New Zealand Hip Hop and R&B Station Blows Up

In Auckland, New Zealand, with a highly saturated radio market, the wildly popular debut of hip hop and R&B station Flava 96one has captured everyone's attention.

Sub/Urban Fashion Items

I just ran into a reprint of this still relatively recent feature on Indianapolis based clothing chain Man Alive that built its current success on bringing urban fashions to the suburbs. This longer version gives some fascinating background on what appeared to be a questionable choice to emphasize hip hop related fashions and how that's paid off for this family owned chain.

However, the Man Alive feature failed to consider that Western wear may be the next big urban trend. For my part, I'm just waiting for Kanye West inspired fashions to hit my block.

Label Authorized Filesharing Stirring Discussion

The announcement that UMG, Sony BMG and the Warner Music Group have licensed their catalogs to Wurld Media for its Peer Impact service is another major event for developers of legal P2P filesharing.  Sony BMG also recently became the first major label to work with Mashboxx, a legal P2P service created by Grokster's Wayne Rosso using Snocap technology developed by Napster's Shawn Fanning.  UMI is also reported to have licensed its catalog directly to Snocap.  Both Peer Impact and Mashboxx should launch in 2005.

Apparently Wurld Media CEO Greg Kerber hopes that the community aspects of P2P and user interface "creature comforts" will allow legal filesharing services to compete with digital download stores that currently share the same pricing, have larger catalogs and are easier to use.  Although his comparison to EBay is unconvincing, it does suggest that digital download stores might strengthen their positions by emphasizing online community.

Attorney Fred Von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation also questions the viability of these new services and suggests an emphasis on services like Weed and Altnet that use established filesharing networks to distribute authorized files.  In an especially interesting series of discussion threads at Slashdot, the value proposition for the consumer of these new initiatives is thoroughly dissected.

Marketing Debacles in Sports and Hip Hop

An attempt by Florida Atlantic University to meet NCAA attendance requirements by having the Ying Yang Twins perform at a football game has been stopped short by closer study of the act's lyrical history. This situation is strongly illustrative of the difficulties of using hip hop when marketing to youth and young adults and suggests that closer study of past marketing victories featuring controversial rock artists might be in order.

In news of related failures in the nexus of sports, music and marketing, Ron Artest's new label's first release by R&B group Allure has been a nonstarter. Some news outlets are even reporting that Artest has released a rap album that did poorly and, as it turns out, when everybody was getting upset with Ron for wanting some time off to promote his new album, he meant the R&B release.

However, before sports reporters begin turning their keen powers of social analysis on brawlers like Bobby Brown or running corrections that simply replace "rap" with "r'n'b", I want to be the first to report the, largely unverifiable outside of this office, rumor that Artest was observed furtively ditching the packaging for the recently released deluxe collector's edition Black Sabbath boxed set. You know, the one that comes with a jewel-encrusted spinning dove's head.

P. Diddy Hit With Another Lawsuit

P. Diddy has apparently been hit with a lawsuit for allegedly participating in the beat down of a former intern. However, for some reason, this item is receiving little coverage at the moment.