Patrick Hanlon is the founder and CEO of Thinktopia and author of Primal Branding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future which was recently featured as as one of the ten books to read for a “crash course” in marketing/branding in Britain’s Drum magazine. He is an idea engineer who’s company is dedicated to building communities around brands. In his book he talks about how the brands we care about have belief systems and that it is when you have a well-structured belief system and a leader that you have created a tribe.

Primal Branding asserts that brands that we care about are belief systems, embedded with seven pieces of primal code (the creation story; the creed; the icons; the rituals; the pagans, or nonbelievers; the sacred words; and the leader) that work together to make them believable.  This attracts people who share your beliefs, which becomes community. Those communities can surround product, services, personalities, movement, even cities and towns.

Q: What other pieces were under consideration at the time?  Have other pieces branched off or been added since then?

Hanlon: I was working in my garden in Connecticut, imagining that great brands like Nike, Lego, Apple, and others all had something else going for them other than advertising. As a matter of fact, brands like Google and Starbucks didn’t even advertise (at that time). Yet it was obvious that everyone felt something very visceral about those brands. Just as they do about the Grateful Dead, R.E.M., U2, Phish, John Mayer, and even lesser-known artists like The Bird And The Bee, Hound Dog Taylor, Iron & Wine, The Bad Plus, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, and more. They’re fanatics. Fans.

At the time, I didn’t know how to put all of that together, except that if you believe in something, it probably has some sort of statement about what it is: a creed. There’s also probably a story about how it came to be. There are icons that reveal who or what they are. And rituals that dictate how believers come together, or how you use a product. There are words that believers use to identify themselves (ignorance of those words also identifies those who do not believe). There are also nonbelievers: people who prefer the Beatles to the Stones, prefer Tony Bennett to hip hop, etc. And often there is an acknowledged leader. That makes seven. I didn’t set out to come up with seven, but things usually seem to come in threes, fives, sevens, nines, twelves, 21, fifty and 100. It’s like divine proportion or something.

Q: In your work as CEO of Thinktopia, what music industry examples are you often brought back to in order to explain the current environment of the business world?

Hanlon:  That is not an easy question, because most people in business look at the entertainment industry - even with all its billions - as sort of an anomaly. It looks like so much fun, it can’t be real business. And of course just the opposite is true. The music and film industries are brutal. I often hold up Madonna as an example because, love her or hate her, she has reinvented her brand every 18 to 32 months since Material Girl. In real world terms, this would be like coming up with the Mini Cooper, then creating the iPod, then Starbucks, then Halo, then the Google phone. Then then then. She’s an amazing marketer. Puff Daddy and Prince tried to do the same, with less success.

Q: In workshops called Primal Digs, you work together with companies to help them engineer and reverse engineer their brands and company culture.  If you were brought into any of The Big Four major labels, where would you begin with your shovel?

Hanlon: The prequel to all of our work inside companies is that we immerse ourselves in their business. We gather up all the reports and factoids and landscape and meld that with macro and micro trends and then we mush it all together. That is where we begin, which partially answers your question. During the Primal Dig we deconstruct the brand during the first day, then reconstruct it the second day and all the days that follow.

What we would suggest is that the Big 4 better understand the intangibles that drive brands. That way, they might be better able to knowingly help drive successes rather than imitating what others do. The other thing is understanding what drives internal cultures: this helps define success at many companies. People work all night and weekends trying to come up with the next next thing, whether it’s a computer game, great design, or hit song, because they are driven by a higher ideal. They want to be great. That is an infusion that can be designed into a management company.  It can be managed.

Q. Professor Mike Wesch states in An anthropological introduction to YouTube that, “There is this cultural inversion going on where we are becoming increasingly individual, but many of us still have this strong value and desire for community, we become increasingly independent while longing for stronger relationships, and we see increasing commercialization all around us, therefore we seek authenticity.”

What is it about this cultural inversion that reinforces the notion that within tribal communities there is a great need for well-structured belief systems and leaders?

Hanlon: I would put it out there that paradoxically there is a community of people wanting to be individuals. We all experience a quest for soul. In fact, while society tells us to fit in, we reward those who stand out. The recent quest for authenticity, I think, is fallout from two areas: 1) companies like Enron who are not who they say they are, and 2) people (on the Internet and in the public arena) who also turn out not to be who they say they are. Bands who are not who they say they are are doomed, e.g. Milli Vanilli. To add to that, it is when you have a well-structured belief system and a leader that you have created a tribe.

