[lbo-talk] marketing hip-hop

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Aug 10 05:47:26 PDT 2005


[a passage from the NYT's excellent pop critic Kelefa Sanneh's review of the 50 Cent/Eminem Anger Management tour <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/arts/music/10eminem.html?>]

For 50 Cent Madison Square Garden was a big dance club, and he shook the rafters with lithe tracks like "P.I.M.P." and "Disco Inferno," which are engineered to be irresistible. The idea is to address the female market segment (asking, gallantly, "You gonna back that thing up or should I push up on it?"), but sometimes to do it rudely (commanding, rather less gallantly, "Bitch, hit that track, catch a date, and come and pay the kid"), so that the male market segment feels acknowledged, too. This may be a cynical approach, but it could be said that earlier versions of this formula, while more civil, were scarcely less cynical. In any case, consumer satisfaction seemed high on Monday night.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list