Quenching the Thirst: Giving the Fans What They Want, When They Want It

I know some of y'all must've been wondering what happened to me these past few months. I put this column on pause because I've been busy working and getting out new music like I'm supposed to. I've been producing on the latest albums by Usher, Mariah, Nelly and all my new artists, running Island So So Def, and putting together a deal for a brand new label, Tag Records. On top of all that I've been continuing the campus tour to talk about my book: "Young, Rich and
Dangerous: The Making of a Music Mogul."

But most of all I've been thinking hard about some of the things you've said right here on this blog, and what the kids in my lectures on the music business at Wharton and New York University have been telling me.

I heard y'all say how much more aggressive record companies should be in making full use of all that the Internet has to offer. We need to build websites that feel like blog sites for our artists and do more to utilize platforms like MySpace and YouTube to their fullest capacity. I had one student at NYU's Clive Davis School ask why are record companies' websites the worst of any industry in representing their products. I agreed with him. Our own web sites should be leading the way in the digital space. But they're not.

For starters, the term "New Media" needs to be changed. Labels tend to hand off all that's digital to these departments, and deal with regular magazines like Vibe separately. But that's the wrong kind of thinking. The Internet's not new. This stuff should be integrated. It's all one media, and these days the digital space is way more powerful than outlets like print and television

Besides that, we need to rethink our whole approach to promoting artists. I have something up my sleeve that's going to put all this into play with a new artist I signed. But first, let me tell you how it all came together...

Late last summer someone told me to check out this girl out on YouTube named Phatfffat. She was sitting in her room in Dallas singing covers of other people's R&B songs. That didn't interest me and I was skeptical, but something told me jus' check it out.

First it was 250,000 views, then it was 500,000, then 900,000! I couldn't believe it. She had thousands of messages from kids who were fans. I thought, "What the fuck is this?" I figured someone had faking the view count, so I checked out her videos and yeah, she was the goods.

The whole thing hit me the way it did when I discovered Bow Wow and Da Brat. When I signed Brat I wasn't even interested in female rappers. When Bow Wow came along I knew it had been 10 years since Kris Kross and the world was waiting on another. They each had something so different and so compelling that I knew with these artists I could create my own lane and make history in the music business. I have the same feeling with Phatfffat.

This lil' girl — who's called Phatfffat because she can kill a 12-slice pizza in minutes — has something no other artist I've developed from scratch has ever had: a built in fan-base of close to a million kids. This is something I need to jump on NOW. With this artist I can harness the power of her presence in the digital world and turn how the music industry operates on its head.

Every day for the past month I've been filming what we're doing at my studio and posting it on my YouTube channel, JD1472, so that her fans can be involved in the making of her first album (in stores July 29). They're hearing the songs as she's recording them and they are letting us know how much they like the records by doing their own covers and posting them on their own YouTube accounts. Thousands of kids are blogging from all over the world, telling us how much they love Dondria a.k.a Phatfffat.

To give you some idea of how real and how intense this love for her has been, me, Johnte Austin and Dondria were having a lil' exchange over what she should be called: Phatfffat - her YouTube nickname - or Dondria, her real name (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9uHEPpsmF0). I wanted Phatfffat, because that's how thousands of kids already know her. Dondria wanted Dondria, coz she didn't want people calling her Phatfffat when she's 70-years old. I posted a YouTube video showing our debate, and told the kids they had three hours to write in and let us know which name they preferred.

We had 5,000 people post comments. Fans from London wrote in, telling us not to forget about them in England when the album dropped. And by the way, it was Dondria, hands down! That won the debate.

Now as you probably know, the traditional way of releasing an album by a new artist, or any artist, is to put out a single, test the reaction of the audience, see how many spins it gets on radio, then drop the album. We in the music industry have basically been trying to make fans learn who the artist is and listen to their music all at the same time. And it's not working.

But with an artist like Dondria I don't have to worry about that. I see her fans and I know what her numbers are. If I can get just 10% of those fans to support her and buy her music, everything changes.

The fans are getting the whole album in two months I'm giving them access to the entire process of making the album. We're showing everybody how we get down in the studio. I'm posting raw, uncut video on YouTube that keeps the audience involved in her life and expands on what she already started. The people who follow her are investing their time and sending messages and feedback on the music by the thousands. They care about what she does next.

That's why her album has to drop as soon as possible. When a person is thirsty, you don't give him water two weeks after the thirst hits. Her fans are thirsty for Dondria's music now. They want to buy it now. These days in music, when something's hot you have to seize the moment, or it's over. It's all happening at warp speed, and it's our job as label executives to keep up.

