Kanye's Making a Documentary Entirely From iPhone Footage

Have you been robbed by Ticketmaster lately? You may not be entitled to compensation but rather an education from the company itself about “how the business works”. I’m sure that’ll help explain your debt to credit card collectors. You can, however, win $100 cash by leaving this newsletter a review. Scroll to the bottom for more. In other news today:

• Song streams & revenue

• Kanye’s making an iPhone documentary

• Meek Mill and Rick Ross tease new music

• Who is the rapper Joony?

• The Rubi Rose and French Montana tea

• The Ticketmaster debate: fans vs fees

• $100 cash giveaway

Song Streams & Revenue

Ice Spice is in her bag, continuing to dominate charts with PinkPantheress and their viral hit “Boys a liar Pt. 2”. It finally broke the half-a-million mark, 5 weeks after its release, for the streaming period of Feb 3rd to March 9th. The song had its most profitable week from Feb 17-23rd, making $144,477 from a total of 30,100,000 streams.

Hits Double Daily’s latest song revenue chart only shows data from the previous streaming week but the chart above reflects the compilation of the last 5 weeks.

Not pictured, Nicki Minaj’s latest single, “Red Rudy Da Sleeze”, made $60,474 from 12,599,000 streams during its first week of release from March 3rd to 9th.

Kanye West Is Filming an Exclusive iPhone Documentary

Kanye reminds me of that one high school friend you can’t unfollow because their out-of-pocket social media antics make you simultaneously cringe and unable to look away.

Much like this “friend”, Kanye’s periods of activity ebb and flow. He’s been relatively quiet the last few months but that’s maybe because he’s working on a larger plan—an iPhone documentary.

Says Who?

Kanye’s never been one to notify others about “making moves in silence” but it was Wallo267, the Million Dollaz Worth Of Game co-host, who shared the news this week. During a recent meeting with Kanye, he met a producer whose sole job was to film everything Kanye does on an iPhone. Could it be a Jeen-Yuhs rebuttal documentary?

This “white bull” producer, according to Mello, had “hard drives of hard drives” of content. The iPhone was even recording his conversation with Kanye, but he failed to get an exclusive on the release date.

New Meek Mill x Rick Ross Music On The Way

It’s a Maybach Music Group reunion 👀 Rick Ross posted a video on Instagram this week previewing some unreleased heat from Meek with the caption “very soon”.

“Getting money, fuck the fame / Ever since n***as called me I can’t trust the same / You been in my back and put mud all in your brother name / I’m gonna get you back because you know Cardo don’t play no fucking games / All in the open with that .30 on me let it rain,” Meek raps in the video below.

There were rumors the two were once feuding over Meek’s contract with Ross’ Maybach Music but things seemed to be squashed last November when Ross made an appearance at Meek’s Dreams & Nightmares 10th-anniversary concert in Philadelphia. Now they’re back in the stu and potentially working on Meek’s sixth album under Maybach.

Get to Know the Maryland Rapper Joony

You may recognize Joony as one of the standout features on Brent Faiyaz’s album Wasteland last year. “Uh, stop it / I can’t do no talking / I was just fucked up, n***a got back up / Now these bad bitches keep stalking,” he raps on FYTB (listen on Spotify & Apple Music) adding the audacious and boastful bars that compliment Faiyaz’s toxic crooning.

More than a killer guest verse, Joony’s a rap chameleon, straddling the line between regional rap and SoundCloud rap, flexing his lyricism and ability to ride an R&B-influenced melody along the way.

In the BARS interview above, he discusses inspiration, why he wants to work with Swae Lee and Bryson Tiller, how his collaboration with Brent Faiyaz came together, and the advice he wished he received earlier.

The Rubi Rose and French Montana Tea

Almost a month after leaking DMs from a not-so-single DDG, and declaring “this is why I’m single”, Rubi Rose has seemingly found a worthy dinner date for the super low-key Beverly Hills restaurant, Mr. Chow. Imagine the surprise when the paparazzi spotted her and French Montana walking in for some chow, arm in arm.

Cue the quintessential “source” confirming to TMZ that Rose is “100 percent French’s new girlfriend”, and the typical “dang…I can’t go out to eat now” denial.

Rose then confirmed to The Shade Room that the pair have “just started dating” and said, “it’s new, we chilling and getting to know each other still.” In the words of French Montana, time will tell if it’s “A Lie” or “Unforgettable”.

And in the words of Rose…

Fans Are Big Mad at Ticketmaster, Are Their Fees Justified?

If you’ve tried purchasing a concert ticket on Ticketmaster recently, you probably faced a Hunger Games-like waiting room, followed by a bankrupting checkout total—if you even made it that far.

Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are just a few of the ticketing company’s recent fiascos that have left fans furious and legislators concerned about the monopoly of the live music industry.

So much so that senators “thanked and congratulated” Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, for the “absolutely stunning achievement” of unifying Republicans and Democrats over a policy matter at the Senate judiciary hearing in January. Yikes.

What’s Ticketmaster’s defense?

First, they pointed fingers at bots and scalpers for affecting availability and making consumers pay outrageous resale prices. It’s hard to believe a solution against ticketing bots hasn’t been found yet while other industries like banks and credit card processors, facing the same attacks, have somehow figured it out.

Second is the extremely original and inspired idea to better educate consumers and policymakers on what those “service fees” pay for and “how the business operates.” Said fees can add over 30% to the final price of a ticket, according to Live Nation.

As the tweet below shows, a ticket for Drake and 21 Savage’s upcoming tour was advertised as $272 per ticket. Once you get to the checkout, the service fee of $263.55 per ticket is added driving the total price up by almost 50%.

How is the final price of a ticket divvied up?

Ticketmaster’s main source of revenue comes from the processing fee it charges, the face value (as in the price advertised) goes to the artist, and the unidentified “service fee” is shared with the venues it contracts and the concert promoter.

They claim a “small portion” of service fees are kept to recoup any loans, advances, or bonuses it paid the venue to win the ticketing contract for each event. Contracts for large venues can be worth millions and the remaining balance of fees goes to the venue and promoter to cover the cost of the show.

Keep in mind that Live Nation, a concert promotion company, owns Ticketmaster and numerous venues. So if a concert is being promoted by Live Nation, at a venue they own, and tickets are sold through Ticketmaster—they’re profiting from every part of the live music supply chain.

What is drip pricing?

It’s the pricing model that tricks you into thinking you only have to pay for the face value of a ticket and then surprises you with service costs at the checkout. Studies have shown that fans are more likely to make a purchase with this model so it’s been adopted by ticketing companies across the industry.

Ticketmaster would like to eliminate this model, for the sake of transparency, but only if it’s mandated for everyone. In New York, it already is but in many states it’s not. Basically, it’s the “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” defense that transfers the responsibility to state legislators.

Lil Wayne, Lil Uzi Vert & More Headline Pharrell’s Something In The Water 2023 Festival

Something In The Water returns to Virginia Beach this April, tickets for the 3-day festival are on sale here.

• Universal Music and Deezer announce alliance to find “new economic models for streaming” that challenges the current model of pay-per-song consumption share.

• Rick Ross donates $10K in scholarships to 8 students at his high school, along with Rolling Loud co-founder.

• US threatens to ban TikTok unless Chinese owners sell their majority voting stake due to national security and data privacy concerns.

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