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 You Are A Target:
Youth Market
article
0089 added
17.01.05 words Chris Byrne
technical:
QED
 “The clothes you wear don’t make you
Hip Hop”.
– Diversion Tactics ‘Geograffiti’
Be warned: the following people also own(ed) marketing companies:
- P Diddy = Blue Flame Marketing and Advertising (clients include: Bacardi, Bentley-Rolls Royce, R.J. Reynolds, Pepsi etc).
- Steve Stoute: ex-Vice-President of Black Music at Interscope Records (Eminem etc) = PASS (clients include Reebok, Davidoff etc).
- Russell Simmons: Ex-owner now chairman of Def Jam records (Ludacris etc), ex-owner of Phat Farm clothes etc = dRush Advertising (now defunct – clients included Coca-Cola, Bud Light etc).
- Steve Rifkind: He founded the Steven Rifkind Company (SRC) in 89 clients as Nike, Pepsi, HBO, Rolling Stone Magazine and Levis before founding Loud Records in 92 with artists such as Wu Tang etc. His family’s label Spring Records released the Fatback Band’s ‘King Tim III’, acknowledged as the first hip hop record.= Rifkind invented the concept of ‘street team’ and trademarked the term. Rifkind signed a deal with Universal in 03 to form the Street Records Corporation, with artists such as David Banner.
 James Sullivan writes on dailycamera.com, “Brand marketing in pop music extends all the way back to the days of sheet music, when piano manufacturer Steinway renamed songs to include the company name. Budweiser… was featured in a popular song in
1903”.
On the first rap hit single, ‘Rappers’ Delight’ in 1979, the Sugarhill Gang told the world about their "Lincoln Continental and sunroof Cadillac". Run DMC on their third album in 1986 had a song called ‘My Adidas’, about their favorite trainers which they had been urged to make by Russell Simmons (Run’s brother and the group’s manager). They had a concert at New York’s Madison Square Gardens as part of a tour to promote the album. At one point during the show, Run stopped the music and asked everyone to take off a shoe and raise it to the ceiling, which the crowd proceeded to do. Simmons had invited Adidas executives to the show. Simmons soon after discussed an endorsement contract with executives. Run-D.M.C. received $1.5 million to endorse the brand, including a line of Run-DMC trainers.
On their debut album Run DMC said in ‘Rock Box’, "…Calvin Klein’s no
friend of mine / Don't want nobody's name on my behind / Lee on my legs,
sneakers on my feet”. The brand ‘dis’ has been around for a long time as
well.
Back in 1995 ‘the teacher’ KRS-One courted controversy by appearing in a televised Nike ad that found him “updating” the lyrics to Gil Scott-Heron's black nationalist anthem ‘The Revolution Will Not be Televised’. KRS changed Gil's final couplet from, "The revolution will not be televised / The revolution will be live" to "The revolution is basketball. Basketball is the truth." He was also joined by Large Professor for some Sprite ads!? In 1998 Fat Joe, Goodie Mob, Common, Mack 10, Afrika Bambaataa and Jazzy Jay (two founding fathers of hip hop – Bam being arguably the figurehead of the culture) all did a Sprite ad. Scott-Heron’s song reminded us, “The revolution will not go better with Coke”…
Lil’ Kim's single ‘The Jump Off’’ references 14 different brands – 6 in the chorus alone! Foxy Brown’s song ‘Stylin' namechecks 9 brands. R.Kelly mentions 5 brands in his 2003 UK Number One “Ignition Remix”. The champagne Cristal is as common as the word ‘the’ in modern hip-hop it seems! In 2 consecutive UK singles (‘In Da Club’ and ’21 Questions”) 50 Cent mentioned the same brand of car. It was also in the lyrics of the following single by Fiddy: ‘P.I.M.P’ – one verse mentions 7 brands (surely a world record) and 12 in total! This is the same car name-checked by NWA back in the 80’s– it can be argued there is an element of the use of aspirational status symbols in this murky business – the impoverished reaching out for American Dreams.
Jay Z’s lyrics can resemble a shopping list of luxury brands: Nike, Belvedere, Versace, Chloe, Range Rover, Filthmart, Rolex, Mercedes-Benz etc. His product placement / namecheck of “Motorola - two-way page me" in his ‘I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)’ has been widely reported as being organised by Steve Stoute. Both Cohiba cigars (Jay had appeared in an advertising campaign with their rivals Davidoff last year!) and Rémy Martin cognac are sponsoring areas in the New York club he co-owns (named 40/40) which opened in 2003 .
Jay Z namechecks his clothing line in ‘All I Need’, “My Rocawear is fittin' incredible...” – have you seen the shoddy stuff? Rocafella Records at the end of 2002 also bought the Armadale vodka company (also namechecked in ‘All I Need’ surprisingly). Commenting on the purchase, Joseph Califano, chairman of the National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse in New York (quoted in the Wall Street Journal) said,
"It's corporate synergy spelled s-i-n. These guys have a level of influence on teenagers that is second only to parents and schools".
Xzibit said on villagevoice.com,
“You listen to a Jay-Z record and it's damn near a commercial .He talks about every brand of alcohol and every kind of clothes. There's nothing wrong with that. But I'm not gonna be a fucking billboard for corporate America."
