S. Samuel
With the United States economy still recovering from a recession, SOHH recently chopped it up with Dipset A&R Duke Da God to find out if he is offering opportunities to up-and-coming artists.
Duke has shared his e-mail address in order for young artists to inquire about joining the mighty Dipset brand.
“I’m definitely looking for new talent,” Duke told SOHH about recruiting new artists. “I’m always looking for talent. Araab Muzik, I’ve been working with him for the past four or five years but I had to find him too. I have A-Mafia, working with him. Artists just have to e-mail me and I check every e-mail that hit my inbox. The first 30 seconds will determine if I’m going to listen to the whole sh*t. Artists have to remember to send me quality, not quantity, with their records. You can send it to [email protected]. I check it religiously and music doesn’t go into my inbox without me checking it. Justin Bieber could have sent me something, anybody. I don’t miss out on opportunities. And we’re definitely looking to build up and get ready for the future. I’m looking for young artists, not old artists. It’s all good, but I’m looking for young artists.” (SOHH)
Earlier this month, Duke talked about Dipset branching out from E1 Music for a new record deal.
“I think we outgrew E1. We did that when it wasn’t popular to go that route. We were innovators. Now we need to get it right. We need to touch the whole world. If we had a marketing budget of $200,000 on Koch, we need a $1 million to $1.5 million budget, so we can touch everybody. Our marketing budget wasn’t big enough at the time…There are so many avenues like radio and TV and [they’re more expensive]. It’s all about business, like with anything. You get what you pay for. You have to spend the money to get the proper listeners. Nothing is free. All them looks that you get, that you see major artists get, those aren’t free looks because they like the record. Just because Beyonce comes out with a record, it doesn’t mean everybody’s going to play it. It takes marketing dollars to get sh*t off the ground. All that sh*t you see on TV, those aren’t free looks. You have to pay to get those looks. When you’re in the game you see that though.” (Hip Hop Game)
The Diplomats are reportedly set to secure an album deal with Interscope Records.
After an interview at The Source Magazine headquarters where Freekey Zekey insinuated that a Dipset deal with Interscope Records was possible by pointing to a magazine cover with Dr. Dre‘s picture (in addition to the revelation that the group has actually recorded with Dre), Freekey has confirmed that the group will be signing a deal with the label. “The papers are not actually signed right now [sic] but you could basically say it’s going down,” said Freekey in an interview with QTheQuestion.com, when prompted about the possibility of a deal with Interscope. (Hip Hop DX)
Duke recently hit up SOHH to discuss his new album, The D.I.P. Agenda.
“We have some really good rookies, new-and-upcoming artists that’s gonna be big one day, that are featured on the album. I love to break new blood. We’re [re-introducing] J.R. Writer and Hell Rell. They can survive [in] the music industry, and [as displayed by] Cam’ron with Vado, it’s great to keep giving you guys new players instead of having you all rely on old players. Hip-hop always needs new blood and fresh ideas.” (Buy My Record)
Check out some recent Dipset footage below:
