Open Letter To All Artists and Businesspeople

I honestly don't understand you people.

You say you're interested in making money, but don't believe in premium culture.

People, even water has gone premium. Why on earth wouldn't you think that books, movies, magazines and music--our most important and revered products--wouldn't?

Because that's the way it's been?

Y'all stupid.

The world used to be flat, too. And the sun used to revolve around it.

And the first motherfuckers that figured out it wasn't made a shitload of money.

Got the best real estate, made history--I don't know, what the fuck motivates you?

Close off your scared pea brain and do the math:

Coke is selling bottled tap water for $1.50 a bottle--it wouldn't even matter if premium culture was any better--people simply want premium.

Do you think it's a sin?

Elitist?

Or do you just not believe in the market mechanism as a means to produce and ensure quality and variety?

A bunch of Stalinists in $3,000 suits as far as I can figure.

And y'all love social realism--the worst art ever made.

Hell, if you're the first, you could even just swap price tags and you'd get rich.

Don't you fucking get it?

Some consumers know the difference, some don't.

Some just have had a bad day and are looking to drop some cash.

But consumers knowing the difference matters about as much as cell phone buyers having boned up on Tesla (the father of modern wireless communication--and AC current, by the way).

All that matters is that the best ideas are rewarded.

In fact, interesting anecdote--

Tesla sold his patents to Westinghouse for some money and a royalty of $2.50 for every unit of horsepower that was sold using his system.

When the investment bankers (Morgan) got their hands in it--ostensibly to consolidate what was then a messy mix of direct current and incompatible alternating current systems--they told Westinghouse the royalty had to go or their standard would never fly.

To get his system adapted, Tesla gave up his royalty--which was, at the time, likely worth at least a billion dollars.

The system got adapted and Tesla--a number of years later--eventually found himself without enough funding to carry on his research.

Who knows what advances were lost because he gave up that royalty-he was working on the wireless transmission of power, and if his track record was any indication, he was likely years ahead of his time.

Similarly, our culture is stuck because the money people don't have the vision to see what their money can do and the artists don't have the balls to set their own prices.

Stupid fucks.

And when premium pricing for content breaks big--and goes around the world faster than any meme in history--you're going to be sitting there like the jackass who passed on Microsoft times a hundred.

Or Pete Best.

Times twenty.

And don't come kissing my ass then--even if you already know me. I know exactly where people stand with the business of premium culture.

Personally I don't care--but don't come at me professionally once the ship has left the port like you knew from the start.

You didn't know shit.

And there will be villas on Lake Cuomo for shmos who put down even $700,000..

Helicopters and Gulfstreams and private islands for four-time losers who decided that $300,000 might be worth seeing if this life had more in store for them than managing a Kwikee-Mart.

My family doesn't believe, my friends don't believe--I no longer see how anything ELSE can happen.

As audiences fragment, prices per instance must rise. Ask the music industry how it plans to grow in the next five years.

And they're just the first to go digital. Comcast already has an on demand cable tv channel--Channel 1--what do you think on demand programming will do for network television?

Kill it.

And what will on demand first run movies do for theatres?

It's not some moral question, it's just math.

And what people want.

The business of mass culture will collapse unless prices are raised.

And raised prices will not be able to compete unless the creators do a better job at reaching niches.

Which can't be done without price differentiation.

And once you pussies realize that paying for quality isn't a sin in your fucked up, dark and sad little counter-culture, and that having health insurance and heat isn't going to corrupt your ability to sing (and that includes The Rolling Stones and Kanye West, by the way--who would think that guys that talk so tough about "Brown Sugar" and "Wait 'til I Get My Money Straight" would go so completely limp-dicked when they meet with the suits about pricing?)...

--Once the whites figure out that having money isn't a sin..

--And blacks--I don't know what they need to figure out--maybe that being in charge and shot-calling in the straight, business world isn't a sin? I know they're not scared of appearing to have money like white folks are..

And once everyone figures out that you get what you pay for..

And only get what you pay for.

Then it's on.

I'll put it down to Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Kanye, Timbo and Dre right now: your shit is better--why aren't we paying more for it?

Why is your shit the same price as some Jessica Simpson filler?

Ice Cube--why are you working on "When Do We Get There 14" when you should be set for life telling the truth?

Why aren't your CDs $25? Or $40 even?

These motherfuckers pay more for lattes in a week than they do to feel what's real.

Why aren't your hits $5 a download? Your films $16?

Aren't you in charge? Is there anyone who can replace what you do?

Or is it the marketing people? The woman who workaholicly, and unhappily puts together the Happy Meal promotions for your shit? Did she make NWA? Eminem?

You're the Teslas, the Edisons, the Einsteins, the Shakespeares--why aren't you in charge?

Don't you trust yourself?

Aren't you motherfucking Gs like all your albums say?

Why don't you set the price? Why don't you call the shots?

All this talk about being ballers and getting all the pussy you want--why don't you walk down to Warner Brothers with your million dollar dookey rope and tell them your shit is now at least $2 per download.

They don't own you do they?

Cause as it is, you're running with Hillary Duff's sophmore release. And you're priced the same as my friends who goof around in their bedrooms and put it up for fun.

Which is like a four-star chef peddling lobster off a raggedy-ass street cart with 'Elotes" and "Shave Ise" scrawled on the side with a Sharpee.

You played yourself.

You guys make more off ring tones than you do off of your soul.

The suits got you touring like bitches. Breaking up your family, missing your kids and wives. Doing photo shoots and calling radio stations like you're trying to impress some drop-out DJ. Going out to lunch with 25 year-old writers from SPIN who make $25K a year.

When you could be dropping songs with your feet up.

Or at least living the life you sing about.

As it is you're working like you've got a job.

What's up with that?

As for businessfolks--y'all just scared and blind. I don't know what to say to y'all.

Artists at least know what they're worth and feel it when they punk themselves.

Y'all I don't even know.

Maybe you have enough Basquiats that you feel cool.

If you don't have Basquiats, then what the fuck have you been doing--getting comfortable at your old job?

Resting?

Waiting for that extra hundred thou to vest?

Y'all are small timers.

Small time rhymers.

Except you don't even rhyme.

Or have any time. (I'll ignore that you dress not unlike mimes and squinch your ass just like dimes.)

Fuck all y'all.