PAYOLA is still alive and well in hip hop music

[Gentle Jones]

Real talk, if i was @NerdNash and i got that hot garbage in my inbox id charge him double.

you are corrupt. have some dignity. show some integrity.

 

[Gunshi]

no offense but somewhere along the line you gonna have to pay, its just apart of the game but you can have some leverage if you making songs that are hot..what you can do is hit the local bars, buy the DJ a drink, chop it up with him/her, get his info and send him/her your song and ask him/her to play it if they think its good enough...its that simple

 

[NerdNash]

Everyone have a blessed Friday

 

[fukkyalifestyle]

you are corrupt. have some dignity. show some integrity.

its his website he can do whatever he wants

 

[Gentle Jones]

May 12, 2006
Universal Music Settles Big Payola Case

By JEFF LEEDS
The Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music company, has agreed to pay $12 million to settle accusations that executives paid radio programmers to play songs, according to a settlement announced yesterday. It is the largest settlement yet in an investigation by the New York attorney general that has shaken the music business.

The office of the attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said in documents released yesterday that Universal, a unit of Vivendi, had used a broad array of illegal "pay for play" tactics to secure airplay for its music, including bribing programmers with laptop computers, tickets to sporting events and luxury hotel stays.

Mr. Spitzer's office has been examining whether the four corporations that dominate the music industry have violated federal or New York state laws that prohibit payments of cash or anything of value to radio programmers for airplay unless the transaction is disclosed to listeners.

Last year, the authorities settled with Warner Music Group for $5 million and Sony BMG Music Entertainment for $10 million in similar arrangements. In March, Mr. Spitzer sued one of the nation's biggest radio broadcasters, Entercom Communications, accusing it of trading airplay for money, after settlement discussions faltered.

In an interview, Mr. Spitzer said the "uniformity" of record executives' conduct, reflected in e-mail messages and other documents uncovered in earlier settlements, "speaks to the understanding in the industry that radio play is the best way to motivate sales, and folks would do what needed to be done to get the airtime."

Mr. Spitzer's office is still investigating the smallest of the four record corporations, the EMI Group, as well as several radio companies, including Clear Channel Communications and CBS Radio (formerly Infinity Broadcasting.). The Federal Communications Commission has also requested documents from the radio companies as part of a separate inquiry.

Universal said in a statement that it had been working "cooperatively" with Mr. Spitzer's office and was "pleased to have completed the process with this agreement." Universal said the reforms it agreed to are "consistent with" policies it instituted more than a year ago.

As part of the accord, the company agreed to discontinue certain practices — including providing cash for radio contests, and using middlemen known as independent promoters to funnel money to stations.

Settlement documents released yesterday offer examples of how executives at the company's various labels — Interscope Records, Island Def Jam Music Group, Universal/Motown Records and Universal South — offered enticements or used other tactics to gain airplay for their artists' songs. In some cases, the documents say, Universal tried to disguise payoffs to programmers as gifts to radio contest winners.

The documents say Universal twice paid for hotel accommodations in Miami for Donnie Michaels, then the program director of WFLY-FM in Albany, in exchange for his addition of songs by Brian McKnight and Nick Lachey to his station's playlist. In April 2004, Universal provided Mr. Michaels — by then a programmer at WHYI-FM in Miami — with a New York hotel room and New York Yankees tickets. The company booked the room under a false name and used a false Social Security number to conceal the transaction, the document states.

In testimony for the attorney general's office, Universal executives admitted providing hotel rooms, tickets to sports events and concerts to radio programmers for their personal use. Universal also paid for radio stations' operating expenses — like a bill for Web site maintenance — to obtain airplay for acts like the rap duo Big Tymers, Lindsay Lohan and the late hip-hop performer Aaliyah, according to the settlement papers.

At the same time Universal wooed programmers with gifts to add songs, the documents say, it also tried to deceive certain stations' personnel into believing a new song was deserving of more airplay.

Executives at the company sometimes tried to inflate the performance of a song on the charts monitored by radio programmers by openly buying airtime on certain stations. And the company hired outside consultants to manipulate call-in request lines.

