Do
you remember when release dates were an event, when your favourite rappers used
to have to push their albums forward by a week to avoid piracy, when the
Internet and Napster were carefully
taking over? Do you even remember Napster?
How old are you? It was actually due to how the Internet made piracy so
accessible that threatened release dates. In the old days, cave man days by
music industry timeline, it took a while to get a physical pirated copy of a CD.
I can attest to that, it usually took us about two weeks or so to see a pirated
copy of our favourite rapper’s CD, maybe even three. We often had friends who
lived abroad telling us that new Nas album was good before we got our hands on
it. With the coming of the Internet you could hear that album within a week,
because someone could upload it on the Internet before its release date and
that made it easy to pirate quickly.
Today, the event that is the release
date has been marred by constant push backs. Everyone has conceded that you
will be pirated, unless you’re The Throne in which case it might take a while
before your album hits us, but then again Jay-Z and Kanye work for the
Illuminati so they can do anything. That was a joke, do not take me serious… or
not. Anyhoo, some rappers push their albums back due to sample clearance, case
in point Drake’s Take Care album and
some because they probably underestimated the work involved. The last two
albums I ever remember being pushed forward were Eminem’s The Eminem Show and 50 Cent’s debut Get Rich Or Die Trying. They were avoiding Internet piracy. Oh, if
they only knew there was no escaping it. Cue The Beatnut’s “No escapin' this”.
I bring all this up because I’m trying
to get down with this British Council entrepreneurship competition (and I have to write something new) and
because (and more importantly, truly this is the more important one and not as
shameless as the first one) I’ve been waiting for Slaughterhouse’s sophomore
album Our House since March when it
was originally supposed to drop, then it went to April, then May, then June and
now July. Either way you can’t get pissed about the delay, because you’re most
likely not going to pay for it when it comes out (all you people with your
Internet connection and download know-hows.) Now the only release date I’m
waiting on after Slaughterhouse is The Faculty, but like all faculties in the
Nigerian school system, there’s a lot of going back and forth before you get to
see the supervisor, in this case, before we get to see an actual album, which I
will buy, not download. No, come to think of it, I deserve a free copy to
review. They owe me for this cheap publicity.
