in. If you are very new, or there are websites with even more closely matching spelling, you won’t come up.

And then eye myte mis yor intyre webb syte, wich wuld suk four yu.

If your song is new, and you are sending it around to DJs and bloggers and anyone else who might listen, because so far, it’s not been on the radio, not been played at clubs, not appeared on any mixtapes and not had a video circulating…

It is not a “SMASH HIT”. It is not an ANYTHING hit. It is not a hit. A hit, can’t be a hit, until it is a hit. If the DJs and bloggers you wish to reach, have not already heard of it, and their role is to know about the hits, why are you telling them it is a hit? A SMASH hit at that? They know it’s not. You sound like everyone else who claims their fresh-out-the-frying-pan song is a SMASH HIT. Kinda dumb.

Hype is good. Good copy writing is one of the cornerstones of promotion and advertising, but stop with the SMASH HIT, CERTIFIED BANGER, HOTTEST SHIT IN THE CLUBS, hyperbole.

Convince me, without making it obvious that you are just talking shit.

We briefly mentioned this in a prior post, but it REALLY bears repeating.

Name. Your. Tracks. Learn about ID3 tagging. Do it now. Please.

If I get your song emailed, or I download it from a filesharing site, or I rip it from your mixtape, and the name of the track is something like, “Track 03″, I am not going to listen to it. At all. Ever.

You are asking people (not just me but ANY person) to take 3+ minutes out of their life to listen to the result your craft. To wade through 43,589,348,689,464,032 other songs at their fingertips at any given moment. To spend 3+ less minutes with their child/loved one/job, and you are too lazy/careless/amateur-minded/uninterested to actually somehow attach the name of your song to the file?

Not to mention of course, that if your song was to wind up in the hand/computer/iPod of someone who could actually make some kind of positive impact on your fledgling rap career, and this was all they had to track you down, guess what wouldn’t be your ticket to potential stardom?

Track 03.

UPDATE: Look! Someone agrees, and even gives some advice to help! It’s your lucky day.

GrindEFX.com notes a fairly inventive move by Mos Def, and highlights some problems with the idea.

Mos has teamed up with LNA Clothing to bring to the public the first “Original Music Tee”. The t-shirt will feature the cover of the album on the front, the track listing on the back, and a download URL on the tag.

I think this is a great idea, because not only will people be buying the album, but they will be promoting it by wearing the t-shirt in public. Free advertising is every artist and label’s dream! That is of course if people buy it, which brings me to some reservations I have about the idea.

Read the rest of the post here.

Randomly, Yung Cal hit me on facebook chat.

To be 100% honest, my mind is all over the place lately, I’m not 100% sure where/how I know Yung Cal.

But he hit me with, simply, this:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/604224219ec596ac/

Now, I am in no position at this time to spin any records, hook up any artists, or even listen and/or respond to, the dozens of pieces of new music that comes across my e-desk on any given day.

But, for whatever reason, I decided to click on it. It’s a zShare link, we’re all pretty familiar with them.

I got a pop-up. I closed the pop-up. There was a link that said “skip this ad”. I sighed, and clicked the link. Then the zShare countdown showed 45 secords before my download would begin.

I almost closed the window. Normally, I would have. Luckily, I’m lethargic tonight. My point?

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Mickey Factz

Recently, Honda enlisted up-and-coming artist Mickey Factz to endorse their Honda Accord. The resulting commercial is displayed below.

AdAge suggests that this is a smart marketing move on Honda’s part, and a great way to authentically incorporate hip-hop into their marketing. They say,

Hip-hop’s decade of bling is popping, and it looks more like the housing bubble than a champagne cork. So why, at this point, would anyone take financial cues from a culture marked by conspicuous consumption? Honda Motor Co. thinks it has an answer.

and

“We wanted the balance of having style, a cool look and a cool lifestyle, but doing it in a way that’s sensible for the times,” said Barbara Ponce, manager-diversity advertising at Honda.