In one e-mail message released by Mr. Spitzer's office, a Universal executive asked an outside company to place "curiosity calls," inquiring about a new Ludacris single, to dozens of stations. "Calls should be 75 percent female, 25 percent male 18-24 years old," the e-mail said.

Even with yesterday's settlement, Universal still faces accusations of misconduct in the promotion department at its New York-based Universal Records label.

In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last year, two independent promoters accused Universal of instructing them to submit false bills so that overdue payments to the promoters could be processed. As a result, the lawsuit claims, expenses were charged to certain Universal acts, like the rapper Nelly and the singer Paulina Rubio, when the promoters had been pushing songs for Lil' Romeo and Big Tymers.

The lawsuit also contends that Universal executives pressed certain radio stations to sever their relationships with the promoters — including National Music Marketing — and instead work with others, including the husband of an executive who was then Universal's top radio promotion official. Universal has denied the accusations.

 

[Gentle Jones]

its his website he can do whatever he wants

you are a juggalo

 

[fukkyalifestyle]

you are a juggalo

?

 

[fukkyalifestyle]

this is the op whose tryin to be a rapper?

 

[Gentle Jones]

this is the op whose tryin to be a rapper?

 

[Mike Ock]

Y'all do know that major hiphop sites check this board out. When I posted the interview me and my boy did with murdamook, t-rex and ron browz on here, the next day got an email from Vlad TV asking us for permission to post it on his site, mtvnews picked it up and a bunch of other sites used it. It's this interview


Sound ain't the best on this one. The comments are still funny though.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

typical industry plant shyt. its all over the coli. industry plants will trash an artist who is not playing their game. or they will post a topic about somebody paying them. the coli is smarter than that. these posts are just from this week:







your criticism doesn't bother me. i will battle anybody here.

Industry plant? First off I hardly even post in the booth. 2nd you really think you're important enough that music execs would need to trash your music ?

This delusional ass fukk boy

 

[KENNY DA COOKER]

Howdy Coli fam,

Here is proof that payola is still all over the music business.

Recently I released a video for a new song from my High Elders project with Auxiliary Phoenix to promote our new "Forest Of Pencils" album which is out December 9th on Irish label Little League Records. Here is the video for "Surrounded By Lights"



I sent the video to several music blogs and the response was incredible! Hot Press Magazine called the video, "Stunning... Eye-popping... Fabulous!" However, among these blogs I emailed were several who directly asked me for money just to post the video! This type of payola is increasingly common online these days. Many of those payola blogs are just automated content retweeted by cheap twitterbots and of no real value to an aspiring artist because real people don't actually check the content. Here I've posted a few of the emails I got in response to the video just to give other artists and music fans an idea of what its like to be independent in today's music business and the sorts of predatory folks who will try and juice you, many of them openly admit they are using twitterbots to promote your content:

Blog: nerdatthecooltable.com

From: Nerd Nash
Date: Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 11:50 AM
Subject: Re: New Video! High Elders Surrounded By Lights
To: Gentle Jones

$100 it'll be up by midnight and emailed to other blogs affiliated with me

-----------------------------------------

Blog: worldcomeup.com

From: Worldcomeup WCU
Date: Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 7:18 PM
Subject: Re: New Video! High Elders - Surrounded By Lights
To: Gentle Jones

For general posts we charge a small fee of $10.00 for standard placement and $25.00 for featured placement which includes a 3 day tweeting of the video on our Twitter page personally.

If you are unable to pay we will put the video/song in consideration for placement. As we get 100's of emails a day for artist placements. If you are selected we will email you the link to the video on our site and will tweet it out one time after being posted.

If interested please send the payment via Paypal to Aotds@hotmail.com

Thanks,

Worldcomeup.com Team

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Blog: streetsconnect.com

From:
Date: Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 10:50 AM
Subject: Re: Your mail to blogboss@streetsconnect.com
To: gentlejones@gmail.com

Streets Connect receives a large volume of communications - please be patient in regard to a reply. If you want an expedited review, please send $5.00 via PayPal to business@streetsconnect.com.

