And obviously it was likely always true for major label artists that this went on, so the older and more jaded I've gotten the less I've thought about it (and so I lost the name of the brand that filmed it...it was something like Kings and Crowns? I should've worn more streetwear) but they made a 10 minute video that was simply them going to every Best Buy and Tower Records or whatever in New York and sweeping copies of Thank Me Later into their shopping cart before handing multiple copies to everyone in the office and leaving a pile at the reception desk.

In retrospect I'm sure there was a promotional deal there, but in my naive college years when that video dropped I felt like the end of the sales wars was just put on front street for all to see. I started wondering, "did 50 Cent lose to Kanye because he just didn't send enough Shady Aftermath street teamers to New Jersey?" and never cared about sales ever again. Until Drake dropped Scorpion, anyway, where I saw that tracklist on Spotify and thought, "holy shit, this dude thinks he can make 24 (or whatever) tracks dip in and out of the Rap Caviar playlist for the next two years, doesn't he?" and realized maybe I'm just exceptionally cynical about Drake's business practices, lol.


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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz