can't please everyone

Hey! Last week I got a shoutout in New York Magazine by my guy Ernest Wilkins from Office Hours. "Imagine if Ad Age primarily focused on the business acumen of Master P instead of Gary Vee. That's Trapital." Next time someone asks what I do for a living, I'm using that tagline!

This week's memo covers my interview with MixedByAli, Drake's desire to please everyone with his albums, a recommendation about a great newsletter Napkin Math, and 50 Cent's new hip-hop competition series.

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new Trapital Podcast: MixedByAli, EngineEars

The 3-time Grammy-winning audio engineer came on the Trapital Podcast to talk about his new startup, EngineEars—a platform for mixing engineers to create new projects. He spoke to me about his vision, the fundraising process, and how he found product-market fit.

We also talked about Ali's days rising up with Top Dawg Entertainment, mixing Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, and buying Death Row Records' old studio.

Tap in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you get podcasts

Drake's desire to please everyone

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It's been two years since Drake first promoted his next album Certified Lover Boy. Two years! Here's a brief timeline:

June 2019 - posts on Instagram that he's in Album Mode
​April 2020 - says his sixth studio album is coming Summer 2020
​August 2020 - releases album's lead single "Laugh Now, Cry Later"
​October 2020 - announces that album will drop January 2021
​January 2021 - postpones to Summer 2021 due to surgery and rehab
​July 2021 - says the album is 90% done and is being mixed

COVID-19 and his injury have added to the delays, but this isn't Drake's first long rollout. He announced Views in 2014 and the album dropped in April 2016. There's a pattern behind the long rollouts, the product itself, and why he's stayed on top for so long.

Appealing to the lowest common denominator

In Drake's 2019 Rap Radar interview, he said he "has to do two things on every album," sing and rap. He said that's why his fans will never get that concise 10, 12, or 13 track album.

If he only dropped rap projects like the Scary Hours EPs or If You're Reading This It's Too Late, he would miss out on the biggest hits of his career. But if he only dropped soft songs like "God's Plan," "One Dance," and "Hotline Bling," then the rap critics would never let up.

The result is albums like Views and Scorpion. They are buffet-style offerings of music. They're not bad, but they don't inspire diehard fandom. They appeal to the lowest common denominator. Drake knows this. He already thinks that people will hate on Certified Lover Boy!

Drake approaches studio albums like Democrats running for president. To win the nomination, liberal politicians need votes from a wide base: middle-class Americans, coastal elites, progressives, Black folks, Latinos, and more. Each group has a candidate it loves, but the one who becomes the nominee is liked enough by most groups.

In other words, Drake is the Joe Biden of hip-hop.

But it comes with the territory. It takes a lot of work to create albums like Views and Scorpion that will be liked enough by the masses. If it was that easy, then others would do the same and get the same results.

No need for a long album rollout

Certified Lover Boy will still get tons of buzz whenever it drops. It will be the biggest release of 2021 (unless Taylor Swift drops another album). But Drake can maximize the moment further and top more charts by separating the album's creation from its promotion.

In the streaming era, artists don't need to give more than a few weeks notice before an album drops. Tyler, The Creator gave one week notice before Call Me If You Get Lost.Taylor Swift gave one day notice before both folklore and evermore.

Shorter promotion cycles work well in streaming because artists are selling on-demand content on platforms that music fans already use on a regular basis. The friction is low. They're no longer promoting products that customers need to travel to stores and pay $20 for. The era favors artists who can maximize the news cycle buzz of their albums without the anticipation dying down.

Drake does this well with his mixtapes and EPs. He can do the same with his albums too. Fans may love to be brought behind the scenes, but that doesn't need to happen in the moment. Drake can still do short releases, have the cameras always rolling, then sell the footage to a video streaming platform for $20 million. That's the model.

Read more about Drake in Trapital's 2018 essay Nothing Was The Same After Nothing Was The Same​

Read Napkin Math for business strategy breakdowns

If you enjoy Trapital's company breakdowns, you'll love Napkin Math. It's a great newsletter on the underlying strategies and technologies changing business. It reaches 17K+ subscribers who study these breakdowns and apply insights to their own business.

Napkin Math is written by Evan Armstrong, a strategist and startup operator who breaks it all down in a nuanced and fun way.

Here are two pieces I really enjoyed:

• ​Why You Probably Shouldn’t Work at a Startup - a 'napkin math' analysis that challenges the romanticized vision of startup life
• ​Product-Led Growth isn’t always the killer business strategy - how Qualtrics succeeded despite ignoring Silicon Valley hottest trends

Join the 17K+ subscribers who read Napkin Math by signing up at this link.

50 Cent's hip-hop competition series Unrapped

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Last week, Deadline announced that the 46-year-old mogul is developing Unrapped, a hip-hop competition series with ABC and G-Unit Film & Television. Some believe that the series will "compete" with Netflix's 2019 show Rhythm + Flow, but that's unlikely given the two distinct formats.

Rhythm + Flow has different key performance indicators

In 2019, Netflix's Rhythm + Flow received widespread critical acclaim for its execution, production, and quality. But it's unclear how well it performed on Netflix's key metrics:

• How many subscribers did it acquire or retain?
• What's the lifetime value of those customers?
• Was the customer acquisition cost worth the spend?
• Will more Rhythm + Flow episodes attract enough additional subscribers to justify the opportunity cost?

In March 2020, Netflix announced that season 2 is coming in 2021, but that was at the start of the pandemic. A lot has changed a lot since then. In my essay, Netflix's Strong Black Lead Strategy, Explained, I wrote that Netflix is not afraid to make unpopular moves. It has the lowest churn of any video streaming service and rarely extends shows beyond a few seasons.

Have I been annoyed that Netflix canceled a show I loved? Yes. Too many to count. But did I cancel Netflix as a result? Of course not, and Netflix knows this.

Unrapped will follow the broadcast TV formula

Broadcast TV is a completely different beast. The goal is to sell attract viewers so networks can sell ads. That incentivizes the longstanding reality franchises with 20+ seasons like The Bachelor and American Idol to continue as long as the audience is there.

50 Cent's Unrapped show will first reach the customers who already popular music reality shows on broadcast TV like The Masked Singer and The Voice. It will also rely on several of the elements that make those shows as popular as they are. The end product will look more like American Idol than Rhythm + Flow

The move is smart for ABC. Fox's Empire was one of the last hip-hop inspired big hits on broadcast TV. Netflix's show confirmed the concept that can be popularized beyond the streaming format. And knowing 50 Cent, there will be enough drama involved to keep fans entertained.

Read more about 50 Cent's Unrapped in Deadline.

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Coming soon

Trapital Podcast - two episodes this week!

Tuesday: Charlene Bryant, Trippie Redd's Manager and Founder of Riveter Management. This is an interview by the Music Business Podcast, who gave me permission to share it on Trapital's feed!

Friday: Jamal Henderson, Chief Content Officer of SpringHill Company. We talk about the marketing strategy behind Space Jam, LeBron James, and the future for the entertainment company.