Chart Attack

danskrap.dk skrev:Et round-up på links vedr. DMA 05 :



Hiphopperne er utilfredse - http://urbanavis.dk/article.php?id=3042



Officiel DMA site - http://www.dr.dk/dma/



Video stream af hiphop optræden - http://www.dr.dk/dma/asx/dma05_medley.asx



Politikens : http://politiken.dk/VisArtikel.iasp?PageID=368045



Og lidt sjov steming her, hvor Nik&Jay ankommer, og Claus Hempler får af vide at han skal klippes. Burhan G kommer op af en trappe... og lige efter ham kommer danskrap.dk's egen Sundsdal : http://www.infocast.dk/bt/mediamaker.ph ... tegory=184

QrazyLeg skrev:Hold kæft hvor er jeg ved at være træt af at høre på at den danske hiphop-scene brokker sig. Lige siden MC Einar og RBC har vi konstant hørt undergrunden komme op for at brokke sig over at der var nogle der lavede noget hiphop der faktisk kunne holdes ud at høre på. RBC gjorde meget i god mening og stod bag "Stop Volden!" projektet. Den knap så populære del af miljøet skældte dem huden fuld over at de "solgte ud" og gjorde miljøet for offentligt kendt.

Hele miljøets offentlige holdning har altid været at det der med at vinde priser ikke er noget de tager for gode varer. Det handler om respekten fra miljøet istedet for. I flere år har de så fået en del (for mig at se helt uforståelig) hæder med bl.a. Jokeren som foregangsmand. Hans tekster er for mig ret primitive og har jo ingen dybde. Uanset hvor sej han så ellers selv mener han er så klæder det ikke en mand omkring de 30 at løbe rundt og sige "møgluder" (hvis det da i det hele taget klæder nogen). Han mangler en fornemmelse af hvordan det er at blive betegnet som voksen og faktisk have et ansvar. Lidt sørgeligt at der skulle komme dette resultat fra en genre som plejer at vinde respekt hos andre gennem deres lyrik, der engang var en del mere dyb og avanceret end "Hvor du fra", "Møgluder" og "Dobbelt A". 2 gange Joker og 1 del Niarn. Så bliver den fest ikke ret meget dårligere. Det ene sørgelige forsøg på en tekst efter den anden.

Nu bliver hiphoppen så gjort mindre betydningsfuld end den har været de sidste mange år. Så brokker de sig over at de bliver taget væk igen. Nu må de fandme bestemme sig. Og måske også tænke sig lidt om og konkludere:

1) At kvaliteten måske ikke er så god som den burde være?
2) At det er ved at gå nedad igen for hiphoppen i Danmark på samme måde som det gjorde for Dance/Techno i Danmark i midten af 1990'erne? Der blev de to slået sammen til den nye kategori "New Age", og mistede dermed selvrådighed til egen sin egen pris ved DMA.

Der var så en masse brok om brok...

If You Love Dance Music, Please Read This

The following is a letter that John Kill submitted to a local dance music forum. John is a very competent, friendly and successful local dj who also does the weekend mixshows on a top 40 radio station here, and a former co-worker. I realize the letter appears a little lengthy, but he has some valid points on the state of dance music and how hip-hop's omnipresence has affected dance music, and it's well worth any of our time reading. John prefaced the letter by saying he had sent it out to his contacts at record labels, and "when reading it keep in mind I was writing it to people within the industry and not general clubbers."


Like you and almost everyone else in the dance music industry I have some very passionate feelings about dance music; where we are, where we are going and how to get there.

Recent years have seen various forces devastating the music industry in general. By now it is old news that niche segments like dance were the first to go at most of the major labels as the finances tightened. Harry Towers and others have elegantly opined about how this purge will ultimately benefit our industry by separating the wheat from the chaff. Well the purge has come and gone and we are still floundering with our miniscule market share, lack of consumer awareness, and failure to secure spins at mainstream radio and MTV. The wheat is separated, but when are we going to make bread?

