The Value of Independence
At 49 years young, Nasir Jones is at the top of his game. Secret sauce? No middlemen and no nonsense. Meanwhile, a famous YouTuber is dropping ads. The renaissance is just starting.
I’ve been a fan of Nas for over 2 decades now. I had liked his mid-90’s work already, but his single “One Mic” from the 2001 album Stillmatic is what sealed the deal for me; he’s been my favorite hip-hop artist ever since. As any big fan of his probably knows, Nas has been remarkably consistent as a lyricist but incredibly frustrating as a beat selector.
With the exception of his very early work with Columbia, his albums from 1999 through the Def Jam years have lacked cohesion. In a prior post, I detailed his attempted double album debacle in 1999; a lot of which was out of his control, some of which was in his control though. He probably shouldn’t have pushed the issue with the Nastradamus release that year and just let Columbia properly monetize the leaked material the way the label wanted to - a rare instance of his label attempting to save Nas from himself.
The failed double album in 1999 really marked the beginning of a 20 year time period for him where his projects were generally better than good but never great. As a fan, it felt like his best tracks were sometimes left off albums entirely. While Nas fans, myself included, have lamented Nas’ beat selection for years, I think part of the issue has been creative differences between artist and label. The best examples of this might be the controversy surrounding the title of his ultimately untitled 2008 Def Jam project - or how his first album with DeF Jam ended with an acapella track. Rumor at the time was the label wouldn’t pay for the sample clearance of the original beat.
The issues seemed to escalate to legitimate bad blood a couple years later when Def Jam balked at counting Lost Tapes II against Nas’ contractual obligations. A decision that spawned a leaked email from Nas to then label president L.A. Reid. Rereading that email over a decade later is incredible as it gave so many clues about which path Nas would ultimately take:
I won’t even tap dance around in an email, I will get right into it. People connect to the Artist @ the end of the day, they don’t connect with the executives. Honestly, nobody even cares what label puts out a great record, they care about who recorded it. Yet time and time again its the executives who always stand in the way of a creative artist’s dream and aspirations. You don’t help draw the truth from my deepest and most inner soul, you don’t even do a great job @ selling it. The #1 problem with DEF JAM is pretty simple and obvious, the executives think they are the stars. You aren’t…. not even close.
He was right.
Between 1994 and 2004, Nas released seven albums with Columbia Records - the last of which was a double LP interestingly enough. 2005 through 2018 saw five albums released with Def Jam - and that’s if you count the collaboration projects with Damian Marley (Distant Relatives) and Kanye West (NASIR). The Def Jam years clearly bearing the least amount of musical fruit while Nas transitioned from rapper to wildly successful venture capitalist.
Looking back at Nas’ time at Def Jam, it’s hard not to wonder ‘what if’ as a fan of his music. In thirteen years, the label managed to put out just three solo studio albums. Between two major labels, Nas released ten solo studio albums in 24 years between 1994 and 2018. Not terrible, but it’s a rate of production that doesn’t sniff what he has been able to accomplish since going independent. Under his own independent label called Mass Appeal, Nas has released four albums since August 2020.
Four studio albums in less than two and half years. A feat that took him twice as long to do with Columbia and something he didn’t actually accomplish in roughly a decade with Def Jam. One might think this surge in the quantity of content from Nas since going independent would lead to a reduction in quality. An admittedly subjective assessment but one that actually hasn’t been true to this point, in my view or according to Metacritic.
Columbia solo albums Metacritic average: 77*
*His first four Columbia releases don’t have Metacritic scores
Def Jam solo albums Metacritic average: 77
Mass Appeal solo albums Metacritic average: 81
If you value Grammy awards and nominations, it took going independent for Nas to finally win a Grammy in 2021 - 3 decades into his career, he finally wins his first Grammy for Best Rap Album, King’s Disease. The follow up album Kings Disease II failed to capture the Grammy in the same category despite being nominated again. How will 2022’s King’s Disease III fair? We can only guess. But it’s my personal favorite of the three and it doesn’t matter if he wins. And to be clear, he doesn’t seem care about Grammy awards either judging from his acceptance speech for his first one.