Woooha.com’s Scott Yeti is quoted as saying that he “isn’t sure the campaign will keep hip-hop fans engaged”:

“It’s still too early to tell and maybe Honda has some more tricks up their sleeves with this campaign, but I don’t know if the hook there is strong enough to maintain a strong consumer base that will keep coming back.”

We’ll all have to wait and see. The general murmuring around hip-hop business circles is that it’s a good look personally for Factz, but may not be as effective for Honda, or engaging for hip-hop heads, as Honda would like.

Thoughts?

As seen on Craigslist (NYC):

HIP HOP WEBSITE/BLOG MANGR NEEDED (Midtown)

Good Day,

Popular Website That Has a strong presence in the hip hop community is looking for someone to come in & help establish the corporate aspect of things to the website.

We I say help establish corporate aspect, I mean get clients for advertising on the site, do follow ups, close the deals etc.. Help form structure for the organization,

We had to strike while the iron is hot. And now is the time. Our alexa/quantcast numbers are strong. And now it’s time to profit. It’s A Hip Hop Community website with over 50, 000 members.

This is a commission based job.

Please Just don’t send resumes. Please Tell us something unique and different about you. And why you’d be perfect for this opportunity?
Also please send your myspace,facebook pages etc.. you must be knowledgeable of social networks as well

**PLEASE INCLUDE EVERYTHING, WE ASKED, IF YOU CAN’T FOLLOW DIRECTIONS. THIS OPPORTUNITY IS NOT FOR YOU**

Hmm.

Well, it’s a badly written ad, so a bad first impression. I’m not sure that the kind of talent they need will be willing to come work for what appears to be an amateurish site, and for “commission only” on top of that.

Several issues.

But I understand, start-ups and such, no capital to invest in talent, etc. Ok, but…

You represent a blog, an online PUBLICATION! I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the writing in this posting is horrendous! Is anyone who is remotely talented or ambitious enough to want to try a commission-only sales job, taking you seriously, based on that posting?

Advice: Look, even if someone does respond, in order to attract top talent, your company must represent itself better. If this post in any way represents the company, or the content, would anyone looking think you had a product worth trying to sell ads for? Maybe you do, I can’t fully call it unless I know the site we’re talking about, but if you want someone who can attract and close deals, function competently in the social media space, all of this for commission, good luck. It sounds like you are underestimating what it means to succeed in such a saturated and competitive online media world. If major media entities can’t get it right, what makes you think you’ll find a savior for commission-only, who will only be able to work on social media endeavors while selling and closing deals?

It’s clear that you do need some corporate up in there, but I just seriously wonder what kind of talent you will attract with that ad.

I love a hip-hop underdog, but guys, your posting just screams “we have no money, and maybe a crappy product.” Which again, may not be the case. 50,000 members is not too shabby a number! But remember, presentation, representation of your brand, at all times, even when posting anonymously, is a Commandment. And to attract someone who might be respectable enough to make things happen for you, you could stand to look a little more respectable yourselves.

But that’s ok. You admit you need some help. That’s cool. But then being a little salty with the “follow directions” comment, really isn’t necessary. Anyone worthwhile who was to come in and bring a little “corporate” up in that piece, really shouldn’t be taking directions from you in the first place.

I mean correct me if I am wrong. You’re asking for a business development, sales, social media maven, to help establish the corporate structure you are lacking, to do it for free commission, and to be ready to only follow your direction.

Personally, I’d require base salary or project based-compensation, as well as creative control, to perform any of the tasks you are asking for, as I am a professional who gets paid to do such things. So I’ll pass on replying to this opportunity, but I wish nothing but the best to you and your endeavors, and anyone who does join your movement.

Your organization could probably benefit highly from a successful corporate mangr like myself, but as it stands, since I totally didn’t follow directions, this opportunity is clearly not for me.

Jadakiss in Letter to B.I.G.

