ARTIST: Papoose
Label/Year: Jive/2006
Payout: $1.5 Million
After winning an '05 Justo Award for underground rapper of the year and landing a notable feature on Busta Rhymes' "Touch It (Remix)," Jive signed him for $1.5 million. The deal turned out to be a ginormous disappointment, with Pap citing "creative differences" upon parting ways with the label in '07. His debut Nacirema Dream never surfaced, which we can't understand being that we know lots of girls who want to hear songs about fitted hats and letters being slaughtered.
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ARTIST: Nas
Label/Year: Def Jam/2006
Payout: $3 million
After Nas and Jay-Z squashed their beef, God's Son walked into the lion's den and signed with Jay-Z who was the president of Def Jam at the time. He didn't do as well as expected, only selling gold with Hip Hop Is Dead and his Untitled albums. On top of that, most of that money he got is probably going towards those $44,000 alimony payments to his ex-wife Kelis. Ouch.
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ARTIST: Jim Jones
Label/Year:Columbia/2007
Payout: rumored $1 mil
After almost going gold independently with Hustler's P.O.M.E. (Product Of My Environment) on E1, and scoring a top 5 hit with "We Fly High," Jones' stock was at an all-time high. The rollout for his major label debut was augmented by an off-Broadway play, plenty of take-out from Philippe Chow's, and declarations from Dame Dash that it was on par with Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt. Unfortunately Pray IV Reign barely sold 40,000 its first week. Now Capo is back at E1 and we're guessing his takeout comes in Styrofoam cartons.
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BONUS CONTRACT: Mariah Carey
Label/Year: EMI Records/2001
Payout: $80 Million
Given that Mariah had sold a shitload of albums and was the biggest female artist at the time, it seemed like a good idea when EMI gave her a $20 million advance per album, a $6 million music-video production fund, and about $1.5 million to promote four singles. Then Carey went on TRL with an ice cream cart, did a strip-tease routine for Carson Daly, suffered a nervous breakdown, made a piece-of-shit movie, Glitter, and an accompanying soundtrack that flopped. EMI Records quickly came to its senses and bought out her contract for $24 million.
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prophecypro February 18th, 2010 at 01:04 PM
Are you sure some of these are fails though? For Nas to sell two gold albums (HHID-700k, Untitiled-500k) in this climate with very little promo means Def Jam probably recouped most of the budget. I know 50 said that the promo for HHID was only $2 mil, that means he probably made back his dough. Hardly a failure.
bigdickcheney February 18th, 2010 at 02:47 PM
Those albums were critical duds and commercial flatlines. Nas's wack albums on Sony were platinum. As for this climate? Em and Jay are still plat consistently.
Mag February 18th, 2010 at 03:15 PM
You know damn well Roc Nation bought those albums!!! and 5mil on promotion alone? Never count out Jim Jones! 50 still paying visits to P in jail! QUEENS!!
suckitmarshall February 18th, 2010 at 01:14 PM
Funny shit.
smid February 18th, 2010 at 01:27 PM
complex never fails to take a dig at nas.. smh
huh February 18th, 2010 at 01:32 PM
why doesnt Complex just come out and say its apart of RocNation enterprises?
toppashot February 18th, 2010 at 01:46 PM
lol. seriously. if anything Nas won off that def jam deal. Complex writers is real lame.
riff raff February 18th, 2010 at 01:38 PM
Couldn't you just about put any artist signed to Bad Boy? Probably not as big a payout but a lot of fails on that label.
H February 18th, 2010 at 02:51 PM
LOL... Here we go againnnnn ( Tommy Bunz- Belly post) Complex.. what do you have against Nas?!? Lol yoo you guys are the worse! He went Gold with both albums, with no real radio hit and he still lost? Why do I still get on complex.com? Because I find it hard to believe that the writers are this bad! Please stop hating...it plain to see at this point. 1
ratchethawk February 18th, 2010 at 03:53 PM
complex is so on jay z's dangling ball sack its annoying as hell. complex stays on jays nuts more than beyonce
Malcolm Maximillion February 18th, 2010 at 04:41 PM
I thought Kelis said Nas got 9 mil just to turn his album into Def Jam?
the little homie naz February 18th, 2010 at 08:03 PM
yeah i think kelis took the annuity option and will receive 100% of that haha.
RIOT February 18th, 2010 at 04:48 PM
Damn yall some Haters! I pledge to take the LOX, Nasir and Maobb Deep off the list, whatever financial failures their projects were to the majors. Thats straight up Hip-Hop blasphemy right there lol... Rahter salute them for ripping the system (even though money was prolly passed from one fuckery label to another and over most these artist heads...)
fli-die February 18th, 2010 at 05:20 PM
Yeah to put Nas on that list is stupid. You know they HAD to pony up because of what he's DONE. He has a loyal following. If you're a label there NO value you can put on that a built in 450k fan base that you don't have to convince to support. He gets one club/radio/pop hit (which Nas doesn't even attempt to put his heart into) and it's a wrap! That was good business. Name how many artist who are going even gold these days.