Chance The Rapper And Music Distribution
Chances Are
How is it Chance The Rapper with a total of exactly one single released with him as the lead as opposed to feature manage to out draw Neko Case at Governors Ball. The simple answer is he has been featured on a number of top tracks and his Acid Rap mix tape is very popular… but even so…
It really is a brave new world in recording. We’ve known for years that albums are promotional devices for tours, the more times your album is streamed the more people are coming to your show and that is that: Frank Turner recently nailed it forever “I want to teach you four simple words so the next time you come to a show you can sing those words back at me…” That’s what is going on.
But Chance has nothing to stream and the 21 year old’s success suggests music consumption isn’t really based on anything much, distribution is all over the place. If you go to youtube and check out Chance The Rapper you’ll find all his songs are in the multi-million views… essentially all of them. At the age of 17 he was selling weed (“more steady money than I’m making now”) at 21 he is a star and what will make him huge is his gift for the anthemic chorus but he has gone from nowhere to a mid-afternoon set at NYC’s only huge music fest with selling songs and without streaming em except on Soundcloud and Youtube.
Undoubtedly, he could feel Bowery Ballroom now and he is just getting bigger.
In 2014, the recording industry has no center gravity, it seems to be coming from everywhere in every form as well. It isn’t in one place only, it is hiding in the world and in the public everywhere at once. The trouble is (and it is something rock nyc tries to do with very limited success) the music scene has no one place where you can get a quick study in what is out there. You need to play detective; everything is easier and more complicated at the same time.