Q: On an artist level, what elements of the creation story are ingrained into our perception of what it means to be a rock star?

Hanlon: Powerful brands have a narrative. They tell a story. The creation is the start of that story, so it is incredibly important. You can’t have a story without it. All the time, we hear about new bands and before the DJ throws the track on the air, they says things like, “These guys come out of Seattle...these guys met in high school…this woman was backup singer for Don Henley.” I’ve just started the brand narrative for Nirvana, U2 and Sheryl Crow. But that’s not the most important part of what we’re talking about. The real juice is when all seven pieces of what we call primal code are working together.

A few years ago, I spoke about Primal Branding at a conference in Madison. Afterwards, I stayed for the lunch (I don’t always stay for the lunch) and happened to sit next to a woman who had the name of the company she worked for printed on her name tag. The company was ABKCO. What’s that? I asked. “Allen B. Klein Company,” she replied.* I took a sharp breath. “I liked what you talked about,” she went on to say. “You’re right, it’s not just about talent. Lots of people have talent. But who are the bands you remember? KISS. The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. Why? They have an image. Literally. They have an image that sticks in your mind. That’s why they last.”

Q: The Advertising and Music Industry share many pieces of primal code which have endured since their early beginnings, what makes those images so powerful that they capture our imaginations still today?

Patrick Hanlon: The primal code extends beyond business or industry and connects with something that is fundamentally human. We all want to believe in something. We all want to believe in something that is larger than ourselves. That could mean connecting to a product (Starbucks), a subculture (skateboarding), a subculture product (Volcom), a political movement (Obama) an ideology (the Green movement) and more.

As I mentioned earlier, when you create a belief system using the seven pieces of primal code, it turns people’s heads. They connect. Of the thousands of things bubbling out in the culture trying to attract our attention, those things imbedded with the seven pieces of primal code attract and connect. Global warming. Bird flu. Locavores. Try it, your world will never look the same.

Q: Within the Hypebot community, there is a vast array of personalities who inhabit the messy environment of the music industry.  Are there any lessons learned or valuable insights that stuck with you over the years you’d like to share?

Hanlon: What we call Primal Branding is really a rallying cry against doing anything by rote. Yes, we have a “system” which could become rote in its own way—but at its core, we are about gaining a deep-skin understanding of how we respond as individuals and as a society to certain inputs in our lives. The primal code is really a constellation of parts that—when put together—seem to satisfy us in intangible yet very important ways. So many people try to create their own success by imitating the success of others. They got a hit song by playing a three-chord progression, so I better learn that progression too. They got a hit by using a drum machine and samples, so I will too. That’s just mimicry and imitation. Sure, some people will make hits. But the big changes—the ones that knock us off our feet, are when someone creates a sound that’s totally fresh, new—something that electrifies.

Q: There seems to be a very special and intimate connection that exists between artists and their followers that don’t seem to exist on a brand or product level.  How or why is that?

Hanlon: Sure, screaming fans at Shea Stadium. Sound is one of our senses wired to special places in our brain. Certain songs connect us back to places and times that is very sensorial. Smell is another sense that connects to times and places. The smell of diesel fumes (don’t ask why) takes me back to Europe. There’s probably a whole teenage hormonal thing, too, because music is tied to youth culture. Successful music groups really fire on all cylinders.

There’s that stage where people really love the music. (In our terms the music would be iconic: a music hook is an icon.) And then suddenly there’s this crush of popular appeal—that’s when some fans whine that the group has suddenly gone pop or mainstream. But that’s really the period when the other pieces of primal code become filled in. If you’re in the band, that’s when you hit success—at least at (hopefully) the popular or financial level. Music is extremely visceral, because it is tied into so many other emotions and time frames.

But to say that this is not true for other products is just not the case. Certainly, we don’t have people smashed against fence wire waiting for the new Starbucks drink. But people have traveled long distances to purchase certain automobiles, beer and blue jeans, the same way people follow John Mayer, Justin Timberlake and Nas. A few weeks ago I was in Soho in New York City, and there were people lined up around the block waiting to buy iPhones. A few blocks away, they were standing in another line waiting for concert tickets. Fans are fanatics. Try to take away a 15-year-old’s iPod. You’ll lose your hand.

Q: The Leader plays a pivotal role in making their Primal Brand come alive for their followers.  What are some great examples of leaders you’ve seen in the music industry?

