End of Power Labels?

[love33]

With all the emphasis on hit singles, have we seen the end of power labels? Cash Money is the only power label that has maintained throughout its course of time (granted it's not always been #1, but it has always maintained relevant status).  Do you think we will see something like the 90's again where we had Death Row, Bad Boy, Ruthless, Aftermath, Ruff Ryders, No Limit, and Murder Inc all make their run? Or are new power labels over for good??

[GangstaBoogy]

Been done.

The problem is no one wants to be an artist anymore they all want to own their own label. The only artists that are willing to be signed to a label imprint are wack neighborhood nobodies.

[Elkoizm]

Do you think we will see something like the 90's again where we had Death Row, Bad Boy, Ruthless, Aftermath, Ruff Ryders, No Limit, and Murder Inc all make their run?

Highly doubt it.

[OG Jaydc]

I have to hand it to cash money. Thier run in hip hop is probably second only to def jam

[Jimmy H.]

I'd say it's far from being the end but labels like that don't happen everyday. You need someone like a Puffy or Dr. Dre who has an artist quality to them but still sees the value in being the "star maker" instead of the "superstar". That's why producers often have better track records with this sort of thing than solo artists. There's too much of a conflict of interest for a lot of these guys to run labels when their goal is to be the biggest star in the industry.

[dubsmith_nz]

I'd say it's far from being the end but labels like that don't happen everyday. You need someone like a Puffy or Dr. Dre who has an artist quality to them but still sees the value in being the "star maker" instead of the "superstar". That's why producers often have better track records with this sort of thing than solo artists. There's too much of a conflict of interest for a lot of these guys to run labels when their goal is to be the biggest star in the industry.

I think jay z is a prime example of that, I heard him say the other day he hopes to drop his solo album before j Cole yet Cole world is finished and jay is only 2 songs deep, makes no sense. He also didn't want kanye to rap dame had to push for it

[sms130]

I think it's over with for now but, I think some new powerhouse labels are in the making right now.

[love33]

Been done.

The problem is no one wants to be an artist anymore they all want to own their own label. The only artists that are willing to be signed to a label imprint are wack neighborhood nobodies.

When Game had Eastwood and Ya Boy signed that would've been dope to hear those three collabing and dropping albums with the support of Interscope (but Interscope didn't support BWS, there was the problem).  But a lot of times these "sub-labels" can't secure distribution (the artist themselves has distribution, but not the sublabel artists).  I mean, when you get down to it, the powerhouse labels of the 90's are really sublabels off of Interscope, Universal, Priority, Jive, or whoever they sign to, etc.  So when one of those powerhouse labels has an artist who has a sublabel (i.e. Snoop having "Doggystyle Records" "Game having Blackwallstreet," etc.) they are really just signing to a middle-man of a middle-man -- so if they were to make any money: i.e. the parent distributor take a piece, the powerhouse label takes a slice, then the artist is left with giving all their money to the middle man).

The reason powerlabels are good is because you can work with a bunch of solid artists and you gain access to a group of producers.  Take Death Row for example, if you signed to them in the 90's you recieved automatic name recognition (Wow, who's that new artist on Tha Row?), also you got access to their producers: Hutch, Daz, Soopafly, Kobain, Johnny J (RIP), DJ Pooh, Blacktobin, DJ Quik, whoever they had at the time, etc...., and you got to tour with the label to get your face out there and make money, and videos used to be a huge deal at the time so you could also stick your face out on another artist's video to keep the promotion train running.  Also, the emphasis used to be on albums in the 90's, and in the early 2000's it was on music videos to sell the albums (3 mtv videos = platinum for the most part).......now it's just on IPOD singles, 99 cent hits, pandora, digital, etc. and nobody puts up a budget for videos anymore (remember the days busta rhymes was making $300,000 movies for his videos?).

I think if you get 3 named artist and a total of 5 solid artists on a label it's the best way to make a run.  But I don't know if there's any future left in that the way we are heading.

Also, with the marketing right now, fans don't seem to care about the labels and the drama surrounding them anymore.  Drama helped sell Death Row and Bad Boy and made it an All-American story.  There's not much drama anymore it's strictly business and quick hits.  Fans now just want the instant quick hit, no filler cuts, no themes (like an album has a theme), and just give me my soda, burger, and fries and hurry up and satisfy my appetite.