| Somebody’s working if I ain’t working. |
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Young Dolph in College Park, Ga., Aug. 23, 2020.
(Paras Griffin/Getty Images)
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“Somebody’s working if I ain’t working.”
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The 21 Club
At least 21 American hip-hop artists have been murdered in 2021, or about one every other week. These are their names. (There could be others, but I keep a reasonably close watch on these stories and these are the ones I've registered. It's a lot of human lives.) They include aspiring rappers in Chicago, Brooklyn, Houston, San Diego and elsewhere; a community activist; a studio owner; a pair of WU-TANG CLAN affiliates, and too many others, victims of robberies, highway shootings, random killings, targeted killings. Men in their 20s and 30s. If this were any other group of artists, it's hard to grasp how enormous a story it would be, hard to imagine the national sorrow and outrage. What if 21 pop singers had been murdered in the United States in 2021? Or 21 working rock guitarists? Or 21 film actors? Why isn't this front page news and the subject of primetime CNN specials and marches and Congressional action? Why do we make it so easy to acquire, carry and use guns? Why aren't they household names? Is it because it's hip-hop? Is it because they're...
The latest victim was already a household name, popular Memphis rapper and indie label owner YOUNG DOLPH, gunned down Wednesday inside a local cookie shop. He had Instagrammed his haul of chocolate chip cookies from the same shop a week earlier and was doing charity work around town this week. He was a talented, overconfident, funny, fiercely independent and famously hard working rapper and businessman whose main subject was himself. He wrote and recorded nonstop and rapped about what the New York Times' JON CARAMANICA and JOE COSCARELLI called "the spoils of success, and everyone else's discomfort with them." His lyrics, carefully enunciated, made him out to be "more sure of himself than any human being that you ever met in your life," Stereogum's TOM BREIHAN wrote last year.
Young Dolph, who famously turned down a $22 million label offer so he could stay independent and own his masters, mentored other Memphis artists, gave back to the community and would have been the first to tell you he was familiar with guns. He was the unsuccessful target of a spray of bullets in Charlotte, N.C., in 2017, though possibly not quite as many bullets as he wanted you to believe. Shortly afterward, he released an album called BULLETPROOF featuring one of his signature songs, "100 SHOTS." The same year he was critically injured in a shooting that started on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles and ended in a shoe store; his response to that the "BELIEVE ME" video, which began with news accounts of the shooting and continued in a hospital room. Connections were drawn in both incidents to a rival, equally popular Memphis rapper who I'm not going to name because he wasn't charged with a crime and I have no interest in feeding or publicizing personal feuds or implying any other meaning. The feud has never been a secret, though.
Dolph's music and career transcended those scraps with violence and he was spending his time growing his label, PAPER ROUTE EMPIRE, working with other rappers including MEGAN THEE STALLION, GUCCI MANE and his cousin KEY GLOCK and creating some personal space. As the New York Times noted, he used what turned out to be his final tweets a month ago to confess to anxiety and say he needed "some me time to myself" (with a coded expletive, it should be noted, after that phrase). He still deserves that. But he also deserves to be in the news, in stories that ask why we let this keep happening, again and again and again, and why "100 Shots" may not have been an exaggeration after all.
User Friendly
In its first major moves since SQUARE acquired it, TIDAL has announced a free tier—with ads and reduced sound quality—and a partial switch to user-centric royalties, with a twist. Put an asterisk next to Tidal's new royalty program for now because, like that of SOUNDCLOUD, the only other major streamer to adopt a user-centric model, its implementation is going to be a bit complicated. Tidal has two paid tiers, at $9.99/month and $19.99/month, and only the latter will pay user-centric royalties, with monthly revenues from each subscriber paid out only to the artists he or she plays, instead of putting everyone's money into a single pot to apportion among all artists. So the $9.99 payers will see a good deal of their money go to the likes of TAYLOR SWIFT and DRAKE no matter who they listen to, while $19.99 payers will be assured that only the artists they like will see any of their money. The theory is that users are more invested while middle-class artists hopefully see a little more money, although the latter half of that is up for debate. "If it were a slam dunk that this got all artists paid more I think it would have been universally adopted," Tidal's JESSE DOROGUSKER tells Billboard.
The twist is that the first 10 percent of each user's subscription fee will be directly paid to that user's most-played artist as a bonus. That's an interesting experiment. But otherwise the partial implementation, in addition to making it harder for artists and labels to follow their royalty trail, suggests Tidal is viewing individualized royalties more as a perk for users than benefit for artists. It also suggests the service is hedging its bets to make sure Taylor Swift and Drake still get theirs.
Rest in Peace
Jazz singer/songwriter/pianist DAVE FRISHBERG, who enjoyed a successful second career as a songwriter for "Schoolhouse Rock!" Most famously (and currently relevantly), he wrote this... PHILIP MARGO sang baritone on the Tokens' "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and had a second career of his own as a TV writer/producer while continuing to tour with one of two competing versions of the group.
