TOP HIP-HOP MARKETING GENIUSES

OPEN THE MARKET UP

Puff Daddy

Diddy is easily known as one of the best promoters in hip-hop history. He’s worked to develop the brand of Ciroc and has been doing so since 2007. The artist that he works with are always talented but adding Puff to the record or promotion takes things over the top. You can see this with The Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans, and The L.O.X. From Sean John to Revolt Diddy its easy to see why Diddy is an easy pick for this conversation.

Kanye West

Ye has been called a genius for so many things. He’s also been called a jackass by the President. What I think always holds true about Kanye is he keeps your attention one way or another. No matter what people say about Kanye he seems to deliver a product that is good enough to quiet the negative comments. Donda had one of the best rollouts of 2021 with Kanye having theatrical shows before he released that project. Sometimes the product doesn’t always live up to the hype but the marketing is still great. For example when Kanye decided to release five 7 track albums in 2018. The idea was great overall fans didn’t seem to respond well to the music.

50 Cent

50 Cent. another strategic thinker when it comes to building up awareness for a project. His tactics are a little different than Kanye and Puff. He’s not ass theatrical as Ye and he’s also not selling a party like Diddy. He wants competition. Since he entered the industry he essentially competed with other artists or brands to gain more power in the industry. His feuds are well documented and usually led to major rises in album sales especially earlier in his career. Even in a loss to Kanye in their face-off, his album Curtis went gold in a week. He’s even used competition tactics to market his TV shows on Starz. He went to other networks and his own and it seems to be working out.