Snoop's in Bollywood

I want to start off by saying that what these guys are doing is no longer gangster.  Gangster implies mafioso types running underhanded businesses and fronting like their legitimate.  Call it good business sense, but Jay-Z is part owner of the nets and Snoop is starring in a Bollywood movie in India.  Diddy is perhaps the most successful of them all.  You can’t blame them, the money is right there in front them. Their profiting off a lot of work in the studio and reaching mass audiences that now support their fame. 

It used to be that you could take the rapper out of the hood but not the hood out of the rapper.

But what happens when the rapper leaves the streets of Los Angeles for the gold-plated paths of Bollywood?

Snoop Dogg, the West Coast rapper who ran with the Crips gang and served time for selling cocaine, traded his baggy jeans for a slim-fit kurta and his cornrows for a diamond-studded turban to appear in “Singh Is Kinng,” a Bollywood movie that just hit theaters in limited release. He raps on the film’s title track, spitting lines like “Yo, what up. This Big Snoop Dogg. Represent the Punjabi,” and “What up to all the ladies hanging out in Mumbai.”

What up, indeed: In a video posted online, Snoop said he’d like to follow up the “Singh Is Kinng” track, already bumping in bars and clubs across India, with a tour.

“Snoop Dogg has a lot of fans in India and I love ‘em right back,” he said. “Get ready for me.”

Of course, Snoop’s far from the first rapper to look outside the hip-hop community to raise his pop culture quotient. Diddy pioneered that trend.

Among Diddy’s host of ventures: developing reality series for MTV and VH1, endorsing high-end Ciroc vodka, starring in the Broadway production-cum-Emmy-nominated TV movie “A Raisin in the Sun” and putting out a line of fragrances, the latest of which will be called, simply, “I Am King.”

Jay-Z followed in his footsteps. He co-owns the chain of 40/40 Clubs and the New Jersey Nets and recently sealed a game-changing $150 million deal with concert promoter Live Nation, which promises to finance his entertainment ventures for the next 10 years, however vast they may be.

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Diddy, LL Cool J, and Snoop have successfully gone from street hustlers to business moguls.

Jay's 150 million dollar contract one of richest ever.

The end of an era has come.  Record companies are losing out on the best rappers because people are switching from C.D.’s to Itunes and other online music.  Concert promoter Live Nation are profiting off this change and have signed the likes of Jay-Z, Madonna, and U-2.  Jay-Z’s defection from Def Jam to the concert promoter Live Nation is worth 150 million dollars to Jay.  Live Nation’s huge investment in Jay-Z and Madonna’s contract of 102 million is a huge change of cash flow.  The young artists will still need record companies as they have great networking capabilities.  I

With CD sales dismal and Internet music sites such as iTunes soaring in popularity, major record labels have been forced to rethink their traditional and once-profitable business plans as they scramble to hold on to a diminishing consumer base and straying A-list artists, all of whom are increasingly turning to new technology for their music fix.

Take Rapper Jay-Z, for example, who is soon to become the third major artist to leave a well-known record company, in his case Def Jam Records, in return for a multimillion dollar deal with concert promoter Live Nation, according to The New York Times.

And before him it was superstars Madonna and U2 who penned deals with Live Nation, which is trying to profit where music label staples have not: They reach fans’ pocketbooks not by luring them into outdated record stores but by selling band merchandise, concert tickets and fan club memberships.

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My handlers are out of touch.

Before I say anything, let me give props to Mr. Roth for having skills and actually rapping about something. I respect his craft. There’s a lot of buzz about Asher lately, and it’s much deserved.

Specifically there’s the DJ Drama /Don Cannon hosted mix tape called The Greenhouse Effect.. From what I hear (and what I’ve heard), he comes quite correct. You can download it at his official Ning community.

Red cups are gangsta

Here’s the problem: He’s not going to sell too many copies if he keeps up with his bullshit marketing campaign. Let me break it down…

1. He sounds like Eminem in 1999. If you’re trying to be the next respectable white emcee, don’t sound like the King. You can’t debut with a bootleg Slim Shady delivery, no matter how ill you are.

2. He’s too normal. Seriously, this dudes life story could put me to sleep while swimming in a cold pool of Red Bull [SEE!]. Rap fans often buy CDs to escape their own reality. Why would I want to listen to a dude rap about beer pong, anyway? I want to shoot guns and have unprotected sex with bust it babies.

3. The economy is in a decline. Fewer people are going to college. Why is being marketed as Mr. College? Nothing like being an elitist — you jerk!

Check for reasons #4 and #5 coming tomorrow.