via Woooha
Jermaine Dupri x TAG Records. When Jermaine Dupri was booted from his job at Def Jam earlier this year, there were rumors that Dupri’s deal with TAG Records was in jeopardy as well. Fortunately for Dupri, the Def Jam and TAG Body Spray collaboration was arranged as a separate deal and Dupri kept his job as President of TAG Records…for the time being.
The bottom line though is TAG Records is not doing so hot. Rumored reports are coming in from Proctor & Gamble (TAG Body spray owners) that due to a combination of the economic downturn and the lack of buzz surrounding TAG Record’s initial artist Q Da Kid, P&G budgets will tighten up in future media buys and promotions with TAG Records. Rumor also has it that Def Jam has plans to phase out Dupri’s involvement with TAG Records as well. In a January interview with Essence, Dupri stated the following about his future relationship with TAG and Def Jam:
I don’t know what’s going to happen and that’s the saddest part in dealing with these situations. They try to keep the group to hurt the person who brought these artists to them. The truth is, I can always find another artist but the artist can not find another me. I have to be in a forward motion. One of my biggest focuses is that if you want to do new things you can’t do old things. I can’t be around people that don’t motivate and that’s what happened: a slow motion of people living off checks with no excitement. I’m into excitement.
P&G spent over $10 million to fund the initial launch of TAG Records and used Q as the main spokesperson along with Dupri. This included a full print and TV ad campaign along with aggressive promotions with MTV. That initial campaign was launched over half a year ago and Q still has not released an album, the TAG Records blog is inactive, ad campaign is done with, and it seems like Q is the only one trying to keep TAG Records alive noting in his blog:
MUST SAY IVE BEEN DOING A GOOD JOB SO FAR THE ALBUM IS IN THE WORKS ,TAG RECORDS IS STILL INTACT AND BELIEVE ITS GONNA BE CLASSICAL!!!!!!!!!! -Q DA KID
TAG still promotes Q Da Kid online but now has moved on to a Battle of the MCs competition. As for other artists in the works or when Q will finally drop his album? We reached out to P&G and TAG Records but they had no comment. The real question will be….when Q drops the album will P&G have any money left to support the actual release?
According to 2008 sales of body spray across the industry, sales dropped over 23% and this was BEFORE the Recession. And with Jermaine Dupri no longer tied to Def Jam, does he have any more motivation to push the label or Q?
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