Kanye West sells out to McDonalds for $5

It's bad enough that we have to endure annoyingly overt product placement in television and movies.  Now, the prospect of ubiquitous marketing through popular culture channels has made name dropping in song lyrics the next big buzzphrase among advertising agencies and marketing executives.  And of course, the urban demographic will be the first to endure the latest ingenious marketing salvo from your friends in Corporate America.

But isn't name dropping part of hip hop culture?  Isn't it ingrained in the materialistic nature of mainstream hip hop?

Historically yes, and no.  But all arguments aside, its safe to say that things are going to get worse.  A lot worse.  Adage.com reported this morning that McDonald's has pushed forward with its initiative to integrate the word "Big Mac" into major label, radio friendly hip hop songs.  And who was one of the the first to jump on the PPM (pay-per-mention) bandwagon?  Yup- tell your mother, tell your father. Your favorite pro social activist and bridge between backpackers and bling sellout, Mr. Kanye West. 

Who is this guy?  Is this the same guy that stood in front of a national audience in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and very nervously expressed what everyone else with common sense was thinking?  The guy that used the momentum from The College Dropout to found an ambitious foundation to help inner city kids achieve their high school education?  No, it couldn't be that guy.  It's actually the guy that demanded to get paid for being put on magazine covers.  The guy that is charging a good amount of money to join his fanclub and blog about him.  So don't be surprised when he busts out with some Big Mac 'n fries lines on his next remix. 

This isn't exactly new, McDonalds announced the plan back in March (around the same time it announced that Phat Pharm and Sean John would take a stab at designing McD's uniforms).  But new details have surfaced that names both the MD-based marketing agency involved and clients and artists who have participated in the program:

Mr. Pablo's "Freek-a-leek" ended up as the No. 2 hip-hop song of 2004, according to Billboard, and played over 350,000 times on the radio. Part of the lyrics: "Now I got to give a shout out to Seagram's Gin/Cause I'm drinkin' it and they payin' me for it."

So how much did "Mr. Pablo" make from this particular name drop?  The rates vary from $1 to $5 every time the song is played on the radio.  So taking the median price of $3 x number of spins = over $1 million before taxes.  For a name drop so far at the end of a song that it was probably cut out of radio play in the first place.  Yet the atricle and the industry uses this as a classic example of name dropping's effectiveness. 

I thought he name drop by Petey was funny.  I laughed out loud when I first heard it, like, "shit, he just endorsed a product at the end of the damn song, and they probably paid him for it."  It was like he was making a mockery of the whole idea by blatantly exposing the payola for what it was and relegating it to the end of the song.  But the McDonald's program is greasier, requiring an MC to say "Big Mac" explicitly in one or more of the song's stanzas.  It's ridiculous, but industry rumor has it that Kanye is on base for the new program, partly because he already had a knack for dropping product names in song lyrics.

I mean, G-Units and Tims and Hummers and Jags and Manolos and Jacobs and Seagrams Gin make sense to me.  Even if I don't agree with the ethics behind payola (which may or may not be involved when an artist drops one of the aforementioned or any other brand name), they make sense in context of contemporary hip pop lifestyle.  But Big Macs?  C'mon now!

I say that we as consumers of music should stand up and make a huge deal about clandestine lyrics payola.  This is about compromising an artist's integrity, tainting an artform by poisoning its canvas, a giant step so far in the wrong direction that it would be hard to recover from.   If you were an up and coming artist and say, Post Cereal offers you $5 for every time you mention Fruity Pebbles, you might make some quick cash and lose all semblance of self-respect in one fell swoop.  Career over.  Product tie-ins might conceivably be written into record deals. Songs willl start to sound like commercials.  MCs will be marginalized into nothing more than media delivery vehicles... is this a natural evolution of an artform that is hopelessly intertwined with materialism?  Or further evidence that hip hop has needlessly lost its soul?

The punchline, of course, is that no one's Big Mac lyrics were good enough to be approved by McDonalds on the first round of demo recording.  Kanye might be good enough to impress Jigga, but apparently not Ronald MCdonald.

Comments

[nastack]

Well, hell, The Game should be a shoe-in for this program. "i was wearing my barkley's, listenin to reasonable doubt/ rocking the gary payton's, big mac in my mouth"

no homo

[dj mirateck (Michael Miraflor)]

The Game is the king of name dropping. He mentioned other artists something like 100 times on his album, not to mention products.

He actually said big mac? Shit, he probably made his $5 off of that.