Hanlon: Barry Gordy at Motown, Clarence Avant at Motown, The Fifth Beatle, Bono, Michael Stipe,John Lennon, David Geffen.

The African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” was used on Hypebot by Bruce as a reality check for Music 2.0.  Black Stone Cherry adds onto those famous words of wisdom in their song ‘You’ by saying, “It takes an army to march a mile.” We’ve been talking on the blog quite a bit about followings and I’m sure like myself, many readers were left with the daunting question, “How do I lead a Tribe?”

To help us better understand this question, I reached out to John King, co-author of Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization.

In Tribal Leadership, you identify five tribal stages (Despairing Hostility; Apathetic Victim; Lone Warrior; Tribal Pride; and Innocent Wonderment) that exist in thriving organizations.  Companies can avoid hiring people from the lower stages, but clearly, artists cannot pick their fans.

Bylin: How do you think the stages you identified reflect tribalism in a fan base?

King: Stage 2 shows up as a mood of ‘not being understood’…

the classic teen lament of martyrdom and the dreaded inevitability of betrayal. Stage 3 is a heroic posture, a ‘me against the world’ attitude of overcoming and ‘making it’. Stage 4 is a more collaborative, ‘we can do anything together’ point of view. There’s a lot to say about each stage, but that starts the conversation off.

Bylin: The book concludes that Tribes exist in all organizations at different stages, but the difference is in the culture of the community.  Here on Hypebot we have questioned the difference between the followings of pop artists like Rihanna and jam band followings like Dave Matthews.  Dave obviously has a strong following, but its unclear what stage of tribe Rihanna has.

What factors do you think come into play when trying to evaluate in what stage your music tribe is primarily thriving in?

King: It will be a matter of observation of two main elements that will reflect that. First, we listen to how they talk amongst themselves, and how they identify and express their relationship to other groups that follow similar bands in the niche. The delta to that is probably fairly close to the truth. Other than that, we always look at how they congregate, how they ‘clump up’ in their relationships. Do they tend to be ‘loners’, are they grouped in little gangs with a recognizable strong personality, do they collaborate, or does it always turn into some form of a competition? It is not unlike geeks when they flame each other. None of this behavior is particularly predictable, it has to be observed. My guess is that the great mass fall in Stages 2, 3, and 4, with the greatest preponderance at three, looking like a normal Gaussian bell curve distribution.

Artists at on their very best days seem to lead a stage four tribe, this band is great and this band is not, but the ideal place to peak is stage five.  During big events like an album release, the bonds formed between a stage four and a stage five could be the difference between fans telling their friends about the release and calling radio stations to demand the playing of the single.

Bylin: What leverage points and actions could an artist utilize to encourage stage five behavior from their fan base?

King: This is an awesome question and the heart of the matter if the band is truly interested in creating a breakout experience for themselves, and, by extension, their fans. One thing they must always be dong is preserving the faithful, while constantly accumulating new fans from other cultural point of view. A Stage 5 experience is the holy grail of breaking a new act, or, releasing new product. The old saying that they need a ‘crossover hit’ is exactly right. They need to go away and come back as morphed into something that preserves the old fan base, while attracting new followers. This usually means a complete revivication and maturation of all of their musical and artistic ideas to drive them to boldly come back as something unexpected and unpredictable, and of higher quality.

Part 2: Building A Tribe

Bylin: Throughout the music industry when we look for true examples of tribes, we often come up with examples like The Grateful Dead and The Kiss Army.  Bruce Springsteen, The Boss, is a leader and his followers (also known as The Church of Bruce), operate as a true tribe.

What principles of Tribal Leadership do you think these types of artists may have unknowingly embraced that led them to be successful?

King: They all cast a very wide net. The themes and ideas that they were working with were universal, and yet...could be mapped onto the individual fan. The were ‘identifiable’, and created hooks that imprinted the consciousness of the listener in a peculiar way that was both fresh, and somehow familiar in the same moment. The hook is what captures the tribe.

Bylin: Patrick Hanlon and I had a great interview about the importance of belief systems in a community or tribe.  He asserts in Primal Branding that brands that we care about are belief systems, embedded with seven pieces of primal code (the creation story; the creed; the icons; the rituals; the pagans, or nonbelievers; the sacred words; and the leader) that work together to make them believable.

How do you believe well-structured belief system plays into attracting the following you sought out and how does it help to take your fan base to the next stage?