According to Gawker.com, not only is Coogi aware of the affinity the late Brooklyn rhyme God had for it’s sweaters, they used this connection to their advantage by compensating Jadakiss for the brand-drop in his tribute song “Letter to B.I.G.”

As we have seen in movies and TV, there has been a huge increase in product placement in recent years, the act of integrating a product or brand within actual programming. This practice has been rising exponentially in TV in particular to combat TiVo-like recording, where one can fast-forward through commercials.

As evidenced by Forever, the Chris-Brown-sings-a-four-minute-jingle-disguised-as-a-hit-single deal last year, this practice is increasingly finding its way into the music business as well.

Questions:

1. Is this kind of arranged, corporate-sponsored lyrics going to backfire at some point, as even the most naive-minded of audience members realizes they are constantly being duped and that there may be no “real” music anymore?
2. Should Jadakiss be “called out” for accepting corporate dollars in a song supposedly dedicated to a deceased friend (assuming the rumor is true)?.

As a personal commentary: Between this, and the Vince-McMahon’ing of hip-hop, I am getting very, very disillusioned by the music business, very, very quickly. Even more than before. And before was a lot.

Interestingly, MTV News quotes Jadakiss as crediting “stylist Groovey Lew (Groovey is also credited with giving B.I.G. his first Coogi sweater) for coming up with the idea”, that the idea for the song initially struck Jadakiss as “corny”, but that in the end resulted in a song where, “it’s nothing fabricated on there. It’s gotta be all real on there. Everything was personal.”

Now I think Jada is probably one of the top-5 lyricists out there, and I respect his work and work ethic, but as the Gawker post so eloquently said, “Maybe save the product placement for normal, non-memorial-to-my-deceased-friend songs?”

Nicely written piece by DJ Xplosive (XplosiveWorld.com) with an impressive take on Hip-Hop music, industry and adaptation that can easily be applied to many different industries, companies and marketing strategies.

A couple of excerpts:

I’m proposing a stimulus plan that calls on some of hip-hop’s most powerful names to start releasing the music they have been holding back (and, by the way, do it for free). Dr. Dre, we need you right now. Jay-Z, let’s start getting those tracks from Blueprint 3 out to the masses. This message applies to everyone who is holding back gems because they are waiting for the climate to improve. I’m here to tell you the climate for releasing an album is never going to get any better. Hip-hop fans need to be hit by a barrage of new music that reminds us of why we fell in love with this culture to begin with. Our morale couldn’t go any lower.

and

I believe that getting fans excited about the music again is the first step in revitalizing hip-hop culture. It would provide a renewed sense of optimism among hip-hop fans, which I believe would improve conditions throughout the industry. Much like the stimulus plan recently passed by the Obama administration, the results of this stimulus also may not be immediate.

This stimulus plan involves improving our psyche, rather than serving to benefit anyone financially. The money will come, but that’s not what is most important right now. We as fans need to love hip-hop again. Improving the quality of music and providing the industry with something we can truly be excited about will most certainly lead to a revised plan from the hip-hop community as a whole. While sales may not improve, it will actually encourage people to start thinking of ways to become profitable in this new age of music whether it’s from becoming smarter in tour packaging to creating new online revenue streams. The desire to fix the problem will grow stronger once the overall morale is improved.

Right now everyone is dumbfounded, looking for a solution to the problem of the internet. In case you haven’t noticed, the internet is anarchy. There is not going to be a solution, formula or even a game plan that works because we can’t control an environment that evolves through unfettered innovation. The best the industry will be able to do is quickly adapt to change. That means if your label, management company or agency isn’t staffed primarily by a bunch of internet geeks that are able to identify trends, stop on a dime and shift gears in the way they’re working, then you’re fucked.