[Ross]

Fucking hell Kanye, what the hell were you thinking. Now I'm glad I jacked your cd off the internet two days before it dropped. I used to feel guilty about that. Now I just feel guilty about doing it to Little Brother. I'll buy Minstrel Show one day.

uhh... dj, I think that was a suggestion of what Game would be like in this program. I hope it was just a suggestion, cause I sure as hell dont want to go through all my game tracks listening to find those lines. It does sound very much like a game line though, wouldnt put it past him.

[Hashim]

just to be clear, Kanye hasn't neccesarily signed on to the McDonalds promotion...yet.

It HAS been reported that his mention of Seagrams Gin was paid for, and MAYBE the dozen plus other brands he mentioned on his first album.

In his defense, he sells jewelry with Jacob, yet made a song against conflict diamonds. Not exactly good for business.

I'm cool with artists mentioning brands that they actually like and use, then getting paid afterwards by a company. I'm not cool with advertisers affecting the content of songs. That's selling out in every definition of the phrase.

[Joey Pinkney]

Quite frankly, payola is the American way. Hip-Hop is the daughter of Music Business. Hip-Hop's momma's last name is Business.

Music Business whores out her children any chance they get. That's what she's built for. She's a madame in a brothel known to us as "The Media". Her children are for John's who could care less about the socioeconomic ramification of their actions.

Is this a trap, yes. Is it wrong, yes.

More importantly, this post was like surgery. It actually showed the cancerous lump for what it is and will be in the future.

[dj mirateck]

word on the street is that kanye already submitted his McD's lines, along with Busta Rhymes, etc. interesting to see who will get picked up and sell out.

[reyshizz]

at the end of the day it's all about the number of 0's in your bank acount... it is definitely wrong and it shouldn't be like that but people are going to do what they need to to get that paper... this may be another stepping stone in the evolution of hip hop music... pure hip hop>>lyrical rap>>gansta rap>> commercial rap>> and now... commercials... i hope not!

[Bakari]

Joey is straight with the payola analysis. When you got Kanye praised on Time magazine and making the kind of money he's making for his label, he's gonna get surrounded by a lot of folks eager to build him an empire so they can profit from it. And young rappers like Kanye who is still wet behind the ears is not going to be able navigate very well the pressure and the influence. Not to excuse him for signing, but what are the forces out there to prevent it from happening unless he's surrounded with people who can help him to know better.

[B J]

This is coming at a time where I could finally understand what Kanye's approach to hiphop was. Kanye's playin himself by doing this. It's funny, me and muh friend were talkin about this same exact thing last nite, and all he can come up with is that I dunno who Kanye's helping. First off, Kanye don't need a Mc Donald's commercial to help nobody with. That's what his albums and songs are for. He did so well with the College Dropout cd and then Late Registration might get a boost from his telethon speech, that he doesn't need to go out there and sell his soul to the same corporate world that Bush, who doesn't care about black people including Kanye himself, supports. On top of that, Kanye was so successful as a producer that MCing can be on his backburner. It's time we quit trying to be in Corporate America's business before we're ALL sucked in there one day and get fired. There is a backlash to every pop trend in which every1 that's listening to the radio music today won't be here by.......I'll give it no later than in between 0-10 and 0-15. I'll be back later, I have a class, but I have a bit more to say.

[B J]

K I'm back. I'll have to agree that when Petey Pablo said he's givin a shoutout to Seagram's Gin, that I laughed at it, but that's cuz it's funny as hell. It's one of the few pop-like songs I can testament to liking. Advertising for Mc Donald's, on the other hand, is useless, cuz doing commercials for them is like doing commercials for Wal-Mart. My friend told me that it should be an honor for a black guy to be on a Mc Donald's commercial since there's so many white stars on commercials. Well let's think about it like this, most of the white stars out there are there representing the pop-life culture and the genre that Corporate America really loves deep down. In other words, it would be more socially acceptable if Lindsay Lohan or Justin Timberlake, or even dare say Michael Jackson did a Mc Donald's commercial because they are pure pop-life. Kanye West represents hiphop, and has been doing well until this point here. He has spoken up about everyday issues when most wouldn't, but now he is no better since he's playing Corporate America's pop game. You get NOTHING compared to what the businesses get in the end. I can understand doing some goofy ads just for the sake of a song, but I go to college in a town where there are 5 Mc Donald's restaurants in a 6-7 mile stretch of ONE STREET, including the ones in the mall and Wal-Mart. That's proof alone that Corporate America doesn't need any more help than what Bush gives them in the tax cuts. This situation that Kanye is getting into reminds me of the first time I came up here to visit the school that I'm at and this one guy was talking so intelligent, speaking proper English and then turned around and said lite-skinned-ded after speaking proper English during all of the conversation. You just cannot say one thing biting the hands that feed the hands feeding you. Corporate America doesn't run hiphop culture like it does for pop-rap and for pop music and culture. He needs to decide who he is before he ends up losing out on both.

