2/7/2024 0 Comments Lil wayne mr postmanNo detail can go overlooked as far as distribution goes all documentation will be expected to be provided.” An artist or label handling negotiations has to ask themselves how much all this is worth the trouble and costs. “Labels that own the original master copyrights - just one part of the copyright story - have leverage in negotiations. “To do it properly, some of the major challenges that an artist could theoretically expect to face in this situation would be reaching out to all copyright owners involved, getting permission, and negotiating writer splits - and that’s just the beginning,” continued Tunecore. For the first time ever since its 2007 release date, the tape would be a piece of capital, and the vultures would immediately swarm. That would be different if Da Drought 3 suddenly migrated to Spotify. Wayne was giving out this music for free, so when he brutally stomped all over “Black Republican,” neither him nor Nas was earning a check. Meaning: Wayne and Drama weren’t pulling residuals from every Datpiff download, (which is bizarre to think about in 2018, where every click is monetizable and Chance The Rapper can pull down six-figure sums for an exclusivity contract over what was, at least in name, his third mixtape.) Instead, what made these tapes radical, and legally solvent, was the charity inherent in their DNA. The most important thing to note here is that mixtapes, in the traditional street-level sense, were never released with a profit margin in mind. “You are likely to run into issues with digital distribution if you’re not able to show that all rights have been properly cleared, including features and samples and beat usage, so we encourage anyone interested in this sort of venture to consult with a lawyer.” If we’re talking about high profile artists, you can bet all producers, contributors and anyone being sampled are going to want in on the action,” the company said to me in a statement. “We can’t give legal advice but, in general, there are definitely challenges one might want to consider - most importantly acquiring permission from all stakeholders to distribute and collect revenue on releases. That’s a huge oversight for music history, and Tunecore, an independent music distribution service, does not come off particularly optimistic when I asked them how much work it might take to groom an old Drama tape to be kosher for Spotify. You won’t be able to find Clipse’s We Got it 4 Cheap, or Nicki’s Beam Me Up Scotty, or Rick Ross’ Rich Forever, Das Racist’s Sit Down Man or Earl Sweatshirt’s Earl. Seriously, open up your streamer of choice and look. There are so many dangling threads, so many cash considerations, so many samples to clear and so many people to ask for permission, that unimpeachable records - truly some of the best rap albums of all time - have been expunged from the national ledger. Instead, one of the most important and influential periods of hip-hop history has been accidentally excluded from streaming services, simply because the math and legalese is too hard to decipher. This is frustrating, particularly because there’s not really a conspiracy against people like Drama and Wayne. But for the first time ever, their school of media saturation doesn’t fit the times, and the best work they did together is not available in the places where everyone listens to music. ![]() ![]() No longer did we nurture iTunes libraries filled to the brim with our collection, and no longer were we downloading and dropping badly encoded mixtape files directly into our hard drives. Eventually, the business caved to Drama’s way of thinking, and music was made free and accessible to anyone willing to plunk down 10 bucks a month. In so many ways, Drama’s work with Wayne was the ultimate indictment of the retail paradigm - proof that one of the biggest stars in the world didn’t need to actually sell albums in order to thrive. ![]() It’s a little ironic that the icons of the mid-decade mixtape boom find themselves victimized by the music industry’s format wars. “It’s a lot of paperwork, but it can be done.” Because there’s so many clearance issues on some of those tapes based on the producers or the splits or the instrumentals not belonging to me or Wayne,” continues Drama. It’s gonna take someone to step in and get it done. So, I ask Drama if he wishes that his classics were more discoverable in the modern era if he’s at all worried about maintaining his legacy, as the years pile on and a bastion like Datpiff fades into an old-head memory.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |