Nelly Blames Label For Lackluster Album Sales

Top Stories | hiphopucit | November 30, 2010 at 1:39 pm

With 30 million albums sold to date, Nelly stands as one of the top selling hip-hop artist of all-time. However, his popularity has waned in the past three years and his record sales have suffered tremendously.

His latest effort, 5.0, was released on Nov. 16 and only sold 63,000 copies in the first week. Nelly’s 5.0 was trounced by Rihanna’s Loud, which sold 209,000 copies.

Nelly blamed his label, Universal/ Motown, for his pathetic album sales during a recent Twitter rant.

“A record deal is a 50/50 partnership!,” Nelly tweeted. “As a artist its your job to provide the record company with music that they [the record company] can sell! Thing about the partnership is that n the public eye the responsibility is not 50/50! the artist is always the 1who catches 90% of the blame

When a artist doesn’t deliver sufficient material [the artist] gets [their] budget cut for next album or worse dropped from the label!

So not only is the label ur partner but also disciplinarian and 90 percent of the time the one who decides if the partnership continues!

No doubt wen a artist doesn’t deliver a song that does crack top of the charts or even top10 the label is quick to say artist didn’t deliver

So intern the artist must bare [sic] the brunt of that failure and take responsibility and consequences as handed out by his or her label!!

So who fault is it when a artist gives the label not only a #1 hit but there first top40 #1 n label history! sell 2mill n singles n 2.5month

Who should be held responsible wen a artist has a history for selling records so its not like a new artist n no1 knows his r her name?

Benefit of the doubt: Maybe no1 wants to hear music from that artist?well if that was true then the artist would not have a #1 song!

Benefit of the doubt:Maybe no1is checking 4 the artist anymore? Well if that was true then how do u explain selling 2mill singles n 2.5month was.”

It’s obvious that an artist of Nelly’s caliber would feel frustration over a lack of album sales. But it’s important to understand the dynamics of hip-hop. The music genre thrives off of newness and youth culture. After a five-year span, most artists struggle to remain relevant and relatable to younger fans who account for the majority of album sales. Once fans have moved on, it’s important for hip-hop artists to continue to brand themselves in other markets such film, TV, radio and business endeavors that will allow them to maintain their lifestyle once fans lose interest.