Mr. Scarface Is Back
HarveyCanal
"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Y'all had me pulling out old records last night and from what I actually had time to revisit, I have to say that "Born Killer" and "Murder By Reason of Insanity" back to back = 
Comments
Yeah, it was.
Rap-a-Lot doesn't even keep a lot of their classics in print--you can forget about any kind of a deluxe edition.
A Rap-a-Lot "deluxe edition" would probably consist of the original release, minus a few key tracks with some lurid 15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION logo obscuring half the cover art.
Any thoughts on why?
Are they at least converting the catalog in digital form for the children?
No idea. They've been putting out great music for close to two decades now and Prince is definitely a pioneer on the business side as well. At the same time, it seems like they've failed to grow as a business in certain ways over the years: they regularly bungle promotion (Devin should be a much bigger artist than he is); their distribution has been very shoddy at points (there is no excuse for Scarface classics to have been wholly unavailable at certain points in the last five years); they do dumb things that endanger their artists' brands (fake cut-n-paste Face albums); and they have failed to maintain their catalog (certain records reappeared in screwed but not regular versions last year--wtf!?).
[color:white]And, yes, I know talking bad about J. Prince is gonna be catnip for Shied.[/color]
but i'll believe it when i see it.
He had a couple--do you mean the first one?
Yes, the first joint.
Don't know.
But it's got some of the worst cover art in the history of rap albums... do you really need a 12" x 12" image of that?
Haha!! That is terrible.
Just a six track Hot Club Wax sampler and a 12" for "Playa Playa" / "Havin Thangs"
Thanx.
also i'm not so sure the scarface cut n pastes are a bad marketing move in the long run; 1st off they all have some pretty solid (some even classic) joints on them, and second if yr making him into a long-term seller its not a bad idea to go the Pac route, make ppl buy the whole discography on some southern-auteur-genius shit. I mean lets be honest, not too many disposable scarface verses in the cataloge you know?
Speaking of Big Mike, I remember being the only head who really liked the "Till Death Do Us Part" record back when everyone was salty over Willie D's departure. Mike actually did a great job of fitting into the group, and that album's a classic in my book.
FACE ISN'T DEAD
Exactly... he doesn't make new records anymore AFAIK but he's definitely not on Rap-A-Lot anymore either... I actually enjoyed some of the tracks on that last comp though so I'm not hating... not neccessarily a wise move but a last ditch effort to cash in on his name while Prince still could (I assumed it was to steal sales from that 'The Product' CD)...
Except Rap-A-Lot has always been notorious for having the worst distribution ever.
I would disagree with your assessment of No Limit and Ruthless both of which had crazy distribution everywhere. Hell there is so much No Limit stuff out there its only worth pennies on the dollar for 99.9% of it. The reason you aren't seeing any reissues of Ruthless Records catalog is that Eazy's wife owns it and won't reissue it.