King: Ultimately, each person is a set of values want to be expressed. The band , the way they live, they way they perform is an heroic personification of the common values and aspirations of the fan. As they do it poetically and rhythmically – that is amazing. After all, all there is, is what you see and what you hear.

If an artist wants to rally the passion of a tribe, they need to make music for a movement.  Black Sabbath, Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine, Bob Dylan, and Will.I.Am all made music for a movement.  They told stories about who they were and the future they were trying to build.

Bylin: Why is it that when you find values that cut across a group of people that you can take an entire tribe to this zone full of appreciation and emotion?

King: Good one – your answer is in the question. Because the values that are driving the band are so apparent, and do cut across various cultures and stages of culture. This is the very definition of leadership, and music is a powerful way to capture a mind, a heart, a soul, in the interest of a movement. It’s not an accident that Barack Obama is referred to as a ‘Rock Star’ – the values, the energy, the rhythm of his campaign connected people to their values and their dreams and noble cause, and they rallied to the cause. It is exactly the same with a band, except the band has the power of music as a transport mechanism for the values being transferred to the fan.

Z.L.: You are an independent artist, is that correct?  Why have you chosen this path?

B.A.: Yes I am. I am not signed to a major label. I have been working independently for a good ten years. I don’t really think I chose this path, it’s more the default of an artist who really would not be understood. You’ll spend more time arguing with the people, then actually doing anything. I took it upon myself to fund, and to market, and to tour, and to promote, and to build a brand that is mine, and mine only, and so at the time when its out there enough, who ever chooses to be a part of it doesn’t call the shots. I call the shots, cause I have already been there, and done that. That’s kinda the basis which my career has been built around, not to say I haven’t wished I had an extra 100,000 dollars sitting around to help promote and market my stuff, but it’s not worth the headaches and not being able to freely express yourself musically. Some of the music I make is not always within the common understanding of pop music and how it is supposed to be marketed. I have had to evolve as an artist, but overall being an independent artist has helped me shape my own carrier, my own path, without necessarily waiting for somebody to tell me what to do. Especially in today’s market where labels are pretty much obsolete, you can pretty much reach the audience yourself. You can do interviews like this, and random people will find out about you, and be fans of you if they really get the chance to hear the music. All the label is now is a management house, and I have a manager, so I don’t need a management house. Maybe it’s a funding house every now and then too, but the problem is they have to re-coup everything before you get a dime, so it’s a broken industry especially now with the financial situation that the whole globe is experiencing. 

Z.L.: How do you envision the future of Hip-Hop in America/Africa/The World?

B.A.: Everywhere around the world, people have a stake in Hip-Hop, especially the youth because it’s such a voice, and you can’t ever underestimate a voice as big and as major as Hip-Hop. I think what needs to happen is more responsibility from cats that are the founders of it, because the whole world still looks to America, so the more responsibility the artists here exhibit, the better for the world.  The more political stuff, social stuff, and conscious stuff gets put into the music here, you know, the more it proliferates in say, Havana, or Rio.  So I think globally, Hip-Hop is only going to grow, the more the world expands, and the more YouTube is big, and MySpace is big, and the internet is big, people around the world are going to keep latching on to Hip-Hop. That’s what the art is supposed to do, it’s supposed to expand, and I am looking for some more expansion in ‘09.

Z.L.: What African Hip-Hop artists should we be listening to in 2009?

B.A.: Of course, K’naan. K’naan has a new album coming out, he is Somalian-born, and lives in Canada, really a great artist, you have to check for K’naan. A brother called Manifest, also Ghanaian, he lives in Minneapolis, he is another really great artist. A dude called Krukid from Uganda.  Very, very dope artists. Those are a few I can name off the top, and those are the dudes people should be aware of, and rock’n with.

Z.L.: What advice would you give to the kids coming up in Hip-Hop today?

B.A.: I would say, do “you,” and don’t let anybody alter your style for corporate benefit. I don’t think art was made to be that rigid in its marketing. So I just think, do “you,” and if it can be sold it will be sold, and if it cannot then it cannot. But I really believe in doing what you feel is right, musically and culturally, and staying true to your roots and not letting that go for anybody. So I think that’s the best advice, just stay true.

So you want to get into the game? Quit while you ahead and go to college! That’s the advice I’d give to anybody starting out right now, get a degree in contract law and go ahead on the business side. But, if you’re stubborn like me, and determined to fulfill your artistic vision, you need to condition yourself to start an independent grind.