[Typed Truth aka DjGroove]

I don't know if anyone has noticed but Fat Joe's single "Get It Poppin'" f/ Nelly sounds exactly like the Pop's Cereal commercial I watch with my daughter on Cartoon Network. The commercial predates Fat Joey's song, too. There's this little girl dressed in yellow who says she wrote about her love of Pops Cereal in the form of a rap song. A brightly dressed clown-of-an-emcee jumps on the screen spitting some ignorant corporate shill rhymes (It's a Pops thing, real crunch . . . bling,bling?!@#! -what the f-ck does that mean?) to a beat exactly like Fat Joe's new club banger. I think the corporate payola thing ain't going nowhere and more rappers do it than you think. Sad for Hip Hop, isn't it?

[Talia Ashley]

MOTHERS OF HIP HOP ARTISTS BAN TO CREATE A VILLAGE

People often wonder what Mothers of today's hip hop artists think. Here's the chance to find out, on a consistent-basis. The African Proverb states, “It takes a village to raise a child.” There are women who take this quote to heart and have decided to act upon it. As a result, the Mothers of the Hip Hop Generation organization has taken root. MHHG or Hip Hop Mommas, as they are affectionately called, are both proud and enthused to take on the challenge of increasing the quality of life for young people, as they are truly our future.

The Mothers of the Hip Hop Generation is an organization created to streamline and place images and lyrics received in hip-hop and other hip-hop influences in perspective, for the audience. But also, they are not only going to hold conferences and speak, but they are also going to be a full service grassroots organization. The Mothers of the Hip Hop Generation is not an organization created to attack the hip hop industry. The organization is founded on principles of help. The focus is not on the industry, nor the media. The organization’s pillars are centered on aiding the audience and generation, most influenced by the messages provided by any and all of the ideas generated by hip hop, as a culture.

The Mothers of the Hip Hop Generation is a grassroots organization. We are an international school system, prepared to not only aid in rationalizing issues raised and creating problems for youth, guardians, and others in need, but we also take on the responsibility of providing a working-curriculum to help youth spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally, financially, and socially.

MHHG will host a Motherboard on-line network; establish a (Generational) G-Chat line and On-line network. Mothers of the Hip Hop Generation has partnered with Howard University, Darton College of Albany, Georgia, and other institutions across the nation, along with school county and city systems across the country.

The founders are:
 Ms. Cecillia "Ms. CeCe" Morris, Youth Mentor, Veteran On-Air Personality for WQVE Radio (http://www.wqvealbany.com), Health Educator - Cousin to T-Pain and Cousin to Daz Dillinger, by marriage.
 Ms. Aliyah Najm "Momma Pain", Youth Mentor, Founder of Goldfire Entertainment, Mother to Rap Artist / Singer, T-Pain.
 Dr. Allean Varnado "Dr. Allean", Youth Mentor, Evangelist, Gospel Singer, Mother of Rapper/Producer Daz Dillinger of the Dogg Pound, Aunt of Hip Hop Icon Snoop Dogg.

They are quickly getting a lot of support from Executives in the Music Industry, Several Key Hip Hop and Rap artists, and Key Politicians. Trick Daddy has just signed on to be a major part of the organization. Other artists and rappers in support include T-Pain, Snoop Dogg, Daz Dillinger, Mr. Serv-On formerly of No Limit Records, Trick Daddy, Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, Rampage, formerly of the Flipmode Squad, the Afroflow Tour starring Mike-E, of Def Poetry Jam, Dr. Roxanne Shante` and others. Roberta Shields, Mother of Ludacris, and Sonja Norwood, Mother of Brandy and Ray-J, are in staunch support of the Hip Hop Mommas. And the list of artists, mothers, educational and entertainment executives, and other people from all walks of life grows seemingly every minute. Additionally, other Mothers of Hip Hop and R&B Artists will be getting involved. This information will be leaked in the next few weeks via mass media.

For more information, please visit: http://www.myspace.com/hiphopmommas

For interviews and questions, please call 229-854-1004 or hiphopmommas@star-powerpr.com

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