Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Rap Fan Clubs

So, I found this inside my 2 Kings In a Cipher cassette single of "Definition of a King." It was kind of a big, fuckin' rip-off, because the back cover, and the tape itself, lists all the remixes (like on the 12") as being featured on there... but when you actually play it, all there is is the album version on side 1, and a couple album snippets on side 2. Surely, there's nothing more universally hated in the music industry than fucking snippets.

Notice it says, "this would also qualify you to be a charter member of the Two Kings In a Cipher Fan Club." Now, I've never seen a slip like this in a cassette single - at least not the regular kind in the cardboard slips - but practically every rap artist or group in the history of hip-hop as advertised a fan club in their album's liner notes.

It's a pretty big disappointment of mine that I never signed up for any of these - at least the free ones - as a kid. Most of you guys probably didn't either. But this is the internet! Surely one or two of y'all out there must've signed up for a few of these. So, what did you get? Any funny newsletters? Autographed photos of Doug E. Fresh? A laminated S1W membership card? Promo singles of unreleased music?? Imagine all the fun, neat stuff rappers (or their managers, labels, etc) must've sent out to some lucky fans over the years.

So come on, people; if you've ever gotten anything, cheesy or awesome, share with the group! :)

1 comment:

  1. Just one, and not even a cool one at that. It was an Immortal Records project... and besides that trifling Blade soundtrack pairing rappers with Jungle beats... it was like a Dilated 12" or something.

    In any event, I got an application for street team. I filled that out and started getting posters and stickers galore - non of which were A) Rap B) good.

    Looking at their Wiki page to try and determine what it was, Immortal claims to have had a role in "breaking" Kanye West of all people. Now I'm really curious.

    ReplyDelete