Are we gonna act like this isn't a marketing strategy ?

[John Hull]

Yea I was kinda geeked about this shyt a couple days ago but when I thought about it, the scenery is perfect red carpet rollout for the white boy. Em is the King (swidt) of rappity rap rappin and his marketing will piggyback directly off this recent fukkery.

I'm ok with that tho. He still has to make dope material to pop off, I don't think the fans are as naive as Interscope/Shady think.

 

[swerve]

It's really not all that farfetched for the shyt to be true.

With the climate being less about lyrics (and Kendrick being the closest MAINSTREAM artist to Eminem in terms of style, flow, and ability), if Em drops without "Control" ever coming out and causing the stir it did, Em dropping an album might not be a good look. Of course he's bound to sell decently because he's Eminem, but this is a new era in terms of record sales. A scary one, to artists AND labels. And after Relapse and Recovery, and the current climate being less about lyrics than swag, anything short of a good release from Interscope's Jesus would be a huge loss, after his last two albums.

With the mainstream focus now back on lyricism and battling for the moment, what better time to put out Em's new shyt than now. They're labelmates, friends, and Em can't diss anybody (which is his forte) without getting looked at like a hater. Dissing nikkas isn't what's hot obviously. Especially dissing someone successful. A lot of fans would eat him alive, clown him on Twitter, etc being the fickle and "spur of the moment" dikkriders they are...Imagine Em coming at Wayne circa 2007. TELL me nikkas wouldn't be on some fukk Eminem shyt...I thought so.

We already know on Recovery that Em wasn't feeling Ye or Weezy & wanted to come at their necks. Now, that's possible as well as any other rappers he wants to get at, with the focus being where it is now. It's more "welcoming" to an artist like Em to hop back in and somehow come back in epic fashion.

If you nikkas are paying attention, and ain't sleep just cuz he dropped two wack albums...if the last BET cipher was any proof, he still has shyt left in the tank. To be honest, the balls in his court now, and he has a chance to shed the cornball image/bars of recent past and make a HELL of a comeback. Watch what I say. And I ain't no stan or none of that shyt. Don't put it past these labels, execs, and labelmate rappers to sit and strategize all this. In the end it's more money, fame, and good music coming to and from the same source, which equals $$$.

In theory, in a few short months, the trap subgenre and nikkas like Keef, Gucci, Wayne etc could be done for good. Not done making music, but done being what's hot in the mainstream eye. This is the type of shyt most hip-hop fans & 80s babies been waiting for, and to be honest, it just may start to bring record sales back if the consumer now KNOWS that mainstream rap albums for the most part is substance-filled, lyric, reality & metaphor laden works of art artists are taking their time with. Even though technology played a part, it's no coincidence that once snap music and a bunch of other wack subgenres came out, record sales dwindled.

I wouldn't even be surprised if this schemes been in the works for years, you seen the money Interscope put behind Kendrick. Suddenly thrust into the stratosphere, best selling record of the year, all over the BET awards a year ago, etc...THINK, nikkas. In essence, Kendrick just set the table for Em to eat.....better.

You forget one thing that throws away your whole argument, only on Coli is Relapse and Recovery considered wack albums. Recovery was in the top10 for like 6 months. People were feeling that album.

And Eminem came out with Relapse after a 5 year absence, did 800k first week with a single like Crack a bottle and We Made you. There are no fans more loyal hiphop fans than Eminems. He got fans between the age of 11 to 39.

 

[T.he I.nformant]

is there an actual point to this thread?

You gonna act like there isn't a point to this thread?

 

[John Hull]

You forget one thing that throws away your whole argument, only on Coli is Relapse and Recovery considered wack albums. Recovery was in the top10 for like 6 months. People were feeling that album.

And Eminem came out with Relapse after a 5 year absence, did 800k first week with a single like Crack a bottle and We Made you. There are no fans more loyal hiphop fans than Eminems. He got fans between the age of 11 to 39.

Good point as well.

Em is kind of immune to rules that black rappers have to play by. Amazing when you think about it. That first single from Relapse sounded like a man who had been thawed out from a block of ice and missed the previous 5 years. Didn't matter tho.

 

[Long Live The Kane]

Don't think there's much of a chance that's true

I kinda think it was a marketing strategy to some (large) degree, but it didn't have sh!t to do with Eminem, Interscope, Aftermath or Shady...i think it's more of a case of Kendrick (or his camp, but leaning towards Kendrick himself because TDE doesn't seem to have a clue as how to handle the rest of the crew) having the same kind of rap-game political mind as Jay-Z does...he's very self-aware of his position and perception as a figure in contemporary rap, and makes very shrewd and deliberate moves in order to pander to certain prominent pre-existing sentiments out there in the hip hop populace in an effort to elevate his status...the best example of this IMO is Jay-Z making DOA, keying in on the backlash against autotune and making an "anti-autotune" anthem to galvanize all the "we're tired of autotune " opinion around him and have it perceived as him leading the charge to "save" rap from autotune...despite having worked on autotuned songs during the BP3 sessions and having it used fairly extensively on WTT, his very next release...it's basically the rap version of what's referred to as a "cheap pop" in pro wrestling parlance... in that same vein Kendrick keyed in on the "rappers are too friendly, i wish there was more competition in the game today" sentiment that's been volleyed around for a minute now...despite being one of the newest members of hip hop's "the usual suspects" mutual appreciation society himself...i just don't think he had any idea it would have worked as spectacularly well as it has...the whole "let me tack on an anti-molly message randomly at the end of one of my videos to jump in front of the backlash towards incessant molly references in current day rap" thing let me know that Kendrick knows how to play the game