Frank Ocean dominated the charts with the release of his Blonde album. The Apple Music exclusive turned out to be an independent project with the singer fulfilling his Def Jam contract through the visual album Endless. With this move out of the majors, Ocean is a self-made millionaire, according to Forbes.
Breaking down the sales figures for Blonde, Ocean was set to make $5 to $7.50 off each album. It sold 275,616 album equivalent units its first week and was available for purchase for $9.99 at iTunes.
If Blonde was released through Def Jam instead of his own Boys Don’t Cry label, Ocean would most likely have gotten only around $550,000, part of which would have gone right back to the label to cover his advance, the business site says.
Ocean had strife with Def Jam in the past, which supposedly led to the release of his 2011 Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape. He did release his debut album a year later, Channel Orange through the Universal Music Group label.
Last week, UMG declared that it won’t be doing any more streaming exclusives.
Travis O’Guin, co-founder of independent powerhouse Strange Music, emphasized the importance of taking the music on the road to continue creating success.
“If you don’t have live shows which then also turn into merchandising opportunities you can’t continue to make music,” he says to the publication, “because making quality music has an expense attached.”
Chance The Rapper has also paved the way for success as an independent artist. He made history with his Coloring Book mixtape becoming the first project to chart on Billboard’s Top 200 albums list strictly off streams. The Grammys took note of his movement and is now considering mixtapes in its award nominations.
Honestly its good to hear stories where its the artist that tricks label out of millions. Its a brilliant move by Frank and his team. I still have feeling that Def Jam/Universal aren’t gonna take this lying down and are probably reviewing Frank’s old contract trying to find a way to sue him
I wonder why artist with big names don’t go independent when they deals done. Why split the money more ways than you have to?
dont really listen to frank but i support anyone who gives the Middle finger to the label and get that independent money frank finessed them niggas lmao
Frank got an averaged $6.16 per album sale…bro made $1,699,632 his first week. That’s more than 3 times what he would have received if he put it out on Def Jam, before they recouped the advance money. Major Key Alert!
As you all likely know by now, I’m an accountant for YMCMB. Birdman, my boss has a long-standing relationship with Universal. He told me that Frank will lose money on this album because he has to pay for his own writers, producers, engineers and marketing team. The industry speculation is that Frank will attempt to not pay the ones who made this album possible, but that these individuals will sue for what’s rightfully theirs, leaving Frank with nothing. He will likely need to crash on Earl Sweatshirt’s couch.
Khaled voice: You’re a liar!
yeah he writes his own shit pretty sure he produces alot of it if not all of it
its only a matter of time before these major labels just dont exist…nice to see Strange Music’s CEO on this topic..they damn well set the trend to be indie before it was even cool..thats why Tech be on the forbes list every year, and he still dont have gold or platinum selling albums
It’s because he’s gay. If he wasn’t, nobody would be checking for him or would care.
Chance is straight. What excuse fo you for him?
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