The man seemingly does it for himself and his fans. It doesn’t hurt that each of Nas’ four albums over the last two years have benefited from the kind of sonic cohesiveness that comes with having one producer working exclusively on the projects. I wish Nas and Hit-Boy hooked up 20 years ago…
Rap fan or not, it’s hard to not be impressed with the longevity on display by one of the genre’s giants; Nas is still at the top of his craft at 49 years old. It’s been incredible to watch his resurgence over the last 2 years when it looked like his rap career was close to over not too long ago.
Accountable To The End User
Going independent is about more than just not having a label or a corporate executive who controls your professional future. Stripped down, it’s about who you’re accountable to. I’d imagine it’s been a strange year for Anthony Pompliano, or Pomp as he’s known on the interwebs. Pomp is a content creator, investor, and Bitcoin advocate. He came on my radar near the beginning of lockdowns and I generally enjoy most of his work. Pomp is a good example of scaling an audience quickly with free platforms and then monetizing that audience with advertising.
It’s a great model when times are good but as we’ve learned, times aren’t necessarily good at the moment - certainly not in the investment world and it’s even worse in crypto. As things have taken a very negative turn in the last 8 months in crypto, we’ve seen numerous examples of bankruptcies from some companies that advertised heavily on finance-focused podcasts and Youtube shows; Voyager, FTX and BlockFi immediately come to mind. The latter of which was a frequent sponsor of Pomp’s podcast. Pomp was also an investor in BlockFi the business - that bankruptcy clearly hurting Anthony two different ways.
If the above video is to be believed, the crypto bloodbath has given Pomp an opportunity for self-reflection and an honest assessment of his business model. Cutting out ads is a big deal and I hope it works for him. Based off my back of the napkin math, his Youtube channel probably pulled in close to a quarter of a million last year. But that’s just a guess. Pomp is an independent creator. He’s his own boss. He’s also very smart and I’m sure he’ll figure out how to make it work. But it might take him a long time to get back to where he was from a revenue standpoint by going the route he’s going.
This gets us back to Nas’ pivot from major labels to being his own boss. He knew over a decade ago when he was sending internal heat to his boss that he didn’t ultimately need a label to be great. But there’s an elephant in the room… The major caveat to all of this; independence doesn’t necessarily equate to more earnings. It certainly could. For Nas, I think it probably is judging from his King’s Disease streams compared to the streams from his final Def Jam album Life is Good:
Life is Good: 66.8 million track streams, 15 tracks
King’s Disease: 107.8 million track streams, 13 tracks
When we factor in that Nas is in control of how the revenue from those King’s Disease streams go, something that almost certainly isn’t the case with the Def Jam albums, we can really start to see how going indie can be financially beneficial. It isn’t just about the money either. Going indie seems to be creatively beneficial as well, which probably also equates to more product integrity in the long run.
Going indie fosters a shift in accountability from executives or middle managers to the customer directly. At the end of the day it is the customer who decides if these models can work financially. And going indie as a creator doesn’t necessarily mean ads are out. But in Anthony Pompliano’s case, it’s difficult for me to see a no-ads path that doesn’t ultimately lead to paywalled material - again, an instance of being accountable to the end user.
Of course, we can’t all be famous YouTubers or platinum recording artists. But I think these principles apply to many small businesses as well; even the ones that require physical materials or services in a real life setting. The small business renaissance is just beginning. And it’s going to look a lot more direct to consumer than it has in recent memory.
Content happens to be the lowest hanging fruit for disruption - the internet inevitably eats it all. I can tell you one thing; I wouldn’t want to be a major record label, legacy novel publisher, or large media conglomerate. How this goes isn’t ultimately up to people like Pomp or Nas, though. It’s up to me. It’s up to you. Are we still cool with centralized behemoth companies run by suits and advertisers deciding what is appropriate for us? Or do we want to decide that for ourselves?
The future is peer to peer. And it’s never been easier or more obvious than it is today.