You only have to look in the eyes of a sales consultant at any Musica store to see that traditional album sales are on a steep decline. The new generation hip hop head consumes music in an entirely different way.
Digital files and streaming services are the new wave of music consumption. With that comes a trend which plagues most, if not all artists. In a recent interview we did with Okmalumkoolkat, he tells of the noticeable decrease in crowd participation when he performs joints released on his projects versus joints released as singles.
Modern day albums are reduced to 4 or 5 joints which meet radio standards and the rest are just fillers. Hence the rise in popularity of the 5-Track EPs. Bragga, CUTaways and E-Jay's Before The Album EP being examples. All of which were fire by the way.
Which begs the question, why would an artist even bother embarking on such a costly, hardly lucrative venture in a climate where there seems to be little to no demand for it? Are EP's the new way to go? Should we perhaps look at re-inventing the concept of an album and if so, how should we go about it?
Look, I don't have the answers man, let me know what you think.