What I want to know is, how many of you understand my thirst theory? Do you believe that this is the direction record companies should be taking, with new artists or any artists?

Hit me back and let me know. Over the next few days I'll be watching this space for your answers.

Jermaine Dupri, who was named the most successful R&B producer of all time by the Guinness World Records 2007, is a Grammy-award winning music producer, president of Island Urban Records and author of Young, Rich and Dangerous: The Making of a Music Mogul (Atria, October 2007). For more information about this blogger, click here.

Comments

[mydemos]

Jermaine, cool to see your interest in blogging. But guess what, what are you waiting for in order to crack us up something "politico"?
We are waiting? You need to follow the trend.

[sesshoumaru]

Its interesting however somewhat short sighted. What the industry is missing is the not just your thrust theory but the the balance between supply and demand. You and I can both and think back to the early days of hip hop. When people were very thirsty they could only get a drink of hip hop late at night or on the weekends. It was special. That no longer is the case. Although I applaud your success, hip hop moguls such as yourself have gotten away from the organic nature of music and hip hop. While the industry is just now considering how best to make use of Myspace and Youtube, there are already other ways and means of connecting to fans beyond those two methods. The music industry is in a state of oversupply of product that the people do NOT connect directly too. The days of "promoting" artist through normal channels are OVER! For every artist you sign that is polished to "industry standards", the people will seek, find, and rave over material found on NG's, BT's U's and Youtube.

Radio cannot compete with Youtube. Radio has PD's as filters while Youtube is limited by ones curiosity. 900,000 views and comments from a person who the industry would ignore if that same material where on radio. Personally Im glad to hear that you're thinking outside of the box (peace to L-Roc and NOI.D)

[MetryJen]

I think it's a great idea, but I'm curious how you're going to handle the fact that almost nobody buys actual CDs anymore. Will you allow fans to download and pay per track on her site? I think most record companies have seriously missed the boat on this one. In the iPOD era, people want things to be personalizable and portable, and paying $19.99 just to get the music pressed is way more than most of us care about.

Also, its difficult to even find new music for most of us, so if ya'll can figure out a better way to get the word out, that would help.

[rektruax]

While I know you're right MetryJen, I'm an older guy who really misses the artwork LP's and even CD's came with sometimes. Nearly as much work and creativity used to go into the packaging of recorded material. It was a whole other creative industry working symbiotically with the record companies.

[kerrej]

Jermaine,

The record company has been using outdated marketing to audience that has long changed.

We've been yelling and screeming about how things should be markets, packaged and sold, but it was all on death ears.

Artist websites have ALWAYS failed to do what they should and that is to jam pack with information about the artist. Create a two-communication channel with the fans. Many artist don't even make the time to sign on, say hello. nothing. Just dead sites.

Getting the fans involved in the marketing process I think is a great model. Listen to what the fans, the customers want and you will have a hit! People wont want to download illegally because of their loyalty to the artist, and the record companies who has been giving them what they want.

Great article.

[AJK]

I agree - it's great too see that some people (namely influential ones in the dinosaur music industry) are thinking modernly - but I for one still enjoy buying CD's which is the case with most music-heads. I appreciate the cover artwork, reading the production credits etc.

I previously worked for a large media company that had many covert/cross-market branding initiatives that were executed purely through online mediums . Everything from a branded blog, to an online magazine, to its own Youtube-esque website - all with their respective content constantly updated. All of these methods translated into traffic and ultimately ensuring brand awareness within the targeted demographic.

That being said, if a similar approach to detail and interactivity was taken with marketing an artist (which in a sense is a branding campaign), I can't see anything but positive results from that - and you seem to have your head wrapped around this concept quite well JD...and you're right, it's not "new media" its "THE media".

In the end, for me its all about the music, but thats a bit of a utopian approach - after all, it is the Music *business*.

Congrats on finding Dondria, she's very talented. Looking forward to the new train of thought you're bringing to the music industry.

Peace
AJK

[jgaines7]

HuffPost's Pick

While you can't beat the portability of digital music, I find that having the actual CD is best because they're more durable than computer hard drives. I made the stupid mistake of selling all my CD's, after storing the music from them on my computer. I shouldn't have done that because my hard drive crashed, and all that music was gone. I've thought about external hard drives, but I've learned from friends that they can fail, or degrade your files over time.
Also, I agree with rektruax - the creativity that went into packaging the music would be sorely missed. Not only is there less artwork, when you download music from the internet (myself, I use iTunes), there's also no information with the songs - no lyrics, no thank you's, not even a list of credits.
So, I think music lovers need both. We need the music industry to use the internet to provide us digital music and videos, and information about our favorite artists. But, don't give up on the CD. You can't beat the durability. I found out the hard way.