Nas - King's Disease III (Discussion Thread)
- Thread starter Dylmatic
- Start date
Piff Perkins
Veteran
One of the only fanbases that stilly buys physicals? I'm gonna go to bed before I blow up on this chick lmao. Nearly every older artist/band in music has more physicals than streams. Example...
Last week's chart. Look at #15. Lamb Of God, old ass metal band. Band came out in 1994, ironically. First week sales: 21,585. Physicals: 19,231. Streams: 2,267. This is common as hell with older acts.
Which means it's importance to have your store up and running super efficiently. The more physical copies and merch you can send out from your website, the better you are. Vinyl that gets shipped in a timely manner. Interesting merch that older and younger people might be interested in purchasing. That's where the money is for independent artists.
One of the only fanbases that stilly buys physicals? I'm gonna go to bed before I blow up on this chick lmao. Nearly every older artist/band in music has more physicals than streams. Example...
Last week's chart. Look at #15. Lamb Of God, old ass metal band. Band came out in 1994, ironically. First week sales: 21,585. Physicals: 19,231. Streams: 2,267. This is common as hell with older acts.
Which means it's importance to have your store up and running super efficiently. The more physical copies and merch you can send out from your website, the better you are. Vinyl that gets shipped in a timely manner. Interesting merch that older and younger people might be interested in purchasing. That's where the money is for independent artists.
To be fair I think she meant “pure” as in physicals, itunes, and Amazon (those are the entities she listed)
And she also was probably talking about rappers more than artists of other genres. She specifically said that other than Em and Jay, nobody else from the 90’s era sells as much as Nas. So she was keeping it Hip Hop talk.
Listening to the whole thing I don’t feel like she’s trying to “blame” the fans as much as she’s trying to “educate” fans on how streaming works and the algorithms. She all but came out and said that other artists fanbases are exploiting the system and if Nas fans did the same he’d easily crack 100k first week.
She also said that first week numbers aren’t the end all/be all and that Nas’s numbers aren’t BAD but they aren’t as great as his fanbase’s potential power is.
Basically the heart of her message is that Nas core fanbase is still there and that the “pure” sales support that but the game is rigged through streaming and the only way to “win” is to properly run the streams up.
She referenced Nicki Minaj, Jay, & Lil Baby as artists whose core base can’t touch Nas’s but because they have fans who know how streaming works thats why they chart higher and longer
Life is Good
All Star
What is she saying that’s so wrong and personal to you?One of the only fanbases that stilly buys physicals? I'm gonna go to bed before I blow up on this chick lmao. Nearly every older artist/band in music has more physicals than streams. Example...
Last week's chart. Look at #15. Lamb Of God, old ass metal band. Band came out in 1994, ironically. First week sales: 21,585. Physicals: 19,231. Streams: 2,267. This is common as hell with older acts.
Which means it's importance to have your store up and running super efficiently. The more physical copies and merch you can send out from your website, the better you are. Vinyl that gets shipped in a timely manner. Interesting merch that older and younger people might be interested in purchasing. That's where the money is for independent artists.
Simply put, what is the "proper" way to stream to aid in sales? She was kind of going on and on and I'm watching games so I couldn't really follow. What are we supposed to be doing differently than what we already are in terms of streaming?
When I said I wasn't mainstream, lames scream
"What does he mean?
Who does he think he is?
His bank be hid, he hardly out
He still as hard as he was when he started out"
We count 'em out, we count 'em in
Amongst the real, never my crown in doubt
- Nasir Jones. The most above ground, underground artist.
"What does he mean?
Who does he think he is?
His bank be hid, he hardly out
He still as hard as he was when he started out"
We count 'em out, we count 'em in
Amongst the real, never my crown in doubt
- Nasir Jones. The most above ground, underground artist.
As Nore says “Piff” you gotta relaxOne of the only fanbases that stilly buys physicals? I'm gonna go to bed before I blow up on this chick lmao. Nearly every older artist/band in music has more physicals than streams. Example...
Last week's chart. Look at #15. Lamb Of God, old ass metal band. Band came out in 1994, ironically. First week sales: 21,585. Physicals: 19,231. Streams: 2,267. This is common as hell with older acts.
Which means it's importance to have your store up and running super efficiently. The more physical copies and merch you can send out from your website, the better you are. Vinyl that gets shipped in a timely manner. Interesting merch that older and younger people might be interested in purchasing. That's where the money is for independent artists.
