Koch Records is becoming increasingly popular as a second home — or even a first home — for hip-hop artists, including Jim Jones.
By KELEFA SANNEH Published: February 27, 2007
B. G., the New Orleans rapper whose hit “Bling Bling” popularized the term, has a new album out today. Sort of. So does Slim Thug, the Houston rapper who helped Beyoncé top the pop charts last year. (He rapped on her No. 1 hit “Check on It.”) Again, sort of. Because neither of these new albums is really a new album.
Cam’ron, the rapper and current feuder-with-50 Cent.
B. G.’s new CD is “B. G. and the Chopper City Boyz: We Got This,” a mixtape-style compilation that gives him a chance to show off his protégés. Slim Thug’s new CD is “Slim Thug Presents Boss Hogg Outlawz: Serve and Collect”; it’s also a mixtape-style compilation. And though both B. G. and Slim Thug have major-label deals, these CDs are being released by Koch Records, the independent label that was once a hip-hop laughingstock. Now rappers are learning to consider Koch a second home, or even a first one.
Two years and a dozen feuds ago, 50 Cent gave an interview to Vibe magazine in which he attacked one of his foes, Fat Joe, by saying, “He’ll be on Koch when I’m done.” Later in the interview he famously said Koch was “the artist’s graveyard.” At the time, the insult seemed mean and funny, like most of 50 Cent’s insults. True, Koch was a successful and healthy corporation, but it wasn’t exactly a prestige brand.
Koch Entertainment, based in New York, began as a music distributor and became known for building lucrative relationships with small CD shops. In the 1990s Koch established itself as a scrappy and unpretentious record label with an unhip but steady-selling roster that ranged from budget-price reissues to children’s music. The label made a mint from Wiggles CDs and “Pokémon” soundtracks — more proof that in the music industry, the shameless shall inheritthe earth.
When it came to hip-hop, Koch wasknown for signing up major-label leftovers. For example, Koch rereleased “Rock City,” the doomed major-label debut by the once-promising Detroit rapper — and former Eminem friend — Royce da 5’9”. And in 2004, when the members of Goodie Mob tried to persevere without their de facto frontman, Koch Records released their uneagerly anticipated fourth album, “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show.”
As 50 Cent surely knew, Koch Records was also the home of two of his friends-turned-foes from Queens, Bang ’Em & Domination, who made their much-ignored Koch debut in 2005. That same year, 50 Cent’s label, G Unit, which is distributed by Interscope, was reliably selling millions of copies of every release. No wonder he was sneering at Koch, with its scant promotional budgets and small-scale aspirations.
Earlier this month, 50 Cent repeated his claim while being interviewed by Angie Martinez on the New York hip-hop radio station Hot 97. “Koch is the graveyard,” he said, adding, “That’s where you go when the majors don’t want you any more.”
But it has grown much harder to laugh at Koch, and even 50 Cent has to acknowledge it. In the last few months, the Harlem rapper Jim Jones, a member of Cam’ron’s crew, the Diplomats (also called DipSet), has sold more than 400,000 copies of “Hustler’s P.O.M.E.,” his third solo album for Koch. Sales have been driven by the hit “We Fly High.” As 50 Cent told Ms. Martinez on the air, a few breaths after insulting Koch, “Jimmy did something that’s phenomenal.”
Then things got strange on the show. Koch’s general manager, Alan Grunblatt, foolishly got on the phone, then wisely passed it to Cam’ron, who pointed out something that 50 Cent already knew: that the new Jim Jones CD had outsold two recent G Unit releases, Mobb Deep’s “Blood Money” and Lloyd Banks’s “Rotten Apple.” (50 Cent tried to change the subject: “But Lloyd Banks has more money than Jim Jones.”)
Cam’ron also pointed out that Prodigy from Mobb Deep had just signed a side deal with Koch — a deal that required 50 Cent’s approval. Needless to say, this discussion of sales figures and contract clauses was the beginning of something bigger: 50 Cent and Cam’ron were officially feuding within a week.
The feud began in earnest with the release of 50 Cent’s song and video “Funeral Music,” which quickly became a YouTube favorite. 50 Cent snarled, “Cam, are you clear what you facin’?”, but the song was generally devoid of boasts about record sales, which were once a big part of 50 Cent’s insult arsenal. In fact, the cleverest taunt was a twisted salute to Jim Jones’s success: near the end, 50 Cent says, “From now on, Jimmy’s the boss of DipSet.”
Cam’ron’s reply to 50 Cent, “Curtis,” also available on YouTube, is denser and funnier, full of tricky rhymes and silly allusions. (The winning couplet: “Have a seat, this gon’ be a masterpiece/I have to beef — he look like a gorilla with rabbit teeth.”)
Oddly enough, Cam’ron — whose only million-selling album was released in 2002 — is the one who wants to talk numbers: “Juelz 800, Jim 400.” (That’s Juelz Santana, who records for Def Jam.) And he gleefully rehashes G Unit’s recent sales history: “Banks bricked, Mobb bricked, Buck” — Young Buck — “ain’t been out for three years.”
During a spoken interlude at the end, he dredges up that famous phrase once again: “Talkin’ bout Koch a graveyard? You just signed off for Prodigy to go there.”
As record sales keep sliding, the rise of Koch coincides with the lowering of rappers’ expectations. Five years ago, no self-respecting rapper — certainly no self-respecting New York rapper — would ever have bragged about selling 400,000 records. But if you’re not going to sell a million CDs with a major label, you may well be better off at Koch, accepting a lower recording and promotional budget in exchange for a higher royalty rate. That’s why rappers are so ambivalent about Koch: signing there means giving up the dream of pop stardom, or, at any rate, deferring it.
Discussing a possible move to Koch (during 50 Cent’s recent Hot 97 interview with Ms. Martinez), the streetwise Yonkers veteran Styles P said he knew he couldn’t expect to sell 5 or 10 million CDs. “So long as I’m decent and I’m making a little something,” he said, “I don’t need to have the six cars in my lot.”
Koch clearly isn’t a hip-hop “graveyard” any more, if it ever was. The undercelebrated veterans in Bone Thugs-n-Harmony released a pretty dull Koch CD last year, “Thug Stories,” but it was only a warm-up for “Strength & Loyalty,” their Interscope debut, due in April. (The marvelous first single is “I Tried,” a sweet and melancholy collaboration with Akon.) And after three solid Koch CDs, B. G. earned himself a new contract with Atlantic Records; here’s hoping they know what to do with him.
Of course some rappers, like Prodigy, are realizing that they don’t have to choose; major labels sometimes allow rappers to release their mixtape-style side projects on Koch, on the assumption that these CDs won’t detract from proper album sales. (For example, Prodigy plans to release a Koch mixtape, with the producer Alchemist, followed by “H.N.I.C. 2,” his proper second solo album, also on Koch.) And now that the major labels are cracking down on illegal mixtapes, Koch’s lawyer-approved approach may seem more attractive than ever.
If the industry were healthier, people might be wondering whether Koch might start acting like a real major label; in the current climate, people are wondering whether the major labels will find themselves emulating Koch’s business model. No doubt rappers, and major-label executives, will be watching closely, to see whether Koch’s bare-bones, low-overhead, niche-friendly approach can stay profitable. And what would scare them more: watching Koch stumble or watching it succeed?
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