Step 1: Set Up Shop

Set up an LLC and sign yourself to your company.

Step 2: Build a Studio

Figure out the cheapest way to build a studio, I’d suggest a mac, pro tools and reason or logic. I’d invest in a good mic. You also need to get one of the homeys or get yourself the proper training to know how to record. If you can’t do these things professionally, you gotta intern somewhere and find somebody to teach you.

Step 3: Step into the Arena

Get to the business of making music! Figure out how to brand your music, Dip Set got “Dip Set Bird Gang,” G-Unit got “G-G-G-Unit,” Grind Time is “Grind time rap gang, bang bang bang,” Figure out who you want to be and start building that.

Step 4: Connect with Your Audience

I don’t like to say the word buzz, a buzz is something can be gone. I’m really talking about building a relationship with your audience. That’s what Jay Z did. That’s a little different than a buzz. A buzz involves radio payoffs and writer favors. Soulja Boy had a relationship with his audience. The people that bought his record felt like they were supporting someone they knew, so they bought it.

You need to build your brand visually using a viral campaign, through Myspace and Facebook, but it’s all for naught if people don’t connect with you. People are only gonna connect through musical energy. That part has to come from you.

Step 5: Promoting Your Music

Contingent on the type of music you can do there’s a lot of ways to market yourself. If you’re doing snap music you need a high school dance type thing. If you’re doing what I do, you’re pushing at the blue collar working class brother, to be honest, cats that sell dope and college students. You just gotta figure out what your thing is and how to get it exposed to people.

I am a proponent of stickers, flyers and posters. I’ve found that they’re most effective in the hood. Stickers are probably the best, but they can get you in trouble.

If you can get radio to play your music, then go for radio, but if not you go around radio through myspace and internet radio.

Step 6: Pushin’

If you’re pressing up mixtape cd’s and you think the cd’s are dope, package them as a real record that a store can carry. That’s the difference between a product that can sell for two dollars and seven dollars. That’s the first time I’ve told people that secret, that didn’t come to me for free, I had to pay for that.

Also, direct people to itunes. Set up an itunes account or deal with Hi-Fi or one of the other cell phone go-betweens. If you can get a hot ringtone going in your city, that’s 60-70 cents a ringtone.

You should also think about merch. What about your brand is worth buying? You need as many streams of additional revenue as possible. You also want other things (besides music) that your audience can buy. Look at Paul Wall and Chamilionaire. You could still buy tapes from them and they would do your grill. You can build what you talk about and rap about and bring your audience to you. Soulja boy named his album his website, if you go to his website you can buy his merch...that’s innovative as s**t, I applaud that young man.

Step 7: Mobilize Your Audience

Now it’s time to mobilize your audience. You have to get your audience to come out and see you. Use Myspace and Facebook to let people know when you’re coming to town.

Step 8: Bulid a Relationship with Your Retailers

Let’s say you’re an independent artist. In your neighborhood, you can sell 300 copies of your album, but you can sell 300 more if you expand past your town. You can now direct people in every town via Myspace to a particular store. You go and do a signing and order three pizzas and give out free pizza. If you sell twenty albums, you just paid half the employee’s weekly pay. Now you’re an asset to that mom and pop store.

Step 9: Communicate with Your Distributor

If you’re able to get distribution, communicate with them. When I go and talk to the marketing department at Fontana. I’m educated. I come in like “Help me help you to figure out the best way to market your product.” If I need to be at the store then that’s what I want to do.

By Jake Paine

It’s hard enough these days to get on as a rapper, but what happens when something goes awry? Labels fold, albums disappoint, controversy erupts, and many artists are left without options – and rhymes that need to be heard. RBC Records is a Los Angeles-based marketing and promotions company that’s kept stars alive, with plenty of chart appearances, gold records on the wall, and success stories to prove it.

Peruse the aisles at any large record store, and you’ll see independent releases from C-Bo, Tech N9ne, DJ Quik and others that RBC has been behind. In business for over six years, RBC has over 60 years of experience amongst its partners Bob Grossi and Brian Shafton, along with VP of Marketing/Product Development Ben Grossi. The trio all carried over expertise as executives at Priority Records, with a knack for grassroots campaigns and independent rap genius.