InstantKlassik
...
Y’all too emotional, as usual. Who cares what this bytch gotta say. Like seriously. We got a release date now. fukk whatever else she talking about . Let’s just wait til the album drops.
Basically
-Purchase the album via iTunes/Amazon/Nas online store
-Stream the album on other platforms (Tidal/ Apple Music/Spotify)
-If you purchase the album on iTunes then you need to make a separate PLAYLIST of the album on Apple Music for it to count as a stream.
Basically making a playlist is somehow now a big thing for streaming.
Most of this I personally already do as a Nas fan who wants to support. I always buy an iTunes copy AND a physical copy via the Nas online store. I also stream via Tidal on release day to help with streams.
He's never going to stream as well as they want because of the age and the type of fans that he has.
My solution is instead of trying to play their game, play ur own game. Play to ur strengths.
If Physicals are moving at a good rate. Put emphasis on that even more. The tour probably had thousands of
people every night in there that probably didn't even know about Magic. So while they're shopping for merch you
should've been able to buy a copy of Magic, KD1 and KD2 on CD, cassette and vinyl... You can t play
the same game Lil Baby is playing or Beyonce and Nicki. Your fans aren't Barbz or a Hive.
My solution is instead of trying to play their game, play ur own game. Play to ur strengths.
If Physicals are moving at a good rate. Put emphasis on that even more. The tour probably had thousands of
people every night in there that probably didn't even know about Magic. So while they're shopping for merch you
should've been able to buy a copy of Magic, KD1 and KD2 on CD, cassette and vinyl... You can t play
the same game Lil Baby is playing or Beyonce and Nicki. Your fans aren't Barbz or a Hive.
Controversy
Superstar
Guess which came out first
I picked up on it a few yrs ago & made me realize how much Jigga really idolized him
Piff Perkins
Veteran
She sounds delusional and is disrespecting Nas fans IMO. Nas is a legacy artist. He's not going to get streams without a hit record, and he hasn't had one since 2002. That's the main way streaming works. Drake's new album is largely selling because people keep listening to two songs. Future's album is doing great mainly thanks to Wait For U. That's not to say people aren't listening to the rest of the Future album, but that a hit sells your album better than album cuts. Given that the days of him having hits are long gone, Nas is not going to see a major streaming increase so why complain about it?
Here's some Spotify stats
Nas has 8.4M monthly listeners. So 8 million different people worldwide stream a Nas song within a month on the biggest streaming app, whether they're fans or casuals who heard a song on a playlist. That's a lot of streams for a 90s rapper. The only living 90s rappers that are higher are Jay (31M) and Busta (9.2M). My point is that Nas' numbers are great! Most rappers from that era are around 1-3M. We should be acknowledging his success, not complaining because he's not doing numbers that literally only two other people are doing.
If she wants more streams she should go work for Baby, or Drake, or Kendrick, or anyone else who has a significantly younger fanbase that literally streams music all day. This is like asking 40-50 year old people to use TikTok. They're going to use Facebook breh. No matter how much you tell them TikTok has more engagement, or that Instagram has more users...they're going to stick to Facebook because that's what that demographic does. So if you want to hit that demographic you need to reach them on Facebook. In Nas' case this means physical sales.
Mike the Executioner
What went on up there? Poppers and weird sex!
You know Pitchfork is going to mention Illmatic for no apparent reason and talk about how Nas is living in the shadow of it, when he's pushing 50 years old and the review is talking about his fifteenth album.
Piff Perkins
Veteran
I forgot to add Snoop, who has 28M monthly listeners. So just three 90s rappers having more listeners. That’s pretty amazing, don’t you agree?
Busta’s numbers are also heavily inflated due to a p*ssy Cat Dolls remix. That chick said Nas turned down being on Scary Hours 2 a few weeks ago right. If Nas had done that track it would almost certainly be his most streamed track from 2018 onward, and his numbers would be higher. Which goes back to my point about the blueprint for selling. If you don’t have hits you need features. And if Drake wants you on a track you do it.
Busta’s numbers are also heavily inflated due to a p*ssy Cat Dolls remix. That chick said Nas turned down being on Scary Hours 2 a few weeks ago right. If Nas had done that track it would almost certainly be his most streamed track from 2018 onward, and his numbers would be higher. Which goes back to my point about the blueprint for selling. If you don’t have hits you need features. And if Drake wants you on a track you do it.