In the meantime, please take a moment to follow us on Twitter and 'Like' our Facebook page. This is the best way to be notified if your submission is posted.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/StreetsConnect
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/StreetsConnect

If you are part of the SC Family we'll expedite you automatically. If you are interested in joining the SCF email info@streetsconnect.com

Salute! Thank you for supporting Hip Hop culture and new artists.

StreetsConnect

-----------------------------------------

Blog: smarterhiphop.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ALMANDO MCFADDEN
Date: Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 10:50 AM
Subject: SHH Submissions Re: New Music Video! High Elders - Surrounded By Lights
To: gentlejones@gmail.com

Thank you for your submission to smarterhiphop.com we have over 59,000 submissions from all over the world follow us on twitter @smarterhiphop like us on Facebook for a free post
we are a free platform for artist to get exposure due to the high volume of submissions and millions of viewers. We would like to take small donation of $20 via paypal per post thanks so much for your help you keep Smarter hiphop alive. Click here to pay the donation for speedy post https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=A4WVWMVWBLYNL
payment comes with a blast from 60 twitter accounts cheap exposure for millions of viewers.

-----------------------------------------

Blog: bringyourehgame.com

From:
Date: Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 8:33 AM
Subject: Re: Your mail to music@bringyaehgame.com
To: gentlejones@gmail.com

Thank you for submitting. Your content will be reviewed as soon as possible and if chosen, it will be posted within 1-5 days. If it has not been posted and you would like your content to be automatically selected, please review our rates below. Keep in mind, we only post Canadian content. If you would like to advertise your business and it is not Canadian, we have packages available.

To have your video, song or mixtape/album posted on the site automatically: $25.00

We accept e-mail transfer or Paypal. When you are ready send an email with "Payment" in the subject line and we will respond immediately.

Thank you for your interest and make sure you come back daily to check out new material from ya favourite Canadian entertainers only on BringYaEhGame.com!

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Blog: dopedc.com

From: DopeDC (@DopeDCPromo)
Date: Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 8:33 AM
Subject: DopeDC.com - Thanks For Your Submission!!! Re: New Video! High Elders - Surrounded By Lights
To: gentlejones@gmail.com

Thanks for the submission!!! We'll review your post for consideration. Look out for it on the blog and feel free to send more!!! Juuuuust in case you didn't send what we need, how we need it, get the full required format at DopeDC.com/Submissions... Thanks again..
Like us on Facebook!!! Follow us on Twitter!!!

STEP 1: Send your submission to DDCSubmissions@Gmail.com
STEP 2: Send $5 via PayPal to DDCSubmissions@Gmail.com
- Put the TITLE of the post, your @Twitter name and EMAIL ADDRESS in the "Message" section on PayPal.

Your post will appear within 12-24 hours. You will also receive confirmation.
We also post free submissions on the weekend, look out for #SubmissionSaturday on our Twitter!!!

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Blog: humanfankind.com

From:
Date: Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 8:33 AM
Subject: We'll Review Your Music
To: gentlejones@gmail.com

Thanks for sending your stuff into HumanFankind for review.

I'd be happy to review your music and expose you to our thousands of fans + daily visitors, but right now there is a wait of about 4 months.. (which you get on by liking us on facebook.com/humanfankind . We do offer a promotional package where for only $8.50 we will make you the "Rising Artist of the Day" THIS WEEK and promote you across ALL of our social networks. We currently have a 100% satisfaction rating, but if for some reason you're not happy, we'll refund you in full, no questions asked.

If you are interested in this option please email blogger[at]humanfankind[dot]com a picture to use, a link to a song to review, and a short bio. We will then send you an invoice via paypal and get started

I look forward to hearing back from you! Cheers,

Justin
Blogger Department
HumanFankind

http://gentlejones.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-payola-report.html

Upping because it's still so relevant

 

[Hoodoo Child]

These majors labels are strong arming the hell out of these radio stations tho..you can't deny that

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Forgot all about this guy