Amidst catastrophic sales trends in the Hip-Hop marketplace, Brian, Bob, and Ben reveal their approach to AllHipHop.com, in winning battles that seem impossible. With recent critical praise on Turf Talk’s West Coast Vaccine, RBC refuses to blink in the face of adversity, and instead, takes partial credit for bring Bo to Buck, recycling a Quik to the majors, and upholding Tech N9ne as the biggest star in rap, that radio ignores. While the majors are sinking dollars into projects, the sensibly thrifty RBC is forever making artists creep on a come-back

AllHipHop.com: The three of you all had various levels of experience at Priority Records. What sorts of work-ethics and values did you bring over to RBC from your experience beforehand?

Brian Shafton: What we brought over was the ability to promote and market records without the aid of radio and video, but rather street credibility, hard work, grinding, and developing a realistic marketing plan for the artist, distributor, and everybody involved. We learned how to make money on records without overspending. I don’t know if that was always brought from Priority, but it was definitely brought from the early days of Priority, before EMI purchased them.

Bob Grossi: We decide how profitable a project can be, and then work backwards from that to decide where to spend the money effectively – winning in areas where we can win.

AllHipHop.com: You said you’re not relying on video or radio. Ten years ago, maybe five, there appeared to be the theory of “if you build it, they will come.” Whether it was N.W.A., The Geto Boys, or even Mack 10…those records weren’t designed for radio, but it seemed like once the buzz was there, radio had no choice but to submit. Today, with the artists that you work with today, does that still hold true?

Brian Shafton: No, not at all. “If you build it, they will come” is a total fabrication that the major labels want to portray. The reality of the situation is, we have records a la Tech N9ne, that have incredible sales, but yet radio and video have not embraced him. This is one example of many. We don’t have the financial wherewithal or the major label agenda to force those records on the general public. If you’re a brand new artist on Def Jam, you’re much more likely to be broken on radio because Def Jam can say, “I’m going to give you Jay-Z for your summer concert if you give me this amount of spins.” That’s not reflective of what the public wants to hear, it’s what the labels want, which puts the independents at a serious disadvantage.

Ben Grossi: We pick and choose our battles – whether it’s our relationships with print, TV buys, street teams. Those are the battles we choose, along with Internet marketing.

Brian Shafton: You mentioned our successes at Priority. We did get some spins with Mack 10, but they were never [more than] the major labels. We might have peaked at 3,000 BDS, while you’re seeing stuff that’s 15-17,000 BDS. Radio does not mirror what the public’s interest is.

AllHipHop.com: You brought up Tech N9ne, who has always had a strong West Coast following, despite being from Kansas City. Looking at your roster, why is there so much emphasis on West Coast and South acts? Is that a smarter independent sales force?

Brian Shafton: We are looking for viable artists, regardless of geography, within our specialized field. The vast majority of our contacts are West Coast, and that reflects our roster. However, we also represent 8Ball’s 8 Ways Entertainment, Bonecrusher, J-Shin, Ras Kass – who lives in New York; we’ve been close to doing deals with Cormega, or Krayzie Bone. The reality is, we are national, but the focus is West Coast, ‘cause that’s our hood; we want to lock that down.

AllHipHop.com: Do you generally approach viable artists or do they come to you, knowing your strengths and abilities?

Brian Shafton: It’s a combination of the two. Most of the time, the artists come to us. We’ve had relationships from your biggest artists – Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z to small, Spade or Lil’ Cyco type of artists. We have relationships with so many people that they typically come to us. The core model for us is, we’re looking for somebody with some kind of established fan-base; we’re not just listening to music and going, “This s**t is hot; let’s sign him.” However, we did recently do that with an artist called DZK from Virginia, and we’re doing a digital-release on his record, to find out what consumers think about him before we go full-boat and put out his physical CD.

AllHipHop.com: How much has your business changed with the advent of grassroots battlefields like MySpace or YouTube?

Brian Shafton: We’ve fully embraced it. Three years ago, we started hiring consultants to handle our Internet activity on places like MySpace. As we penetrated the market, we found that these are cost-effective tools, we hired, within our own company, a full-time director of online marketing, Brett Morrow, who came from Universal. Then we have a half-dozen people who work for him, who correspond with the fans directly, on message boards and whatnot. Without a doubt, Tech N9ne is the blaring example of somebody who has been able to do that more successfully than anybody major, indie, and so on.

AllHipHop.com: If a C-Bo or an 8Ball gets a stellar print review in 2007, does that really hold any kind of weight the way that it did in 1992? Are people spending their dollars based on what they’ve read in a magazine?

