An Open Letter to Jermaine Dupri

Dear Mr. Dupri,

I just finished reading your exhausting treatise on The Huffington Post for the third time, trying desperately to glean some sort of insight on how you could be so agonizingly out of touch. If ever someone needed to be told to shut up and make music, it is you. Listed below are some of the most embarrassing passages from your diatribe.

“Jay made everyone realize that iTunes taking what we give them and doing what they want with it isn’t the way it has to be. He put the light on and made other people realize, “Oh these guys are just selling our music, they ain’t making it.” If anything, WE made iTunes.”

Actually, Mr. Dupri, WE – the people and fans who support music – made iTunes a success.

Your music would still be out there festering on CD racks whether or not the iTunes store existed. WE bought your singles, some of US bought and downloaded your albums. It’s poor form to fail to realize that WE buy YOUR music, and WE have decided WE’D rather do it on iTunes than at a record store.

“All it’ll take is for Warner Music to say, “You know what, I’m with you,” for us to shut ‘em down. No more iPods! They won’t have nothin’ to play on their players! We can take back the power if we’re willing to sacrifice some sales to make our point.”

iPods are these little machines that play music, whether you get that music from the iTunes store or rip it from a CD, or hell, download it for free off of a file-sharing site. OK, Warner Music sells 1 out of every 3 records. That leaves me with a paltry 9,423 songs left in my iTunes library to listen to. Plus, just think of the good press a band would get for NOT signing with Warner Brothers because they want their album to be available on iTunes.

“These days people just assume that you need a number one single to have a number one album. But look at what’s really happening. Soulja Boy sold almost 4 million singles and only 300,000 albums! We let the consumer have too much of what they want, too soon, and we hurt ourselves. Back in the day when people were excited about a record coming out we’d put out a single to get the ball going and if we sold a lot of singles that was an indication we’d sell a lot of albums. But we’d cut the single off a few weeks before the album came out to get people to wait and let the excitement build. When I put out Kris Kross we did that. We sold two million singles, then we stopped. Eventually we sold eight million albums!”

Oh my god, where to start? Soulja Boy sold 4 million singles at .99 a pop and 300,000 albums at, oh let’s say $15 a piece. Wait a second… THAT’S 8.5 MILLION FUCKING DOLLARS! If all parties involved can’t find a way to split up $8.5 mil, the problem goes way further than iTunes.

And “back in the day”? In 1992, when Kriss Kross released their first album, nobody had the internet and they were buying their singles on cassette at Sam Goody. How, in any way that is relatively sane, can you compare business models from 2 totally different worlds?

And Kriss Kross? You’re going to hang your hypothesis of Album As Art Form on fucking KRISS KROSS?

“Did consumers complain? Maybe so. But at what point does any business care when a consumer complains about the money? Why do people not care how we – the people who make music – eat? If they just want the single, they gotta get the album. That was how life was.”

I just give up. Are you serious? You have to sell a whole album, or you don’t eat? You’re worth $60 Million. You’re eating fine. Make up your mind whether you’re arguing on behalf of the artist or the label head, because you can’t have it both ways. Yes, I get it, “If they want the single, they gotta buy the album” is how it was, but guess what? Label heads (such as yourself) started realizing that they could sell 2 singles plus some filler for $17. That pissed us off a little bit. And now you’re going to shame us for buying the single, or worse yet, admit you don’t give a shit about us? I’m going to download American Gangster right now, just to spite your ass.†

“Apple, why are you helping the consumer destroy our canvas? We don’t tell you to break up your computers into bits and pieces and sell off each thing. When you go to the Apple store you may only need one thing, but you have to buy all their plug ins and stuff. You have to buy their whole package, even if you don’t necessarily want it, or your equipment won’t work. We’re just saying, if you have the audacity to sell your products like that, don’t treat our products as something less than yours.”

Do you even own a Mac? Seriously, I don’t think Arianna Huffington even read your little misguided manifesto.

In all seriousness, your whole rant just reeks of a millionaire making $5.6 mil this year instead of $5.9, and trying to wrap his greed in the cloak of “the artist’s plight”. Making a living in music is a difficult thing to do, and only a select number of people ever get the opportunity to do it.

Jay-Z has every right to not put his album on iTunes, I still bought it, and it’s a great album. Make good music and people will buy it. But don’t scold the people you rely on to “eat” for not playing by your rules anymore.

You say :

“Respect the craft!”

Respect the people who pay your bills, douche. [ms]

† in the interest of corporate self-preservation, anything Matt Smith may download here at Burst HQ would be done so without the knowledge, consent or approval of his employer The Burst Collective, LLC. Heh. [dh]