I ran across an article about Datpiff in a French publication, so I put it through Google translate for those of you who don't speak French. The translation is a bit rough in places, but I think the gist comes through. As you read this, remember that Idle Media owns copyright to all the mixtapes posted on its website.
Since 2005, the American site Datpiff has gradually taken the monopoly of the distribution of mixtapes rap. How? By imposing its economic model based on the free download to rappers yet more accustomed to sell their CDs to the fret from the trunk of their car. Back on a site become a heavyweight of the music industry.
"At first they hated us. They hated everything we did and everything we were. Eleven years ago, Kyle "KP" Reilly and Marcus Frasier, two young Americans from Pennsylvania, became the worst enemies of the American record industry in record time. The heart of the dispute is called Datpiff, a site with a somewhat ridiculous name that they have just launched with the aim of offering free download a maximum of mixtapes of American rap. "The labels saw in us only bootleggers who came to take their money from them. Even rappers often found it difficult to understand our approach. But for us the idea was above all to legitimize this music by taking it out of the street, to propose to the artists to give it free to the world rather than merely selling only a hundred physical copies locally "explains Today KP, whose site has become the undisputed industry leader, with more than 600,000 mixtapes in its servers, XXL advertising partnerships and unquestioned credibility with labels. It's simple: today, a mixtape does not exist in the eyes of the general public if it is not on Datpiff. "The site has even become so popular that kids are trying to hack us absolutely every day. It's almost amusing because they do not do it to steal data, they just do it to tell their buddies: "Hey I hacked Datpiff", "says the founder of the site.
Under the coat
But if Datpiff is now one of the best allies of the labels. With them the site now works hand in hand to develop artists. For all that, the summary of the success story would be too short if it were reduced to the principle of gratuitousness underpinned by Datpiff. Indeed, the site based in Leeport in the vicinity of Philadelphia has known above all how to surf a phenomenon that has not ceased to gain momentum over the years: the mixtapes. "Philadelphia and New York have always been seen as the Mecca and Holy Grail of mixtapes," KP said. "Long before the phenomenon spread, these cities possessed absolutely all the best mixtapes of the American territory. Well, the only problem was that you had to look for them to buy them physically. "But the concern is also that by being recorded directly by the artists and then sold by hand, the mixtapes develop a parallel market that will short-circuit taxes, copyrights and licenses specific to the record industry. When, in the mid-2000s, rapper Lil Wayne sold many more copies of his Dedication II mixtape produced by DJ Drama than his official Tha Carter II album, the tensions surrounding this hybrid format ended up exploding. Alerted by the lobbies of the record of the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America), the police organized an American raid. The target: the offices of DJ Drama in January 2007. "They screamed and broke everything. It was a shock, really, replayed a DJ Drama still in shock during an interview for MTV. My first reaction was to remain calm and not to move. When you have an M16 on the head, you follow the instructions. But I did not understand what was going on. " In the end, more than 81,000 records are seized by the police during this descent. As an example, the Philadelphia-born producer is then sent to jail for infringement and copyright infringement. A sanction that definitively marks the end of the era of pay mixtapes and the beginning of the Datpiff era.
Mid-demo, half-album
In spite of everything, young rappers have never really managed to get rid of the mixtape format that offers a more professional in-between than a demo but less formal and artistically segregated than an album. With the expansion of Datpiff, the mixtape has evolved from the status of a pirate disc to that of an ideal promotional tool to raise an artist's rating to the public and thus his negotiating strength in future exchanges with a potential house of Disks. Having experienced their first successes on Datpiff, artists such as Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller and Meek Mill, for example, lead today to successful careers by chaining the albums in majors, rekindling the blazon of the site of KP with the industry "It took a few years for the labels to understand that we helped them in the marketing and branding of their new artists by offering their music for free. Now we work hand in hand with the majors. So much so that on some big mixtape releases, he can now get Datpiff to pay the artists in exchange for an exclusivity guarantee on the platform. On the other hand, the site charges $ 50 to artists who are still confidential for a sponsorship that allows them to appear on the homepage, and thus increase their chances to make themselves known. You can even find tutos to learn how to promote your mixtape or paying websites that artificially inflate their downloads on Datpiff (since when they are counted, the number of downloads plays an important role in the popularity of a Mixtape on the site). So many ways for the artists to be identified by a label ready to finance one or even several albums.
But like Young Thug (16 mixtapes for 0 albums), many are also the rappers of talent that push back indefinitely the album's heading. With 56 free mixtapes in only 10 years, Gucci Mane, the sponsor of the entire rap scene in Atlanta, has proved that it is now possible to build a career away from labels, by simply multiplying on Datpiff free projects for Always remain on the front of the stage. The album has become a luxury product reserved for majors? For KP, the problem is more complex: "There are times when I am not even able to say whether what is posted on Datpiff is a mixtape or a free album. Today, it is no longer a mixtape or an album. It is called a "project". Anyway, with projects downloaded several million times, Kyle "KP" Reilly now has in its offices the equivalent of 28 platinum discs. Not bad for a small site with ridiculous name.