I’m also working with a client in the journalism industry, trying to convince them to embrace, adapt and adopt new media strategies, and what jumped out at me after reading this posting, is the similar message. Creating excitement. Without the people evangelizing your brand, or your industry, they will undoubtedly succumb to the naysayers and gloom-and-doomers, dragging you down with it. Today’s industries, especially those dealing with different forms of media, MUST NOT WASTE TIME wondering when and if and how. They must plunge in, feet first, and become a part of this new wave of industrialism or they will simply be left behind. No one knows the answers yet, so get in there and figure it out as you go along like the rest of us. Don’t wait for the next company or entity to figure it out. BE the next company or entity.

Good post Xplosive. Read his whole post here.

After receiving this unsolicited tweet:

Bigstevegee Bang it out my dude!! Black Rob – Jumpin’ Like Whoa http://www.zshare.net/audio…

and noticing that Bigstevegee’s last 20 tweets were pretty much the same thing to 20 different people, I tweeted:

Manny Faces Dear Music Promoters: Spam is for email accounts, not Twitter. Spam me there. Here, it’s like jumping into a conversation. Rude.

I got a couple of replies, giving me e-dap:

djdimepiece @MannyFaces LOL, I soooooo concur! PLEASE RETWEET!
shawtyslim @MannyFaces amen to that… Twitter is like the “last place we got left”. If this turns into myspace, I’m giving up
WILLIAMGONE @MannyFaces good point! stop it vlad!!!

(LOL @ that last one). So, I’m not alone.

I wasn’t targeting Vlad obviously, but @Bigstevegee, a DJ/mash-upper/remixer apparantly down with AV8 records, the “are-they-still-around?” label that releases white-labelish singles, remixes, extended party breaks and such.

Now, a “reply” normally implies that you are “replying” to something I wrote in general, or wrote directed at you. Big Steve Gee apparently disagrees, and decided to t-spam not only me, but a slew of tweeple with variations of the same message (see image below).

Bigstevegee, we may even have communicated in the past, and my apologies if I don’t recall you off-hand. But I too am a remixer/producer cat (www.mannyfaces.com). I think most would say I’m pretty nice, skills and marketing-wise, and as such, I have had nearly 2,000,000 downloads of my remixes, got thousands of MySpace friends and email list recipients, and most importantly to this issue, more than 7x the amount of followers on Twitter than you do. I occasionally tweet links to my remixes and blog posts, etc., but I make SURE I tweet other interesting, relevant, irreverant, humorous and useful stuff at least 9 times out of ten. It is what has make me #5 in my region with a 99.4 score (source: TwitterGrader.com). So here’s some advice on how it works:

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Michael Steele

Michael Steele, you are a jigga-jigga-genius!

The recently elected token president of the Republican Party states that he wants to “convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings,” with a plan to implement a PR campaign to update the GOP brand that will be “avant garde” and “will surprise everyone – off the hook.”

Steele believes that “Republican” is seen only as the party of the deep-South and red states, and that to turn around their catastrophic failures in the last few years, they simply need to “reach beyond” their comfort zone, out to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings” appealing to “young people and moms” and the all-important voting bloc of “one-armed midgets” (yes, yes he did say “one-armed midgets”).

Doing so, he reasons, will show “who we are for the 21st century.”

He’s right! After all, the Republicans chose a totally unqualified and out-of-touch woman to be their VP candidate, probably simply because she is a woman, to counter the enormous effect that women voters had for the Democrats, thanks to Hilary Clinton. That candidate went on to embarrass herself and her party with her nonsensical statements to the press, proving not only her own ignorance, but the stupidity of the Republicans for putting her there in the first place, and fueling the suspicions about the ulterior motives behind her nomination.

It’s the same party that chose a totally unqualified and out-of-touch black man to be the GOP leader, probably simply because he is a black man, to counter the enormous effect that black people had for the Democrats, thanks to Barack Obama. That party leader went on to embarrass himself and his party with his nonsensical statements to the press, proving not only his own ignorance, but the stupidity of the Republicans for putting him there in the first place, fueling the suspicions about the ulterior motives behind his nomination.

