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No More Jive, Arista and J Records


Ale

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It’s time to say R.I.P. to three recording imprints that were homes to some of hip hop’s most popular and widely acclaimed artists.

In an interview with “The Hollywood Reporter” yesterday (Oct. 7), president and Chief Operations Officer of RCA Music Group Tom Corson revealed that Jive Records, Arista Records and J Records—three of the label group’s monikers—will be absorbed into its fourth, RCA Records.

Coincidentally, RCA Records is the flagship label of Sony Music Entertainment, which distributes the labels under the RCA Music Group umbrella. Thus, RCA Records is now solely responsible for releasing all RCA Music Group products.

Corson cites a revamping of the RCA brand and focus on a leaner yet profitable financial model as the reasons for shuttering Jive, Arista and J.

“We've learned to work with less and hopefully accomplish the same or more,” said Carson. “The path we've taken is to refresh RCA, so we're going to retire those brands.”

Founded in 1977, Jive may have made its biggest splash with the teenybopper explosion of the late-‘90s to the early 2000s with acts such as Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. However, Jive was also home to some of the rap genre’s best known acts of the ‘80s and ‘90s, which included Boogie Down Productions and KRS-One, Too $hort, and DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince.

Arista, which music industry stalwart Clive Davis founded in 1974, is the oldest of the three imprints, once a stable for rap/hip hop acts such as Naughty by Nature, Cee-Lo Green and A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip. Bad Boy Records and So So Def Recordings—founded by moguls Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jermaine Dupri, respectively—are just two of the several hip hop labels that once relied on Arista for distributing its records.

Davis also founded J Records—in 2001, making it the youngest of the three ill-fated brands. Not exactly a hotbed for rap artists, it has nevertheless opened its arms to acts such as Pitbull.

By default, the artists signed to the now-defunct labels have now moved to RCA. In addition to Pitbull, hip hop and R&B acts involved in the automatic migration include Alicia Keys, Chris Brown, T-Pain and Usher.

http://www.examiner.com/hip-hop-music-in-baltimore/no-more-jive-arista-and-j-records

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i guess nas was right when he said hip hop is dead, rip to those labels who released good music

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Jive was on fire from the mid 80's thru' the mid-90's. DJ Jazzy Jeff + Fresh Prince, KRS-One/Boogie Down Productions, A Tribe Called Quest, Too Short, Aaliyah, R. Kelly, Fu-Schnickens, Shaquille O'Neal, Whodini, Kool Moe Dee, etc...

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I think music is be available...but mostly in places like department stores that will carry a variety of things. I don't think it will ever go 100% online-only. I'm all for a healthy music industry but I don't feel that the constant changes are leading to that. It's only gotten worse and worse over the past 10 years. The internet helps indie artists get recognized most easily but I feel that there will also be some corporate force that always assists most of the artists who are popular become/stay popular.

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Its certainly heading that way here in the UK. Apart from your local supermarket, there is now only one place on the high street to buy music and that is HMV. It is the only dedicated music store left. Once that goes it will be mainly an online market. I'm sure this will be common ground in the not so distant future!

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it seems like the internet's been the gift and the curse for music, it's great for more artists to get exposure but it's sad though that nobody buys music since the talented artists deserve to be supported for the hard work that they do, and like I've been saying maybe if these record labels promoted more quality music they wouldn't go out of business

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bottomline is the reason why hip hop is not doing as well as it was during the golden era of the late 80s to mid 90s is that these labels don't promote balance anymore so it's hard to feel sorry for them, they don't know how to do business, people are tired of them only promoting garbage

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Music ins"t selling that much because of illegal downloads, that is the bottom line. Until they find a solution for that problem, it will be bad. On the other hand, the music industry of the 90"s might have been financialy halthy, but other than that it wasn"t exactly a good business. It was (and still is, but they spend less money now) shady.

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The 90's were dope...period.

*Albums rarely got shelved
*Albums usually got about 3 music videos/singles
*Album music got played on the radio
*Singles were released featuring remixes, b-sides, instrumentals, etc
* Collaborations were an event, not a necessity
*Most artists were required to have talent and at least some individuality
*Labels stuck behind the artist stronger/longer
*Soundtracks!

...nuff said.

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word to AJ, the '90s was a great time, music and life just felt better than it does now

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