So then........if an Iphone sells for $300 in the states, I should take it to the middle of Bangladesh (or some place where they don't even have the things for the sale), and sell it for that same $300? Even if i factor in shipping, I can get a shitload more than just that $300, because the market for the Iphone don't exist there.
It's all Supply and Demand. It don't matter how much quality Supply there is (in this case, beats), because there's so much second-rate Supply everywhere. And there's no website, magazine, Radio Show, Mixtape DJ to inform people otherwise.
It's not all about spend spend spend. If you're 5'9 living in Croatia and your dream is to make it to the NBA, I don't give a fuck how much money you invest in yourself--1,000,000,000 to 1 you'll never make a squad....let alone, play a game...let alone start one. Same thing isn't too far off with music. You can't get away with spending like 2000 or less (studio time, beats, mixing, everything) and make a quality album, but there comes a certain point (10000-15000+ in this area) where you gotta ask yourself, "Can i even sell 1000 of this shit, or enough to at LEAST recoup my PAST costs, not including the CURRENT marketing/promotion costs?" If the answer is no, you need to shut that shit down and cut your losses. Fuck around and have to sell units for $12, then deal with customers pissed off that the mixing sounds like ass and 4 of the tracks are recycled.
If you got one group of rappers thats all spend spend spend, and when (not if) they don't recoup, they blame bad marketing, haters, etc....then you got another group underspending, selling albums too cheap, always cutting corners, and they turn a profit but don't get any lasting fans to show for it....it's just not a good atmosphere. Signed artists are fed into the machine and, for the most part, wait for the rest to happen. We can't duplicate the machine, but we sure as hell can borrow some of the blueprints.
Music isn't the problem. Music has taken care of itself for centuries. Nobody is going to wake up tomorrow and say "You know? I hate Music from now on. All types. All forms. Every single kind." It doesn't happen. Favorite types may change, but music is still music, the rest is just loud noise.
Think about it like.....HBO, Cinemax, those pay TV channels. How many people you know have those channels these days? ...Exactly. Most people just watch Free TV, or borrow DVDs, or get burned DVDs, or do whatever is cheapest. Flip it to the NorthWest.......same deal. Where's our "Free NorthWest Rap TV"? Where's our DVDs to loan out? Where's our DVDs of shows and performances to burn?
You can't expect people to go out and start buying a NorthWest CD every month, any more than you can expect your 10 best friends to all sign up for Showtime, Cinemax, MLB League Pass just because you gave them a good argument and sampled them some good movies and games. This is Money we're talking about, not Ride Tickets at the Carnival.
That high-pressure shit might work for the square you see at the mall in the NY Mets baseball cap and Jordans, and if you work a few months, you might recoup and turn a SMALL profit.....but stable fans (repeat fans) requires a stable income, requires stable progress, requires a stable level of respect.
2000 Election, almost no blogs.
2004 Election, started poppping up.
2008 Election, you can't avoid them.
The people have spoken, they want regular updates. If not from you, from someone else. You gotta treat your album like a stock to be tracked (daily, weekly, monthly)--not like a book to be left on a shelf and forgotten. Whole sectors don't rise out of nowhere--it's all about the components.
I'm sleep, fuck this.