Oh wait. That second one was Michael Steele. [More]

Noticed a posting over at MarketingBreakdown.com where Allen Woodstrom feels that hip-hop artists are not having any particular success marketing themselves through Twitter. Which is true, except that it’s not. He states, for example:

MySpace and Facebook have two major things that Twitter does not: users and features. It was estimated that Twitter has about 3.5 million active users. Compare that to Facebook and MySpace, who respectively have 175 and 110 million users and it’s clear which network has the greatest opportunity for exposure.

Unfortunately, he bases this judgment largely on major, established artists, (who are really not even trying to market themselves much on Twitter in the first place. They don’t need to.) It’s a little strange that he wonders about whether Twitter can launch a career like MySpace did to Soulja Boy and Sean Kingston, but his ‘research’ doesn’t take strong upcoming artists into consideration, when many (@charleshamilton, @mickeyfactz, @asherroth) have a good presence on Twitter, and smartly so, as Twitter users skew to include bloggers and journalists, the exact crowd who have been hyping the next generation of hip-hop artists in the first place.

What Mr. Woodstrom doesn’t realize is that the discovered-through-MySpace-buzz phenomenon is turning into the discovered-through-blogger-buzz phenomenon, which is fueled more by the type of folks who are heavy Twitter users, then by the regular MySpace users, regardless of how many there are. To say that hip-hop artists are not finding success using Twitter is not quite accurate, and premature.

- @MannyFaces

Despite the fact that I am actually my own favorite white boy, my e-friend B-Double presents a great post detailing the importance of, and methods used to obtain favorable Digg.com traffic for your hip-hop related content.

Here’s an excerpt from the original post:

What these and other successful hip-hop related posts tell you is that your best bet is to stick to humor, amazing video or explaining events, styles, lingo, etc in hip-hop.  Most Digg users go onto the site for entertainment purposes.  Its not that your 5-part J Dilla tribute isn’t important, Digg may just be the wrong place to post it.

[YourFavoriteWhiteBoy.com]

50 Cent aka Pimpin' Curly

The 50 Cent/Rick Ross ‘beef’ is difficult to ignore if you are a follower of things hip-hop. It is at the same time, entertaining, exciting, childish and distracting. Since hip-hop has a long celebrated history of competitiveness, at best on wax, and at worst, spilling over into ‘real-life’, hip-hop purists are not overly critical of the escalation of tensions between Miami’s Ross and NY’s 50. Though there are many around the blogosphere who would suggest that the concept of beef in hip-hop is played out, the competition and creativity often associated with hip-hop confrontation is undeniably unique, and a guilty pleasure enjoyed by many.

A recent post on DJ Brandi Garcia’s blog on GlobalGrind.com on the subject, struck me however.

Officer Ricky Cartoon

Essentially, Ms. Garcia genuinely seems to enjoys the banter and multimedia assault being dished out by megastar 50 Cent, admiring his creativity and determination to ridicule Rick Ross and in effect, damage or end his career. I completely agree with Brandi Garcia on her post, and find the same sense of enjoyment from the proceedings.

I also agree completely with her when she says, “I think so long as this stays on records and the internet and doesn’t go into the streets on some foolishness then its great for the game.  Definitely entertaining and isn’t this called the ‘entertainment business’?“. Of course, we all want this to be about competitiveness and oneupsmanship,  and not result in any actual confrontation, but it is the ‘entertainment business’ portion of her comment is what struck me as interesting, and again, while I completely agree, I have some thoughts on this, which I posted on her blog as a comment, and will also post here.

What are your thoughts?

Hey Brandi -

The way I have been thinking of this whole 50/Ross thing, ties into something you said. “Entertainment” business.

The problem to me is, I kinda thought this was supposed to be the “music” business, and even before that, just hip-hop. Oh I love a good rap battle, but that’s my point.

Where’s the rapping?

