Thirty Three Jones | Desktop Site
First off, big shout out to SPIN magazine for linking to us yesterday. Much appreciated.
One of Jay-Z's first acts as president of Def Jam was the surprise signing of The Roots. While you wouldn't normally expect a man who had built his reputation on hustler anthems to be so supportive of a hip hop group that is frequently described as "bohemian," Jay-Z had been using The Roots as a backup band for his own live show and clearly had a high level of respect for them. Yet, with The Roots album Game Theory having been released yesterday, a lot of people are asking why there was barely any promotional push from the Def Jam label. Had Jay-Z given up on them?
I initially thought, as did most everyone else, that the signing of the Roots was essentially a downpayment by Def Jam to get some backpacker cred from the okayplayer crowd. Whether or not the Roots album sold well under the Def Jam label was not as important as it would be for other rappers. The fact that they were a part of the Def Jam stable of artists would help give the label's other artists some measure of credibility among underground hip hop heads just by association.
Yet you have to wonder how effective a traditional promotional effort would have been for the Roots anyway. The general trend for sales of hip hop albums has been a steady decline over the last few years and despite a decent amount of promotion for their last couple of albums (Phrenology and The Tipping Point), neither really came close to platinum status. In an age where a reality tv band, Danity Kane, can outsell Outkast's Idlewild, what hope does a group like The Roots, who are less recognized and arguably even more expiremental than Outkast, have for a succesful first week of sales?
Unless there's one great breakout single that could grab the attention of the TRL crowd (and I haven't heard it yet from any of the leaked Game Theory tracks), there doesn't seem much to be gained by throwing promotional dollars at MTV and the major radio stations. MTV has shown that its much better at promoting acts that are based more on image than substance. And with a group whose drummer, ?uestlove, is the public face of the band rather than the actual frontman, Blackthought, its clear that the Roots aren't too concerned with their image. Better to skip the mainstream approach, which has never worked out well for the Roots anyway, and take a more grassroots avenue toward building the fanbase. With hordes of students returning to college this week, small promotional efforts on campuses may be the best bet for the Roots.
Ultimately, album sales for the Game Theory is not going to make or break the Roots. As is the case with most groups, the real money is made on tours. The Roots are well aware of this, as they are on tour almost 200 days out of the year, and have solidified their reputation as (arguably) the best live act in hip hop. Perhaps its best to view Def Jam similar to the movie industry: the label makes the big money off of the big budgeted "blockbusters" like Rick Ross, but still has some money leftover to support the "art house films" like The Roots.
Until the end of today, Def Jam has a video retrospective of The Roots up on their website. You can view it here.
For today's track, I'm putting up a collaboration between the Roots and Project Pat. I'm not sure who came up with the idea for this, though I can't see Project Pat being inspired on his own to join forces with The Roots, but the track was originally intended for the Phrenology album until ?uestlove decided to cut it. The best I can say on this one is that at least Project Pat doesn't sound as bad as he usually does:
Roots/Project Pat collabo
(track originally from cocaineblunts.com
8/30/2006 10:41:30 AM posted by Fresh