Brian Shafton: It’s an integral part, but it’s not a stand-alone piece. You can’t hit the consumer with just one marketing tool. I think it’s crucial to have a positive editorial, but it’s not enough. You need to have all the other cylinders firing. The single most-important thing to us is retail marketing – making sure your product is available, fairly priced, and visible at music retail. That’s what we learned at Priority and that’s we [do] at RBC. If you go into any record store, that’s what you’ll see – a strong representation of our titles. Catalogue titles like Tech N9ne’s Anghellic, which is six years old, still scans over 500 units a week – and they say rap catalogue can’t sell.

AllHipHop.com: It made very big news when Tower Records went out of business at the end of 2006. That was a place that carried tons of your titles. Did you feel a hit from their closing?

Brian Shafton: Immediately. Tower stores fit incredibly well for our demographic, specifically West Coast. They had two-thirds of their stores in California, which is where we do a lot of business. Russ [Solomon, Tower Records founder] is a fantastic guy, and he’s re-opening the Broadway location in Sacramento. Tower was a very unique animal; the stores had personality. There was opportunity to promote within the store and make a sale that way. It’s very rare to find a consumer at Tower with a single CD; most consumers walked out with multiple CDs because it was a great experience in the store.

AllHipHop.com: In the era of RBC, what’s your greatest success story?

Brian Shafton: We’ve had a number of successes, including delivering Fontana their first Number One Independent record with DJ Quik’s Trauma. We’ve had a half a dozen records enter the Indie Charts at Number One or Number Two – DJ Quik, Tech N9ne, a Game record, a Do Or Die record. Even bigger and more importantly is the fact that we’ve allowed artists to become viable in the marketplace. Look at C-Bo, who has been independent all these years, who, we feel we are partially responsible for elevating him to the point where Young Buck and Cashville [Records] signed him as a solo artist. Successes to us are measured on a lot of levels. The big records are great, but the smaller records can be incredible fruitful and profitable too.

Ben Grossi: We’ve given artists a way to market and sell their music in a different outlet, that may not be available to a lot of people. We’ve given a lot of artists a home that may not be able to have a home anymore. We’ve opened a lot of doors that may’ve been pushed to the wayside by the industry.

“The people we seem to be attracting to our site from the affiliate-marketing programs are NOT interested in music,” Khan wrote. “Hence the low registration rate, pages per visit, time on our site, high bounce rate. I refuse to believe that people in the advertising world and the potential acquirers will not see this as buying traffic.”

For your overall communication strategy, look at it like this… your website is there for the people who want to engage with your music, above anything else.  The time they spend on your website is all about you.  If they’re on your site, they’re actively paying attention to you, and you can speak to them that way.  All the other profile pages that you create on outside sites are there to speak to the people who are already using those sites, interacting with eachother.

Back in the loaner car, Invincible talks of a kind of barter system, one artist helping another and then getting help in kind. KT produced tracks on Shapeshifters for trade. She returns the favor by offering time, thought and efforts on his video. Invincible sees Detroit’s hip-hop scene as a movement: “On a national level, you keep hitting them over the head with a new album, whether it’s Invincible, Finale or 14KT or Slum Village or whatever.”

“With this album, I wanted to create a model so anyone can do it,” Invincible says. So she brainstormed with Jenny Lee from Detroit Summer for funding ideas and came up with the idea of pre-sale album vouchers. “That’s how I got the record pressed. Again, it’s about a community of people.

She laughs of her “personal pyramid system” that’s promoting music the old-fashioned way; everything is hands-on, DIY: face-to-face. The emcee recently returned home from a tour that saw Shapeshifters release parties in seven different cities, including Toronto, Oakland, Los Angeles and New York. ("People aren’t fully going to understand until they see me perform.")

Why did it take so many years to make Shapeshifters a reality?

“I’m a perfectionist,” the emcee says, “and I didn’t have access to the resources I needed to do things properly. I’ve had opportunities to get signed, or have certain resources available to me, but with strings attached that would have completely corrupted the spirit of my work.”

She’s visually excited about touring Europe this month and next as part of an all-female hip-hop show headlined by legends Bahamadia and Roxanne Shanté.

Many say that the album is dead and they have the proof. According to Nielsen SoundScan, sales of individual digital tracks led digital album sales by 16 to 1 (1.07 billion to 65 million) in 2008.