I see videos, YouTube, websites, blog posts, baby mamas, fur coats, wig-wearing.. I mean, it’s all highly entertaining, and I also MUST give 50 his props on creativity, shock value, and promotion ability.

But isn’t all this supposed to boil down to who is the best rapper? Is hip-hop beef about hip-hop anymore? Or is it nowadays just who can virally spread their message of ridicule through the internet faster.. Or who owns, or doesn’t own, a Lambourghini…

Chuck D once said hip-hop was “CNN for black people”.

These days, it’s more like WWE.

Vibe Magazine

According to Gawker (via ByronCrawford via NicoleBitchie), Vibe Magazine may be in financial trouble.

This, of course, is not surprising in the grand scheme of things, economy, publishing biz, etc.

But a commenter on the Gawker story had a very interesting viewpoint.

Chartreuse says:

Here’s the deal.

The audience who would read VIBE are all on the internet reading sites like Allhiphop.com, worldstarhiphop.com, NecoleBitchie.com and the like.

Their online execution has been awful.

Well, that actually makes a lot of sense. We see others in the online hip-hop world discussing whether blogs/sites are preferred over magazines these days, and in general, advertising dollars continue to drain from print and heading online, which can quicken the demise of print properties (and hip-hop sites do seem to be increasing their viability, and advertisers seem to notice… Check NahRight’s recent Mickey D’s ad takeover!). Could this increase in e-street-cred that these sites and blogs are receiving help put the nail in the coffin for Vibe, The Source, XXL, and the like?

AListRadio.net

Maybe I’m not normal. In my living room, I don’t have a radio. I do have a little office area, with a desk and a computer, and a nice amp/speaker setup to go with it. So tonight, I was playing on the Wii with my son (and by playing, I mean losing to), and then eventually, I played with my woman (and by played, I mean finally felt worthy because I won).

Anyway, just before I had left the desk area to play Godzilla Unleashed, I got an IM from alistradio on AIM. See, one time I was tracking down DJ Bobby Trends for a possible feature on one of our client sites, Birthplace Magazine, and I came across AListRadio.net, an online “radio” station where Trends has a couple of shows. I got on their IM list and they always shoot an IM when it’s time for a new show. So I logged in, to jam a little while I got my head served to me by the Prince of Nintendo over here.

Basically, ALIstRadio allows DJs, some very well known, others moderately so, to rock a show for 2-hour timeslots, with live audio and video streaming to the net. The night I first listened, I checked Bobby Trends show and he had on Uncle Murda and Mickey Factz. The combo of these two alone was something you wouldn’t normally get on commercial radio, and the whole AListRadio structure struck me as an interesting experiment in the internet radio world.

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XXLMag.com

Interesting post taking a look at Warner Music Group’s action to remove YouTube videos of artists on their label. Equally interesting comment response from “N DOT C”.

Excerpt:

In late December, Warner Music Group asked Youtube to pull all of its artists videos from the popular video-sharing site. WMG’s argument was that they wanted to see more money from licensing their content to Youtube. In statement at the time, WMG said:

“We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide.”

A month later, I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve tried to find a video on Youtube, not even knowing the artist was on Warner, until I get the “this video no longer exists” message. Which sucks, because if you just google anything, the youtube link that used to exist is what comes up as the first result.

Check out the whole post here

Charles Hamilton

Up and coming rap cat Charles Hamilton, a rapidly rising blip on the rap radar (sorry Elliott Wilson), known to anyone due to his very effective internet marketing prowess, stumbled a bit the other night at NY club SOBs, when he voluntarily, and largely “for fun”, challenged battle-rap veteran Serius Jones to a bit of hip-hop verbal sparring. It was widely reported amongst internet murmuring, that Hamilton lost pretty badly.

