Over the weekend, rapper Nelly vented his frustration at his record label, Universal Records, for failing to promote his latest album, Nelly 5.0. Allegedly, Universal only shipped 200,000 albums to record stores.
I touched on this subject last week in this post after a well-connected industry source reached out to Sandrarose.com.
The source, who is close to Nelly’s camp, told me confidentially that Universal Records allocated most of Nelly’s marketing budget to promote newcomer Nicki Minaj’s debut album, Pink Friday.
The source said Nelly was frustrated with the lack of promotion by Universal which led to decreased consumer awareness of his album. The source also said Nicki’s album took top priority over Nelly’s even though the critics say Nelly’s album is much better than Pink Friday.
Nelly 5.0 was released on November 12 and debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top Rap Albums chart, selling 63,000 copies in the first week.
The source claimed some of Nelly’s promotional budget also went to maintain Nicki Minaj’s “image,” which I took to mean her extensive plastic surgery, including hydrogel butt injections.
At the time I was asked to keep this information under wraps because Nelly didn’t want to appear to be crying foul about the situation.
But on Saturday, Nelly took to his Twitter page to lash out in a very public way at Universal Records (and by extension, Nicki).
In a tweet that contained a stealthy dig at his label mate, Nelly wrote: “When an artist doesn’t deliver sufficient material they (the artist) gets [his] budget cut for [the] next [artist’s] album, or worse, dropped from the label!”
Read Nelly’s tweets after the break!
A record deal is a 50/50 partnership! As an artist its your job to provide the record company with music that they (record company) can sell! Thing about the partnership is that n the public eye the responsibility is not 50/50! the artist is always the 1 who catches 90% of the blame. When an artist doesn’t deliver sufficient material they (artist) gets its budget cut for next album or worse dropped from the label!
So not only is the label ur partner but also disciplinarian and 90% of the time the one who decides if the partnership continues! No doubt wen an artist doesn’t deliver a song that does crack top of the charts or even top 10 the label is quick to say artist didn’t deliver. So intern the artist must bare the brunt of that failure and take responsibility and consequences as handed out by his or her label!!
So who fault is it when a artist gives the label not only a #1 hit but there first top 40 #1 n label history! sell 2mill n singles n 2.5 month. Who should be held responsible when an artist has a history for selling records so its not like a new artist n no1 knows his r her name? Benefit of the doubt: Maybe no1 wants to hear music from that artist? well if that was true then the artist would not have a #1 song! Benefit of the doubt: Maybe no1 is checking 4 the artist anymore? Well if that was true then how do u explain selling 2mill singles n 2.5 month?
I care less about haters u cant hate on #1song n 2.5mill n singles! but the fact is that some1 need to holdup there end of the partnership! If the music wasn’t good how do u get to #1 and 2.5mill!! but if folks say they didn’t even no wen the album came out????? If u only ship 200 thound of an album how many are u f#cking tryen to sell?? the artist does[n’t] control that nor does he or she control marketing. “5.0” Every1 luvs da album n say its crazy! So wen u hear folks say they didnt no it was out r there were hardly any n the store! WTF? Source
