This is sad.

[d-nice]

Me speaking as a Artist, bootlegging is a terrible thing, but it forces you to step ur game up! true fans will still go and cop ur shit if you do what you need to do in the booth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

While it's true that real fans will always cop, that may not be enough for them to even release a new album. Even if a rapper is indy, if you keep taking losses ( making less money off the album than it cost to make it ), why even continue on? I like how YOUR coming, saying bootlegging forces rappers to step there game up, but I feel most rappers are the opposite of you. Feelin like, if nobody's really gonna buy this, then why keep losing money?


For example, let's say Daz wants to do another album on Virgin. Seeing as how he only did 50K ( I think ), he's gonna have fewer resources for his next CD. Alot of rappers are thinking why bother with rap, not just X to the Z.

Yeah and Daz really is going back to indie life now that JD quit at Virgin.

[Jakubs]

Stop paying attention to what everyone else is doing. If you want to download an album, download it. If you want to buy an album, buy it. Regardless, ignore album sales and listen to what you like. If you feel it's worth your money then spend the cash. Either way, who cares about album sales, that just tells you what gets play on the radio and TV, nothing more nothing less. I personally bought the album because I liked the few songs I'd heard and felt it was worth my money.

[WestCoasta]

I'll cop an album where the artist tries, that's it

in the past year and a half I've only bought like 4 new albums

9 outta 10 these days have too many fillers to waste my hard earned money on

[~Lucien~]

if the rapper delivers a good album he can have my $15 no doubt (if it's mastered good)
but yes... internet, cd burners, rip groups & iTunes are the tumor of west coast rap (music industry).
and the funny thing is... most of the good rappers are on shitty labels... and the shitty rappers are on majors.
so the good rappers will have shitty production and the bad rappers will have the best producers
in the industry. it's a shame

[da flayboyant 2]

= $15

= $12

i prefer to have 100 cd's over 1. 

someone prop this man, he speaks the truth

[Realbiggsteele]

all of you make valid points! In this day and age , its very hard to sell records just from a business standpoint alone, Tower records is gone, (A Major supporter of Indi music) plus the net, and all the other BS that goes on.What you guys gotta stop doing is looking at numbers and support who you like!! 20,000 is alotta bread in the grand scheme of things, fuck the prestige, Id rather have Psycho Realms fan base of 30-50,000 troopers, Than 200,000 fly by night fickle fans.

[Citizen-Y]

This is true. Alot of people feel like whats the point of driving to a record store to spend 12.99-18.99 on a cd that, nowadays especially, runs a big risk of never being listened to after a week. I think the reason alot of rappers are making garbage ass albums is because nobody's gonna buy them anyways, so they feel like whats the point of putting your heart into a project you know is going to be bootlegged?.

thats real...cd burners and the internet have ruined rap...like X said "why bother with rap when i can get 20 mill on a flick."

I'll download his movie.

[acgrundy]

this is such bullshit.  man I have been downloading music for years, and I used to buy plenty of albums that I downloaded.  Even when I had the album months before it came out I still bought it.  The fact is nobody makes albums worth buying anymore.  there is no replay value.  why buy an album that you will only listen to 1-3 times?

[Sanford - V. President of the Dangerous Crew Movement]

= $15

= $12

i prefer to have 100 cd's over 1. 

LOL!   

[Sikotic™]

I refuse to pay that much money for a half ass record. I supported Xzibit & bought all of his albums until he dropped Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

[Realbiggsteele]

I feel yall. like I said, rappers need to stop making "fast food" albums and hangin out with yes men that wont tell em that they shit is wack and drop some solid shit

[Digital Pimpin']

I'll only buy a CD copy of an album I've downloaded if it's worth bumping on the big speakers at home.

[KURUPTION-81]

Personally i dont download albums i always buy them, because ive bought them i tend to give them a few listens before deciding whether i like it or not. It seems like a lot of people download, listen to it once and decide its shit and then delete it . When i buy it i tend to think ive spent some money on it, im gonna give it a good few listens. If people did that with albums they'd downloaded they may grow to like it and then go buy it. I just think people download skip through it once decide its shit and go and download another album cost it aint costing them nothing.

[Realbiggsteele]

at the end of the day, downloading is stealing!

[acgrundy]

Personally i dont download albums i always buy them, because ive bought them i tend to give them a few listens before deciding whether i like it or not. It seems like a lot of people download, listen to it once and decide its shit and then delete it . When i buy it i tend to think ive spent some money on it, im gonna give it a good few listens. If people did that with albums they'd downloaded they may grow to like it and then go buy it. I just think people download skip through it once decide its shit and go and download another album cost it aint costing them nothing.

wrong, in fact completely wrong.  Thats the reason I stopped buying albums.  Because I used to buy every album by westcoast artists.  Daz, snoop, cube, spice 1, mc eiht, e-40, jayo, xzibit, mack 10, etc.  Many of these albums I had already downloaded, or easily could have downloaded, but just didn't because I knew I was just going to buy it.  So I was buying all these albums, and I couldn't even make it thru 1 listen on some.  Some I listened to all the way thru, didn't like, but kept listening to it, hoping it would grow on me.  But eventually I just came to the realization that these rappers just don't make as good of music anymore and what is the sense in spending $15 on an album that I really am never going to listen to more than one or two times?  And that is when I stopped buying albums in November 2003, and since then I have bought about 2.