Rappers And Their Fanbase

I totally believe that there are many elements that can make a rapper successful, but they "stay" successful and relevant cos of their fan base. For example, Young Jeezy had been off the scene for a while before he dropped his last album (TM103) in 2011, and even without a huge buzz, the album did pretty good commercially. Jeezy's fan base supported him, just like Eminem's fan base would always support him regardless of the quality of music he puts out. I'm not in any way insinuating that Em hasn't been giving the public quality music, but even he himself admitted that his 2009 album (Relapse) was low quality compared to his other albums. Thanks to his fans, the album still sold over 2.2 million copies in the U.S, and 5 million copies worldwide; that is what a strong fanbase would do for you.










It makes you wonder where all the people that bought 8 million copies of Nelly's Country Grammar are. Did they grow up, or was Nelly just a hype-of-the-moment rapper? His first two albums, Country Grammar (2000) and Nellyville (2002) were competing with Eminem in the sales department back then, but now Nelly can't even crack 200k copies with an album. I think if you have loyal fans, and you try to always give them your best, you will continue to be a success in the rap game, no matter how minimal your success is. Not everyone is a platinum selling rapper, not all rappers make the kind of music that appeals to a very large audience. Some hip-hop artists have small audiences of between 50-200k, and have been doing okay with that fanbase for a long while.

The Roots are highly respected in Hip-Hop, but they are not a platinum selling  hiphop band...their fans love them, and will always support them. There are many other rappers in the game like that. But then again, what happened to Ja Rule's 4 million CD buyers...Ja has 2 albums under his belt that sold 4 million copies (Rule 3:36, released in 2000 and Pain Is Love, released in 2001), but can't manage to sell 100,000 copies with his latest album (Pain Is Love 2). I guess he was just a fad. There are a lot of rappers like that...they are the rave of the moment, and then they are gone in a couple of years.








I would like to analyze the commercial success of most rappers that have been in the game for a while. I think this is the only way you can check the loyal fans of most rappers. Jay-Z at his prime sold 5 million copies of his Hard Knock Life album, and his last album, Black Album (2009) sold 1.8 million copies. This is not bad, considering the fact that there is an 11 year gap between the two albums i mentioned. Rick Ross sold 724,000 copies of his Teflon Don album in 2010- this is his highest selling album. His latest album, "God Forgives, I Don't" has sold 480,000 copies to date. He doesn't have a platinum selling album to his name, but he has a loyal fanbase that at least keeps him going Gold. Nas's most successful album is his 1996 It Was Written album, which sold 2.3 million copies. What can I say about his latest album selling only 400k? Well, i guess the 1.9 million range is not so bad...there is actually a 16 year gap between the two albums, so he is really not doing badly.

Young Jeezy's first two albums, TM101 (2005), and The Inspiration (2006) sold about the same numbers...over a million copies individually. So, him selling 675,000 copies with his latest (TM103)is definitely okay. But thinking of 50 Cent, who, at his peak in 2003, sold 8,000,000 copies of his Get Rich or Die Trying, but managed to sell only 500k of Before I Self Destruct (2009) album. What can I say, maybe a lot of Eminem fans bought his debut album; Or the buzz surrounding him at the time also helped him reach an audience that wouldn't necessarily buy his album on a good day...or maybe his type of music just don't sell no more. My conclusion is this- 50 Cent's core fanbase is like a million, but a lot of the public that buys what is hot bought his first two albums.