Something I'm startin to realize....the artists can help promote themselves

[R-Tistic]

For the last few years, one of the major complaints about how record companies deal with West Coast artists is the fact that many of them don't receive the proper promotion that they may need to sell. However, for the last year or so, I've been hearin of many artists who may be signed to a major, but they still use their money, whether from their advance or previous sales, and they will end up investin it by spending money to promote themselves in different ways that the record company may not do. I don't know if they have to have it approved by their record company or not, but in different cases, I've heard of artists spending their own money for videos and for advertisements in magazines, billboards, and TV. Aside from that, just doin mixtapes without the help of their record company is always a great way to build up buzz.

So that made me wonder....many artists have the hustle and drive it takes when they are independent to promote themselves and move units, and it works...but when they get signed to a major, they take most of that money and spend it on items that are primarily just to floss...big chains, new cars, rims, houses, etc. etc. But instead of doing these things to floss, then complaining that the company didn't promote them right, why don't they use this money to help promote their product more? Most of us are mad that DJ Quik barely has any promotion...but I feel that if he wanted to sell more, which may or may not be a major concern for him, I know he has enough money to spend on getting a video and getting a lot more promotion. It doesn't even take millions of dollars to do these things, so why don't more artists do it?

Maybe there's somethin else to it that I don't know about....but that's just how I'm seein it right now.

[Tha G In Deee]

That's true...I was wondering about that with DJ Quik & how he didn't have a video yet...a lot of my homies that I keep in touch with who are outside of Cali were wondering when he was gonna have a video for "Fandango"...& a lot of dope albums coming out these days don't really have any promotion (like tha new DPG album, Warren G's new album coming out next month), even when they're on big labels...I'm guessing it's tha label because I'm sure tha artist wants a lot of promotion but tha label probably wants an artist that's Dr. Dre affiliated (like how Game was) or has a sound that could really appeal to tha whole US & not just here in Cali...but it could also be tha artist's fault too, for tha reasons you said...

[We Fly High]

yeah in the recentl XXL magazine with petey and suge on the cover, Juelz Santana was a good example. i think he was speaking about how def jam wasnt really pushing him, so he decided to just do his promotion himself, he bankrolled his own music video and paid for it  himself and everything.