(Disclaimer: These are the views of Dave House, and not the views of Al Lindstrom or Allindstrom.com)

I remember walking into a record shop called Scratch Records (shouts to Big Dawg Pitbull Hot 97 DJ Bobby Trends) in my old hometown of Irvington, NJ with my homey DJ Kaleem (resident DJ out in the Los Angeles market) and seeing vinyl cover to “Who Got the Props” by Black Moon. Kaleem purchased the album strictly on the strength of the vinyl cover and rushed home to play the record on his SP 1200. Eventually the video for “Who Got the Props” would come on Video Music Box with the Honorable Ralph Mc Daniels and since then Black Moon expanded into what we know today as the Boot Camp Clique.

The reason why I write this is because when it came to the music there was more to the experience of hearing the music. It was an experience on how we got the music, the trip to the store, to the rush home to hear the record. There are many ways to experience the debut or the recurrence of a record outside of just going to the record store after-school. There just needs to be more effort in the email blast we send and receive. The records we hear on radio have to actually fit the format of the audience and not the advertisers. Thats why records released since Yung Joc “Its Going Down” has just came and went. Even the #1 records on the charts. These are the reasons why records aren’t catching on with the audience.

1. Same tired topic: Your rich, You got haters, you got guns, you got girls. Defining the artist as one thing instead of a diversity of things.

2. Delusional: The artist is rich before the first video was shot and released. Gone are the days of seeing Nas wearing an Army Jacket lining in a “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” video, at this rate, “Shorty, Hey What’s Your Price” with Ginuwine should have been his break out introductory single for a Nastradamus and we should have never received Illmatic according to todays standards.

3. The labels: gone are the days of record companies releasing the records you give them, they won’t approve of a budget if it doesn’t fit the “George Jefferson” like standards of the budget approver from the label who still spending Guns & Roses money.

How to solve this:

We have to realize music is becoming more of a niche based market. all Artist need to sign to WI FI records. If you have WI FI you have distribution. If you have You Tube, you have video. If you have Facebook or Twitter you have a CORE. Then just do more hands on campaigning. Stop waiting for the fans to come to you and you go to the fans. Schools, Barber shops, Salons, Malls, Its not just the club where the delusional is gonna win.

Come on lets face it, Chicks who act like they in high school, fighting on reality shows, have more of a buzz than a rapper who actually has talent. They are taking all the club appearance money that the rappers should be making in the same fashion that the rappers took all the acting gigs in the 90s. Where’s i I Love New York now? Where is Hoops now? The other chick with the fatty that was in the good homey Yayo video for “Sensual Seduction” ? Quiet as a church mouse as Pac would put it.

Don’t let Hip Hop water itself down to JUST reality tv, cause like yesterdays’ reality stars, Hip Hop will die right along with the same reality tv star who has a buzz only for now. Lets get back to why we like music. Let’s go back to why music is apart of the soundtrack of our daily operation. Lets bring back to having options with your variety of music verses being a hater if you don’t like what the masses are subscribing to. Its ok to not like Drake without being a hater, and its ok to like Drake if he said a clever line or had a clever record or a catalog of music that actually fit the format of your lifestyle. Its ok to have options, explore and discover new music and don’t sit there waiting for a label or promoter to present an artist. All who are caught saying “I didn’t know “such and such” had an album dropping, are the ones who never walked into “Scratch Records” saw something new and purchased it just because you wanted to have what others didn’t. We as an audience become so “sheep” that unless its right here in front of us we are not looking. And if what’s in front of you is chicks fighting and being dysfunctional on a cable network then yes, how would you ever know that a hit record is in your inbox or at the record shop, or even at Walmart.

Let’s do more on the strength of hearing good music. Music stops time and make you reflect on life. If you love life, lets get back to what helps us reflect it the best. Music. #WHOOOOSHOUSE

Related posts: