Contrary to popular belief, crime doesn't pay in rap.
Case in point: Lil' Kim.
The diminutive rapper went to the big house in September, on a perjury conviction, nine days before the release of her latest album, Naked Truth.
While her year-and-a-day sentence earned her almost as much media coverage as Nick and Jessica's bustup, Kim's album hasn't gotten equal attention from the fans. In more than two months, it has sold just 267,480 copies.
This week Naked Truth plunged to No. 197 on Billboard's Top 200 Album chart, giving it little momentum to move more.
The rapper's previous three CDs sold more than1 million copies each: Hard Core (1.4 mil), Notorious K.I.M. (also 1.4) and La Bella Mafia (1.1).
The problem is obvious: Jail doesn't exactly give one a lot of time to promote the product. Though Kim worked her Lee press-on nails to the cuticles in the two weeks before she went away, there's no making up for the fact that she couldn't be around to push the music after it went on sale.
The same problem affected the imprisoned rapper Cassidy. The star has been held on a murder charge since his album I'm a Hustla came out in September. While it enjoyed strong first-week sales (93,000), Cassidy's CD ultimately moved half what his last work sold, 241,000 to 418,000.
Likewise, the rapper Shyne has seen his sales halved since starting his 10-year sentence on a gun-possession charge. The album released during his stay away, 2004's Godfather Buried Alive, moved 439,000 copies, compared with 929,000 for his disk released in freedom, 2002's self-titled debut.
Before rapper C-Murder went into stir, his CD Trapped in Crime moved 442,000 copies. The two records he put out since going into the slammer have pushed only 100,000 (2002's Tru Dawgs) and 96,000 (2005's Truest Shit I Ever Said).
Still, it doesn't take a sustained prison stint to wreak havoc on a hip hopper's sales. Black Rob suffered brief stays in jail before he released his latest album, The Black Rob Report, which moved just 56,000 units before departing Billboard's charts last month.
But that was just one contributing factor to a larger issue that felled Rob: too long a stay away from the studio. Six years separated his debut CD (which moved nearly 1 million copies) from the followup. Part of this had to do with a rare kidney disease that sidelined the star. When he came back, Rob's music simply didn't strike fans as contemporary.
Another rapper in trouble has no criminal issues to blame. Twista, the fast-tongued Chicago MC, pushed 1.8 million copies of his last CD, Kamikaze. Maybe that title better suits his new one, The Day After, which dive-bombed to No. 120 after eight weeks, moving just 330,012 copies so far.
In a way, Kamikaze was the freak case. It only sold huge because of the Kanye West-produced/Jamie-Foxx-featured single "Slow Jamz."
While Foxx did show up again this time, he couldn't make lightning strike twice.
Source: NewYork Daily News
Case in point: Lil' Kim.
The diminutive rapper went to the big house in September, on a perjury conviction, nine days before the release of her latest album, Naked Truth.
While her year-and-a-day sentence earned her almost as much media coverage as Nick and Jessica's bustup, Kim's album hasn't gotten equal attention from the fans. In more than two months, it has sold just 267,480 copies.
This week Naked Truth plunged to No. 197 on Billboard's Top 200 Album chart, giving it little momentum to move more.
The rapper's previous three CDs sold more than1 million copies each: Hard Core (1.4 mil), Notorious K.I.M. (also 1.4) and La Bella Mafia (1.1).
The problem is obvious: Jail doesn't exactly give one a lot of time to promote the product. Though Kim worked her Lee press-on nails to the cuticles in the two weeks before she went away, there's no making up for the fact that she couldn't be around to push the music after it went on sale.
The same problem affected the imprisoned rapper Cassidy. The star has been held on a murder charge since his album I'm a Hustla came out in September. While it enjoyed strong first-week sales (93,000), Cassidy's CD ultimately moved half what his last work sold, 241,000 to 418,000.
Likewise, the rapper Shyne has seen his sales halved since starting his 10-year sentence on a gun-possession charge. The album released during his stay away, 2004's Godfather Buried Alive, moved 439,000 copies, compared with 929,000 for his disk released in freedom, 2002's self-titled debut.
Before rapper C-Murder went into stir, his CD Trapped in Crime moved 442,000 copies. The two records he put out since going into the slammer have pushed only 100,000 (2002's Tru Dawgs) and 96,000 (2005's Truest Shit I Ever Said).
Still, it doesn't take a sustained prison stint to wreak havoc on a hip hopper's sales. Black Rob suffered brief stays in jail before he released his latest album, The Black Rob Report, which moved just 56,000 units before departing Billboard's charts last month.
But that was just one contributing factor to a larger issue that felled Rob: too long a stay away from the studio. Six years separated his debut CD (which moved nearly 1 million copies) from the followup. Part of this had to do with a rare kidney disease that sidelined the star. When he came back, Rob's music simply didn't strike fans as contemporary.
Another rapper in trouble has no criminal issues to blame. Twista, the fast-tongued Chicago MC, pushed 1.8 million copies of his last CD, Kamikaze. Maybe that title better suits his new one, The Day After, which dive-bombed to No. 120 after eight weeks, moving just 330,012 copies so far.
In a way, Kamikaze was the freak case. It only sold huge because of the Kanye West-produced/Jamie-Foxx-featured single "Slow Jamz."
While Foxx did show up again this time, he couldn't make lightning strike twice.
Source: NewYork Daily News
