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Jay-Z announced that he is moving the publishing rights for his entire to Warner/Chappell after signing a global publishing deal with the company. The deal also gives the company the rights to the entire Roc Nation catalog as well as all of Jay’s future recordings. (more…)

This doesn’t exactly pertain to hip-hop specifically, but rather all genres of popular music today. Mike Doughty, best known for being the leader of the avant garde alt rock group Soul Coughing, sat down with Fuse music nerd Dan Brown to explain why new artists don’t stand a chance of making a living off of their music. (more…)

At the end of last year, Chris Webby left his mark on the game when his commercial debut, There Goes The Neighborhood, emerged as the number one hip-hop album on iTunes with no promotion whatsoever.  Albums like this have been a trend within the passing months, and it seems like this wave of overnight digital sensations isn’t going anywhere. Last week, New York hipster hip-hopper Hoodie Allen released his commercial debut exclusively in digital format, and low and behold the release surpassed Nicki Minaj from a digital standpoint (yes, Nicki did move about 3 times this amount in the past 7 days, but the majority of which was physical). Now I think everyone wants to know what white rapper will come out of left field and dominate the iTunes charts next; and I have a strong feeling that something like this will happen again this year.  In other sales related news, Texas-bred MC and Lacrae label-mate Trip Lee did his thing by moving an impressive 19,000 units of his latest album, Good Life.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s studied Lecrae because he and his Reach Records affiliates have been killing the game as of late in the God Rap genre.   While it’s not quite hip-hop, maybe sort of trip-hop,  it’s worth mentioning the success of super-producer Bassnectar’s latest project, Viva Voom, which made its top 40 debut this week.  The only other notable release came from Big K.R.I.T. who either has very supportive fans or at least a couple thousand fans that don’t follow hip-hop websites because he managed to sell more than 1,300 copies of his 5 track EP which contains all but 1 song that was previously released for free on the mixtape, 4EvaNaDay, which I highly recommend checking out. Hoodie Allen “All American” – 27,278 (100% digital) Trip Lee “Good Life” – 19,385 (88% digital) Bassnectar“Viva Voom” – 12,877 (2% digital) Big K.RI.T.“4eva Na Day (Road Less Traveled Edition) – EP” – 1,378 (100% digital)