 It’s now thought that people are more media-literate and thus advertising has to be more subtle: hence the rise of product placement. In the late 1980s/ early 90’s the St. Ides Brewing Company hired artists such as Snoop Dogg, EPMD, and the Geto Boys to write and produce one-minute radio and TV spots promoting malt beer. Bushwick Bill of the Geto Boys had lost an eye in an alcohol-related accident less than a year before making his ad. In one ad Ice Cube suggests, "Get your girl in the mood quicker / Get your jimmy (penis) thicker/With St. Ides malt liquor".
Even the underground is savvy. Whoo Kid, a New York DJ who hosts several mix tapes including 50 Cent's, uses product placement to get sponsors. He charges $10-20,000 for a commercial with such brands as Bacardi and Reebok for artists to hold Courvoisier and freestyle. “I'm more into the marketing of music, the promotions” he said on mercurynews.com. “The only thing I want to cut is checks.” Common has advertised Coke, Rakim has advertised Hennessey, the Roots have done spots for Volkswagen, Coca-Cola, and Sean John…
It is thought that (member of the ‘Black Muslim’ Five Percent Nation) Busta Rhymes and P Diddy’s 2002 hit, ‘Pass the Courvoisier’ (cognac) is an example of a product endorsement that has changed the way deals are done. It mentions the brand-name 4 times in each chorus and a bottle is seen around 30 times in the video. Busta's management has said that his massive hit about cognac was merely an artistic choice, but it also helped Courvoisier's parent company, France's Allied Domecq, achieve a double-digit increase in U.S. sales. Domecq later reached a promotional deal with Busta's management company, Violator. In 2000, Allied Domecq signed a deal with Russell Simmon’s dRush advertising agency to update Courvoisier’s image… a coincidence? Drush is now in theory defunct but there was a party held in May 04 in London by Simmons to promote Courvoisier and Phat Farm with Def Jam staff deejaying … hmm!
Just a quick search on the net reveals P. Diddy has name-checked his own clothing line in at least 8 separate songs and collaborations! Interestingly, the brand appears on the original but not the remixed version of “Pass The …” – maybe they didn’t want the message diluted? Also at least 7 other artists (only one of which was on his label) have mentioned Diddy’s clothing brand-name in their lyrics…
Associating a brand with hip hop can carry ‘risks’. In 2003, Bill O’Reilly, Fox News television presenter in America condemned Pepsi for having a commercial featuring Ludacris, who he said “degrades women, encourages substance abuse and does all the things that hurt particularly the poor and our society”. Bart Casabona, Pepsi spokesman said on mercurynews.com,
“A number of consumers contacted the company and were uncomfortable with the association with the artist, primarily due to the content of his lyrics.'' He added that Pepsi, “…is still 100 percent committed to multicultural marketing…'' Ludacris was dropped in favour of the wholesome Osbornes!
The U.K’s Big Brovaz murdered Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Favourite Things’ recently with fantastic production and crass ‘updated’ lyrics, which to me reek of desperate materialism,
“I'm crazy bout Bentley's / Gucci dresses and drop-top Kompressors”.
We are aping the U.S…
Some hip-hop artists have taken the name of products e.g. Timbalaand taking the name of Timberland outdoor wear. This brand’s boots is associated with ‘keeping it real’,
“You used to wear Timbs, now yo’ ass is in tights”
(from ‘Industry is Wak’ by Kool Keith and Tim Dog).
 In 2003 Timbaland’s video with Ms. Jade for the song "Ching Ching", they drive down the road in Hummer H2 trucks. It was reported by Jeff Leeds on latimes.com that with the trucks came a $300,000 cheque to cover most of the video's production costs. In addition to the product placement, the Hummer is promoted on Ms. Jade's website. MTV (in theory) forbids advertising in videos, but seems to have let ad-supported videos by acts such as Tweet and Dirty Vegas slip by…
In 2003 editions of both Undercover and RWD magazine there were what looked like ‘advertorials’ (advertisement designed to resemble editorial content) for ECKO ‘urban’ clothes: you could tell by the fact there was a car with an ECKO logo on it in the Undercover spread! This seemed to be the well-known practice of PR companies giving free content to mags. Anybody seen the Sky TV ad last year with Elton John in an ECKO top? ‘Played out’ a loooong time ago along with Victoria Spice’s Rocawear…
In 1988, the singer Neil Young wrote a song called, "This Note's for You":
”Ain't singin' for Pepsi / Ain't singin' for Coke / I don't sing for nobody / Makes me look like a joke”
Ms. Dynamite is (depressingly) the new face of Pepsi. Pop group Chumbawamba seem to have the right idea to me when it comes to advertisers using their music: they give the money to activist groups.
I suppose for me it boils down to: does the artist ‘need’ the money? Russell Simmons is quoted on salon.com as saying,
"With my first act in '79, people said hip-hop was dead. Now … 20 years later, the culture is so strong we're doing underwear."
Incidentally, The Pope’s visit to Spain last year was sponsored by McDonalds, according to the Guardian Newspaper…
Anyone seen the Macintosh I-Pods MP3 players in relatively recent Obie Trice, D12, Mary J and Fiddy videos? They are all Universal Records artists. Product placement or status symbols? The spinning Motorola phone at the beginning of the ‘conscious’ (Justin Offensive collaborators) Black Eyed Peas video for ‘Let’s Get It Started’? Fucking blatant.
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Chris Byrne
 Related
Links:
Suggested Further Reading:
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‘No Logo’ by Naomi Klein (Flamingo)
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‘Branded’ by Alissa Quart (Arrow) has an interesting section on the use of teen ‘street teams’
 
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© ukhh.com 2005