Didn't see this posted anywhere. Thought it was a long, but interesting read.
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Sat Jan 6, 2007 3:22am ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Some music merchandisers are alarmed by an accelerated decline in R&B sales -- the broad category that also includes rap and hip-hop, Billboard magazine reports.

With the exception of new age, the smallest genre tracked by Nielsen SoundScan, R&B and rap suffered the biggest declines in 2006 of all styles of music.

R&B, with album scans of 117 million units, was down 18.4% from 2005, while the rap subgenre's 59.5 million scans were down 20.7%. Total U.S. album sales fell 4.9% to 588.2 million units.

Since 2000, total album sales have slid 25%, but R&B is down 41.4% and rap down 44.4%. In 2000, R&B accounted for 25.4% of total album sales, and rap 13.6%. In 2006, their respective shares fell to nearly 20% and 10%.

Looking for specific causes, merchants attribute hip-hop and rap albums' accelerating decline to their increasingly short life span.

"Rap used to be the flavor of the month, and then it became the flavor of the week and then the day, and now it's the flavor of the moment," says Hinsul Lazo, owner of Miami-based H.L. Distributors.

Merchants point to large second-week declines in new albums. For example, Jay-Z's 2006 "Kingdom Come" album debuted with 680,000 units in its first week and then dropped nearly 80%, to almost 140,000 units.

In general, "rap sales are really changing course," one senior distribution executive says. "If you look at the second-week drop-off, it used to be 50% and now it is 70%."

Retailers and executives say they believe that CD burning is a growing phenomenon in the rap/hip-hop community.

"Downloading and Internet file sharing is a problem and the labels are really late in fixing it," Czar Entertainment CEO and manager of the Game Jimmy Rosemond says. "With an artist like Game, his album leaked before it came out, and I had 4 million people downloading it."

Meanwhile, the head of an independent label that issues rap suggests that labels' changing approaches to promoting hip-hop are cutting into sales as well.

"Rap is becoming a very difficult genre to make a profit in because marketing costs have become increasingly expensive," that executive says. "With the shortened life span of rap albums, we now see albums only do three or four times first-week sales during the life of a project, where it used to be five times. That subtle shift can mean all the difference."

In 2006, the best-selling rap album was T.I.'s "King," which sold 1.6 million copies, while the best-selling R&B album was Beyonce's "B'Day," which moved 1.8 million units. But those are exceptions. Between eroding profits and the shorter life span, most labels no longer push a second single from a rap project, the independent label head says.

"We need to go back to 10 years ago," adds Coach K, the manager of Young Jeezy. "These labels are signing way too many people without developing them."

Digital distribution may be cutting into album sales as well. Between "ringtones and downloads, people don't have to buy the whole album anymore -- just the music they want," says Troy Marshall, VP of rap promotion at Interscope.

Earlier this year, Sony BMG reported that some of its acts are drawing most of their revenue from ringtone, track and song bundle sales. In the case of Jive Records rapper T-Pain, 43% of revenue came from ringtones alone.
A senior executive at one major label says ringtone revenue now exceeds track download revenue. And since Nielsen RingScan started tracking master ringtones in September, rap and R&B have comprised 87% of scans generated by the top 10 sellers.

Interscope's Marshall points out that Jibbs, for example, "has sold an incredible 1.4 million ringtones" -- a figure that might well offset lost album revenue. The rapper has moved 196,000 units of his "Jibbs Feat. Jibbs" album since its October 24 release. But figuring the ringtones he's sold at $2 apiece translates into $2.8 million in revenue, the equivalent of another 233,000 albums at a wholesale cost of $12 per unit.

And, Marshall adds, Chamillionaire has moved more than 3 million ringtones on top of scanning nearly 900,000 units of his "Sound of Revenge" album.

"That's probably one of the biggest success stories the industry has seen," Marshall says. "Consumers are buying into him as a brand. It's more than just about the album."

A senior distribution executive, while acknowledging that R&B and rap are currently in decline, reminds that music trends are cyclical. For instance, while country was hot for most of the '90s, he says, it then fell out of favor and is now back in vogue again. Indeed, country music is up 9.3% since 2000.

Reuters/Billboard

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.

http://today.reuters.com/...ticlePage2

bellanoche said:

The funniest thing in the article is the quote from Young Jeezy's manager, about how Labels sign too many artists without developing them. If he looked at that statement he'd realize that a Young Jeezy would never be signed, he's benefited from that. And Rappers like Eminem, Jay z and others who have basically used their fame and brought more no talents to the genre have only furthered the problem. But its very simple, Labels need real people who give a crap about music working their, if its all gonna be about debuting at Number 1 and Week 1 sales then as Prince would say "that is a Web, and you cant get out of that".

Great news.

BlaqueKnight said:

I agree with the fact that Marketing RB and Rap together is an insult to a certain degree, but there is alot of blame to be taken by alot of RB artists who have used guest rappers to sell. But at the same time like any other genre, there is a shit level, the problem is RB and Rap being the bigger sellers were mainly targeting a young crowd, and when i say young im talking teens, not 25-35. Teens are not a good target audience, especially over the last 5 years or so, with so many other medias coming along,. An even bigger issue is that alot RB and almost all Rap artists have to bring in the money buy selling Cd's, a major % dont tour or dont have the audience that will go see them at a show. I read the other day where Singer JEWEL her latest cd brought in about 200,000 or so since its release, which a label will obviously look down on, but she has toured and played about 50 shows which have grossed her and the label close to a million or so. So it is still really about developing an artist, RB seriously needs to get its act together, there needs to be a label or some kind of movement that will push a Van Hunt or Raphael Sadiq or Rashaan Patterson or Teedra Moses, instead of letting them fall through the cracks. If labels keep looking for the "next big thing" or "whats going to debut at one" then its all going to come to an end.

And to also add, PRINCE saw all this shit coming a long time ago, and no one rallied behind, basically they called him crazy and kept feeding the problem. PRINCE's speech at the Brit Hall of Fame said it best, "Consolidation" of music has led to its demise. The fact is that U will never again have things happen like they used too, the freedom is gone. A dj or VJ is nothing more than a puppet at this point, the fact that in the 70's and 80's u could hear Hall and Oates, Earth Wind and Fire, Fleetwood Mac, Michael Jackson,Prince and Madonna on the same station showed a Freedom that doesnt exist anymore. As people we may think we have all merged together, but we live in a world of nothing but division, from politics, to the work place, to tv, to movies to radio, we all have never been so far apart.

See this thread over here http://www.prince.org/msg/8/213506