Imitation is the highest form of flattery

Hip-hop shares common roots with disco/dance. In fact, disco records were what the hip-hop pioneers used as break beats for their early rhymes. Disco helped give birth to hip-hop, yet hip-hop has now far overshadowed its one-time nursemaid. Hip-hop patriarchs like Russell Simmons steered hip-hop in a different direction than disco, ultimately leading to its ascension (to the detriment of dance). Competition has lessons for us if we are savvy enough to recognize them. This industry needs a Russell Simmons to define our movement and force people to take notice.

Dance music is ignored at Top 40 radio because we allow ourselves to be. Early on, hip-hop stood up and said, ?We will not be ignored. We will be in your face and controversial and you will be forced to acknowledge us.? Gang associations, thug attitudes, minority angst, excessive materialism and degradation towards women have not been a hindrance to hip-hop, they are the very things that have made it golden. The very things that conventional wisdom might suggest would turn people off have been it?s biggest attractions. The more hip-hop is painted in a negative light, the more popular it becomes. The juxtaposition of hip-hop?s ?pimpin? ho?s? mentality with dance music?s ?peace and unity through music? is stark. Attitude, controversy and over-the-top ?rock star? imaging sells records, peace and love doesn?t. More importantly, peace and love puts the consuming public to sleep while the hip-hop attitude activates their radar instantly.

The ?Peace and Unity Through Music? cliché needs to be flushed like a belly up goldfish. It's BS anyways. I've seen more than enough petty backstabbing in this business to put that load of crap to bed.

It?s time to stop hating on hip-hop and start taking notes. We don?t have to like the music, just admire the business. Go back and study how they made it happen. Why did it break out of the Brooklyn ghetto? How was it shaped and nurtured until it stood on its own? What aspects of the hip-hop story can we leverage towards our own promotion? It?s obvious we aren?t beating them; it?s time to join them.

Victimhood, feuding factions, and a good brawl at an awards show are the things we need to get some attention. I?m not saying we need an Armand Van Helden or a Tiesto to start doing drive-by shootings (or Cary Vance and Danny Coniglio to start boxing at DanceStar), but a little well-publicized nasty feuding can?t hurt (a la LL Cool J v. Kool Moe D). The more outrageous, flamboyant and ridiculous, the more hedonism and debauchery, the better off we will be. The European dance culture magazines are full of brilliant material sure to shock soccer moms across the heartland. Ibiza and the club Mecca?s of the world should be glamorized as much as possible for all their excessive indulgence in vices.

Have I lost my mind? Quite possibly. But these days it is so true: ?There is no such thing as bad publicity.? Human nature is to want what everyone tells you can?t (or shouldn?t) have. Now how can we get Rush Limbaugh and Bill O?Reilly to go off on a rant about us? Maybe we could get Congress to outlaw dance music outright. That would be the best thing that could ever happen.

Controversy and attitude. We need to develop and get those two elements of Dance music onto people?s radar. But how?

Screw radio. They?re doomed by satellite and iPods anyway. MTV is the lynchpin. A network that can make celebrities out of Pauly Shore and Ashlee Simpson can easily push dance culture into the mainstream. We have to find a way to crack that nut. MTV lives off controversy. MTV doesn?t acknowledge us because we are boring to them and perceived as boring to their audience. It all comes down to being controversial and refusing to be ignored. If MTV can run endless repeats of mostly naked Spring Breakers mindlessly grinding to hip-hop, they ought to love the mindlessness at Winter Music Conference! We just need to do a better job of selling it to them. MTV Europe covers it, but we need to have extensive coverage of WMC on MTV USA. If MTV says its cool ? it is instantly so. I don?t know if we need to pass the hat and collectively bribe them or what, but we have to find a way to make it happen.

We need to find a poster child. Someone like Har Mar Superstar needs to be our Snoop Dogg. Sure he's not exactly a trance legend, but forget Oakenfold. He?s about as accessible to dance music fans these days as Bono is to rock fans. Hey Paul, I can hardly see you up on your pedestal, mate, let alone relate to you. Mad props to their contributions, but I don?t feel any connection to them as people. Now Har Mar or Snoop, on the other hand ? I?d love to hang out with either of them for a while!