But there ares still places where the album reins supreme. Digital delivery and marketing platform Bandcamp says that their albums outsell tracks 2 to 1. 66% of paid downloads on Bandcamp are for albums, compared to only about 6% for the Nielsen reporting world. They postulate that a number of factors contribute to the stunning difference in album interest:

* Most Bandcamp artists are indie and attract fans more interested in complete works than the average Hannah Montana/Lady Gaga flavor of the moment consumer
* You can listen before you buy via Bandcamp.  Not just 30 second samples, but rather the whole album.
* iTunes and others price most CD’s at $10. Bandcamp artists have found that name your own price with a $5 minimum is a real sweet spot.
* iTunes and others encourage single track purchases with page layouts, buy buttons and featured tracks

But even on Bandcamp what constitutes an album is evolving.

“Rather than treating albums as immutable collections of tracks, many treat albums as open containers,” says Bandcamp’s Ethan Diamond. “Containers for song-a-day/week projects, explorations of particular musical styles, or just general works-in-progress.” To encourage the trend, the site just added RSS feeds at both the artist and album level. Fans can subscribe to everything an artist produces or just one particular album, whatever that happens to represent.

And Bandcamp is not alone in realizing that the committed fans want more than single tracks.  Topspin Media empowers direct to fans sales of bundled products that include a digital or physical album alongside other goodies ranging from t-shirts to books and vinyl at a variety of price points.

Both Bandcamp and Topspin preach the gospel of artist empowerment. Forget about Soundscan and what the old school music industry says you should do.  Find your fans. Engage, communicate, listen and offer quality and value at prices that make sense. Chances are they’ll be willing to pay more thn $.99 cents for it.

“There are conditions of survival in a guerilla force: they include constant mobility and constant vigilance. - Che Guevara

A guerilla is a jungle fighter ... and knows his terrain better than his opponents, believes passionately in his cause, and is nearly impossible to defeat.  A guerilla publicist works in such a fashion. Agile, confident, dynamic, making do with far less than his desk-bound professional counterpart, the Guerilla is a model of compact efficiency.
Resourcefulness is next to godliness.
We can’t all be Beethoven, but we can all make music.
Public relations is an art.  Like any art, there are rules of form, proven techniques, and standards of excellence.  But, overall, it’s a mercurial enterprise, where instinct is as legitimate as convention.
Ultimately, the goal of any public relations campaign is to either reorient, or solidify, perception of a product, client, policy or event.
The public relations expert is as well versed in human nature as in editorial deadlines and sound bytes.
P.R. is gift-wrapping.  Whether delivered in fancy or plain paper, truth is truth, and the public ultimately comprehends it.  The trick is packaging the truth on your own terms.
The best ideas in Guerilla P.R. campaigns are often based on four fundamental principles: utility, juxtaposition, humor and image.
Your creativity will ensure intriguing and well-written press releases, can’t miss magnet events (i.e., publicity stunts), effective marketing tools, and articulate verbal pitches to media representatives.
Uniqueness.  Singularity.  Distinction.  These words must form your Guerilla P.R. mantra.
Human beings are not worker ants.  Our individuality is what makes each of us irreplaceable.
One central overarching guideline when pitching the media (or dealing with anyone in business) is to employ the five F’s--to be fast, fair, factual, frank and friendly.
Use vocabulary people are comfortable with.  The smartest people I know speak simply and plainly.
Act like your own client.  You must become their resident expert on whatever it is you do.  That means that anytime, anywhere, when asked to speak to the media--you’re on call.
Put yourself on a mind improvement program.  Commit to reading several classics of literature each year, ... Cultivate your aesthetic self.  It’ll make you more interesting.
Personal P.R. is a matter of controlling to the greatest extent possible the impression you make on others immediately around you.
In Guerilla P.R., flexibility is your strength. ... Keep the following additional concepts in mind: Tailor to Audience; Tailor to Outlet; and Tailor to Location.
Don’t change who you are (when going on TV) Just withhold the negative traits while accentuating your strong points.  Observe TV personalities you admire.  They share one common quality: they’re relaxed.
Guerilla P.R. means selling yourself as well as your project.
Michael Levine’s 10 Commandments for Dealing with Media:

Never be boring.  Never!
Know your subject thoroughly.
Know the media you contact.  Read the paper, watch the newscast.
Cover your bases.
Don’t just take “yes” for an answer.  Follow up, follow through.
Never feel satisfied.
Always maintain your composure.
Think several moves ahead.
Be persistent, but move on when you’re convinced you’re getting nowhere.
Remember, this isn’t brain surgery.  Don’t take yourself too seriously.  Have fun.”