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Passion of the Weiss |
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| RETRO READ: Give Young Dolph His Flowers While He Can Still Smell Them |
| by Harold Bingo |
| One key factor that sets Dolph apart is a trait that he shares with his antecedents Project Pat and Gucci Mane: an unabashed sense of humor. |
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XXL |
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| RETRO READ: How Young Dolph Bounced Back From Beef to Become an Indie Rap King |
| by Jewel Wicker |
| After the controversies and beefs that have plagued Young Dolph’s career, the Memphis rapper is ready to drown out the noise with good music. |
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Apple Music |
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| Adele: The '30' Interview |
| by Zane Lowe and Adele |
| Zane Lowe sits down with Adele to unpack her fourth studio album, ’30,’ exploring the inspirations behind each track and their impact on her life. Song by song, Adele explains her life, her dark moments articulated in “Cry Your Heart Out,” the strength of friendship in “I Drink Wine,” and gaining perspective in “Can I Get It.” |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Warner just raised $535 million in debt to buy… something. But what will it be? |
| by Tim Ingham |
| Could Warner swoop for 300, Concord - or something else entirely? |
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Attack Magazine |
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| How Has Twitch Managed to Become a Go-To Music Platform During COVID? |
| by Adam Douglas |
| The live-streaming site Twitch has stealthily become a viable platform for music, with artists and labels alike using it. How did this happen? |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| Disco, dembow and discarded bras: Backstage with Latin music's next global superstar |
| by Suzy Exposito |
| Rauw Alejandro is having himself a huge 2021: A worldwide smash with 'Todo De Ti,' three Latin Grammy nominations and a new romance with singer Rosalía. |
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The New York Times |
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| When I unplugged, I connected with the truth. |
| by Tom Morello |
| Acoustic social justice. |
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Billboard |
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| Tidal Launches Free Tier, Steps Into User-Centric Payments |
| by Micah Singleton |
| The moves mark Tidal's first major shifts under its new parent company Square, which acquired Tidal earlier this year for $302 million. |
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InsideHook |
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| 'Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road' Filmmakers Explain How They Gained Access to the Legendary Beach Boy |
| by Mike Hilleary |
| Director Brent Wilson and journalist Jason Fine reflect on their time with the legendary musician. |
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The Cadence |
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| More Monkey Business With Music NFTs |
| Competing apes could spell trouble for major label crypto plans. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| Bruce Springsteen is Democratic Party royalty. Is he also a symbol of its decline? |
| by Rob Tannenbaum |
| As Springsteen has grown more politically active, the white working class he has long championed in song has shifted allegiance to Donald Trump and Republicans. |
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Chicago Reader |
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| A 52-year-old crossover gospel hit gets a new lease on life |
| by Robert Marovich |
| “Hello Sunshine” by the Reverend Maceo Woods & the Christian Tabernacle Gospel Choir appears on the new Swedish compilation "There Will Be Joy," which collects 1960s and ’70s material from a family of Chicago vanity labels. |
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NME |
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| The music world on the aftermath of COP26: 'The future needs reinforcements' |
| by Andrew Trendell |
| Figures from the world of music on the positive and negative outcomes of COP26 - as well as revealing what artists and fans can do to help. |
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Music Ally |
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| Livestreams : why they are here to stay |
| by Claire Mas |
| This guest column comes from Claire Mas, chief operating officer at Driift: 'The music industry has been notoriously slow in its uptake of technology.' |
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The New York Times |
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| The Emotional and Financial Business of Taylor Swift’s ‘All Too Well’ |
| by Jon Caramanica, Joe Coscarelli, Caryn Ganz... |
| What does the rerecorded song from “Red” say about how power and the past have shaped her career? |
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The New Statesman |
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| How one recording studio embodies everything that went wrong in the Eighties |
| by Tracey Thorn |
| In a documentary on the Air studio, there is an absence of that ineffable vibe that turns some into sites of pilgrimage. |
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Variety |
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| Content Lockdown Is Hurting Composers and Publishers |
| by Ran Geffen |
| Recent years have seen the movement of once free-roaming content to the gated communities of tech and broadcast giants like Amazon Prime, and Disney Plus. Rights-owners that had multiple earning streams now have one — and one that pays less. This will have a dramatic effect on the future income of songwriters, composers, and publishers. |
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Pollstar |
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| Q's With Latin Recording Academy CEO Manuel Abud |
| by Andy Gensler |
| For the first time in nearly two decades, the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has a new CEO, who assumed the mantle just weeks before the 22nd annual Latin GRAMMYs. For Manuel Abud, filling the imposing shoes of founding President and CEO Gabriel Abaroa and running the preeminent international Latin music association is a challenge he is uniquely well-suited for. |
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Agence France-Presse |
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| Syrian star Souleyman detained in Turkey |
| Turkish police on Wednesday detained celebrated Syrian singer Omar Souleyman and questioned him about alleged ties to outlawed Kurdish militants, his manager told AFP. |
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Complex |
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| How Jermaine Dupri Became a Music Hall of Famer |
| by Jermaine Dupri |
| Jermaine Dupri's discovery of rap duo Kris Kross at the age of 19 became the springboard for a 25-year career that has spawned 33 No. 1 hits across genres and an induction into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. |
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Twenty Thousand Hertz |
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| Twenty Thousand Hertz: It's Not TV. It's HBO |
| by Dallas Taylor, Ferdinand Jay Smith and Bruce Richmond |
| In the 1980s, every movie that aired on HBO began with a truly epic theme song-a sweeping orchestral piece that triggers instant nostalgia for anyone who grew up with it. Then in the 90s, HBO introduced a 5-second audio logo for their original content. Today, we associate that sound with some of the most groundbreaking TV shows of all time. |
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2018 doc/promotional video about Young Dolph's rise to fame.
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| Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech |
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“REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” |
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| Jason Hirschhorn |
| CEO & Chief Curator |
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