Can we make Har Mar our ambassador? I need to see him on TRL explaining to Carson and his flock that ?techno? is NOT everything over 120 with a 4:4 and a hi hat between beats! I want to see him with the Manumission girls performing on the Tonight Show. I want to see him in sunglasses and Speedo being interviewed by Katie fricking Couric.

Obviously I?m being a little tounge-in-cheek here, but my central point is that we need to stand up and force people to take notice, any possible way we can. What gets noticed these days is controversy, attitude and over-the-top personality.

Lessons I Learned Playing Hip-Hop

The hip-hop industry has its attention-grabbing rivalries, but it also has a great formula for artist development and great marketing savvy. Hip-hop many times seems like a family business. Often times it seems like the whole family is on every single. P Diddy featuring Mase and, and, and?

They successfully launch new artists by debuting them as a guest on a single by an established artist. Ashanti started singing hooks for Ja Rule. Ja Rule broke big by rapping a verse with Jay-Z. The list of such breakouts is endless. They are brilliant at leveraging their core artists to draw attention to and break new ones. Dance needs to find similar leveraging possibilities. Since we don?t have stars on the level of P Diddy, Jay-Z or Nelly we need to get THEM on our tracks. Let?s experiment with blurring the lines between hip-hop and dance. Leverage established hip-hop and pop artists to slowly re-acclimate people to up tempo music. And I don?t mean remixes. I mean original songs produced by Deep Dish, Basement Jaxx or Erick Morillo featuring Nelly, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, et al. Some rap artists have not been afraid to experiment with tempo and ?Let?s Get Ill? was an exciting, but somewhat unfulfilling step in the right direction. It wasn?t even that good, but the fact that it got played at all was testament to general enthusiasm about the concept.

Hip-hop also knows how to provide the tools to people to get their product played. Most hip-hop records come with instrumentals and acapellas. This instantly gives the DJ, the guy who is going to break your record, with the tools he needs to experiment and be creative ? and to PLAY YOUR SONG. Dance guards instrumentals and especially acapellas like they are golden eggs. Put them out so everyone can get them. Let us experiment and be creative. Any play is exposure and any exposure is a good thing, even if it is only a snippet of a vocal.

I think another area that dance labels should look at is investing a little more to have full-length videos produced. Right now you are investing in 3-minute videos suitable for MTV play. There are two problems with that: MTV isn?t playing them and they are too short and over-edited for club DJs who would. Sure they get some play overseas and in specialty packages like retail video reels or obscure cable outlets. Meanwhile there is a growing number of DJs who have the new Pioneer DVD players but can?t find any extended video mixes to play. Have the director shoot some extra footage and stretch that video out over six or seven minutes. Shoot a video like you produce the song ? start with a full-length version and then do a radio-length edit in post. And service these out to DJs on DVDs (please no MPEGs). A lot of dance songs have beautiful and sexy videos. You already spent the money producing it ? you may as well send it out to DJs so someone in America actually sees it.

Hip-hop labels send out so much product to anyone who wants it, I can?t get rid of it fast enough. What is this ridiculous obsession in the Dance world with exclusives and ultra-rare promo copies? Fine, I get it, it?s about ROI and watching the budget, but how is anyone supposed to play it and help you sell copies if the only people in the world who have it are Pete Tong and Danny Tenaglia? Send me a damn MP3 if that's all you can afford, but put the music out there for cying out loud. There are tons of records I couldn?t buy if I wanted to because they simply don?t exist out in the marketplace. And people wonder why file sharing is so popular? I believe hip-hop is successful partly because anyone can get their hands on it. It?s not some exclusive club where only Funkmaster Flex has the new 50 Cent joint. What good does that do? Exposure, exposure, exposure is the name of the game. You aren?t exposed unless you are throwing it out there