My good friend, and obviously, my Favorite White Boy, broke down his declaration of victory for Charles Hamilton that night, backed by a solid argument. Part of his reasoning:

Serius Jones is known primarily as a battle rapper.  Most heads saw him kill Jin on the mic a few years back.   This dude is comfortable in a battle going off the top.  And its not like Charles Hamilton doesn’t provide ample amounts of material to mock.  So, Serius in a battle is nothing new.  Oh, and he has an album to promote.

Charles on the other hand has been widely dismissed as a “rapper/blogger” who really shouldn’t be taken seriously as a hip-hop artist.  He wears pink and talks about air conditioners and God.  Its no small feat that this dude stepped up and went toe-to-toe with a battle vet and left standing.  And if you watch the video, he held his own.

Serius Jones

Ok, fair enough. However, I then conducted a quick, non-scientific poll. I twitter searched “Hamilton” and “Serius” and counted the responses that were more than just someone sharing a link. I counted any tweet that had an opinion. 11/11 declared that Serius “murked”, “killed”, “got in that a**”, or otherwise affirmed what I have felt is a general consensus that Hamilton lost this semi-friendly battle.

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So Koch Records, Koch Entertainment, et. al., successful noisemakers in the independant record business, announced that they are being rebranded, in accordance with their parent company E1.

The name change was “effective immediately” as of Jan. 23, 2009.

Interesting that the Koch websites don’t reflect this, a full four days after the announcement. There is no also no apparant E1-branded website to match, although www.e1entertainment.com has a “coming soon”, and seems a possible candidate.

To me, this just seems like a sloppy transition.

Advice? When changing ANYTHING (your name, your logo, your website address, your phone number, etc.) do it swiftly and across all channels as simultaneous as possible. When completely altering the name or logo or conducting other drastic changes, it a good idea to keep the old AND the new during a pre-determined “grace period”, before finally shutting the door on the old. This will allow visitors to acclimate to the upcoming change, instead of potentially causing confusion by the simple flipping of the switch, so to speak.

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[As seen on Craigslist]

Aspiring R&B singer/rapper needs an entourage to help with entrances and ‘causing a scene’

- Experience in dance a plus
- Male and female accepted
- Attire will be provided
- Aspiring singers and actors need not apply (not looking for competition)
- Positive outlook a MUST
- Thirst for danger also a major plus
- Must work Nights and Weekends

This is not your normal job! applicants must be SERIOUS about being part of something bigger than themself (my posse)!

The light of heart need not apply!

Please include qualifications and picture imbedded in the e-mail ATTACHMENTS WILL NOT BE OPENED!

* Location: (NYC)
* it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
* Compensation: $50

I don’t know about you, but my thirst for danger is worth at least $75. Then again, attire is included. (Luckily I don’t sing.)

As twitterer and ad-discoverer @cyberprvideo so eloquently stated, “Is this what hip hop/r&b have come to??”

Let’s play devil’s advocate. What could you hope to accomplish here? You invite a bunch of strangers, with the implication that you want to “cause a scene” upon entering an establishment. They need to thirst for danger, AND know how to dance… Could this mean you want this entourage to:

• A) Break out into a choreographed dance fight as soon as you enter the club, a la West Side Story, or Beat It?
• B) Immediately punch the first people they see?
• C) Grope and fondle the “artist” throughout the night in an attempt to prove how irresistible he/she is?
• D) Break out into a choreographed game of Duck, Duck, Grey, Goose?

Ah, but where does the thirst for danger come in? Must be closer to ‘B’.

If you have to pay people to act like you are worth entouraging, you might want to reconsider things.

And what exactly, would “qualify” someone to do this sort of thing? Would someone have to….

Oh, forget the commentary, this is just plain silly.

Advice? Well, probably wise if you actually become worthy of a real group of friends/fans/groupies who will a) do this for free, b) be sincere, c) won’t do anything that will go TOO far, for fear of hurting your image.

The … ingenuity of the … request… is… interesting. But it sounds like a very unplanned plan that could easily backfire, or worse yet, succeed, until exposed, and then implode.