IN some ways, these are good days to be a rap veteran. Flavor Flav, Ice-T and Rev Run, of Run-D.M.C., are each starring in reality shows. This fall, VH1 saluted some of the pioneers of the genre on its annual “VH1 Honors” telecast.
But praise and other rewards aren’t always available. Over Thanksgiving weekend, the longtime rap D.J. AJ Scratch held his third annual dinner and party for old-school rappers and D.J.’s, at a sports bar in the Bronx. For Scratch, a former associate of Kurtis Blow who co-wrote Mr. Blow’s hit “If I Ruled the World” in 1985, the aim was twofold: to salute those who started the music (guests at this year’s event included the turntable legends Kool Herc, DJ Red Alert and Grandmaster Theodore) and to help Scratch make a living. The $20 admission went to his AJ Productions.
Scratch, 48, said his royalty checks (even from the song on which Nas sampled him) amounted to only “a couple of hundred dollars” every six months. “My publishing income isn’t that big,” he said. “So I find ways to stay afloat. If I pack the house, I get a reward.”
On one hand, hip-hop remains a dominant cultural and business force. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, major rap acts like Jay-Z, the Game, Nas, Akon and Young Jeezy have released or will release new albums. The major labels increasingly count on such CDs, which can sell hundreds of thousands of copies each in their first week on the market, to bolster end-of-year profits.
Yet as Scratch and others have seen, plaudits for hip-hop legends have not translated into profits. Sales of vintage rap discs are sluggish or nonexistent. For the week ending Nov. 12, accordingto Nielsen SoundScan, Public Enemy’s landmark 1988 album “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” sold 400 copies. LL Cool J’s 1987 album “Bigger and Deffer” (home of one of his biggest hits, “I Need Love”) sold half that amount. Run-D.M.C.’s “Raising Hell,” which includes the group’s groundbreaking collaboration with Aerosmith on a remake of “Walk This Way,” moved only 100 units.
Among the exceptions are the Beastie Boys’ “Licensed to Ill,” another period touchstone that continues to sell several hundred thousand copies a year. And Bill Gagnon, a vice president of catalog sales for EMI, says the label expects to sell as many as 200,000 copies of a forthcoming anthology of the gangsta rap pioneers N.W.A.
Yet in general, the founders of rock, like Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan, fare better in stores than the founders of rap. Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” still moves nearly 10,000 copies a week.
Jim Parham, senior director of marketing at Sony BMG, said reissues of some hip-hop albums sell better than jazz, classical and “old-time” country acts like Bob Wills. Yet he admitted that the audience for the label’s recent compilation of Whodini is largely “white, suburban college-age kids” rediscovering an era when hip-hop, R&B and dance music first merged.
The situation has left some in the rap business bewildered or miffed. “With rock fans who are over 45, their kids are going into their record collections and pulling out Dylan and Procol Harum,” said Darryl McDaniels, D.M.C. of Run-D.M.C. “We’re not at that point yet.”
Bill Stephney, a former Def Jam executive and producer, said he believed there was “clearly a market” for vintage hip-hop, but added: “There’s a terrible disconnect on the executive level in terms of exploiting this music in the market. They just don’t think about it.” Mr. Stephney said that last year he attempted to produce a 20th-anniversary Def Jam reunion concert that would feature both vintage and current rap acts, but abandoned the idea for a lack of industry support.
“Hip-hop doesn’t promote its history,” Mr. McDaniels said. “Mick Jagger and Keith Richards will talk about Little Richard or Howlin’ Wolf. A lot of rappers now will cite Rakim, but they don’t promote him. People in the industry don’t want people to be focused on anything other than what is going on right now.”
The wobbly sales of classic rap records of the ’80s also do not bode well for the artists’ future income. On the topic of royalties, Mr. McDaniels said: “I do fairly well. I get a check every now and then. But I can’t live off it.” The use of samples, which requires rappers to split royalties with the composers of the sampled song, further cuts into profits. Mr. McDaniels called the situation “a nightmare.”
Mr. Stephney said record and publishing contracts signed by rappers of the ’80s — before the rise of impresarios like Sean Combs — were “never at the level of exploitation” of R&B stars of the ’50s and ’60s. But, he added: “I don’t think artists from the early days of hip-hop were as business-savvy as the post-Puffy generation. And some of them were not as savvy because that would require a level of responsibility that some of these guys refuse to engage in.”
Although Mr. McDaniels remains frustrated with the low sales profile of classic hip-hop, he said he felt that would eventually change. “Give it five more years,” he said. “Everything else comes and goes. But they’ll talk about us forever.”
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