Como Mello Music Group Tornou-se O Maior Sucesso Como Gravadora De "Indie Rap" Da Década

How Mello Music Group Became The Most Successful New Indie Rap Label Of This Decade

When Mello Music Group founder Michael Tolle entered the music biz in 2007, he was bombarded by proclamations of the industry’s imminent demise. A digital revolution had decimated the market for physical sales, and conglomerate-backed major labels were slow and indecisive in adapting to the new landscape. If once-loyal consumers were listening to music on their phones and laptops, skeptics fearfully asked, how were artists, much less labels, going to make money?

Tolle saw the challenge as an opportunity. Born from a series of compilations and self-funded collaborations, his Arizona-based upstart embraced the Wild West of digital downloads and streaming as means of organic publicity. But in other senses, Mello Music was a throwback, pressing releases to CD, vinyl, and cassette for a devoted audience. The album art recalled the great jazz and funk imprints of the twentieth century, and collaboration among Mello’s wide-ranging hip hop roster soon spawned full-length joint efforts from artists of varying stripes.

Rejecting the excesses which helped sink major labels in the new millennium (the built-in overhead of pricey A&Rs, extravagant video productions, superfluous equipment and studio engagements), Tolle let the evolving market dictate the means of his output, reasoning that demand would always exist for considered, musical hip hop. Where other labels clung to outdated mediums and rollout schedules, Mello emphasized the album structure in packaging its stable of idiosyncratic rappers and producers.

Many of Mello’s artists–quirky, progressive narrators with old school sensibilities–are ideally suited for the indie setting. Successful projects have included outings by Stik Figa, a scene-painting lyricist from Topeka; the abstract-leaning discographies of Dudley “Declaime” Perkins and his wife, the neo-soul singer Georgia Anne Muldrow; Open Mike Eagle, who terms his free-associative style “art rap”; and a stable of acts helmed by Detroit producer Apollo Brown, whose neo-noir compositions comprise a brutalist take on his city’s musical tradition.

We caught up with Tolle to discuss the demands endemic to the modern independent label, keeping up with advancing technology, and cultivating an audience.

A lot of Mello Music’s artists hail from distinctly middle American cities. How important was it to seek acts beyond the established hip hop epicenters of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta?

Michael Tolle: Hugely, because while I love listening to music from New York, L.A., Chicago, all of those places, they’re very urban cultures that have their own energies and their own vibes, and they’re visible even when you go there. But they’re not the vibes and cultures that everyone’s on. I personally don’t spend a lot of time in L.A. or New York, but I’m in Seattle a lot, I’m in Portland a lot, I’m in Hawaii a lot, New Orleans and Detroit. Because I listen to so much music every day, to find that little pocket that’s familiar, but has its own little twist, that resonates.

A big thing that people don’t realize about an independent label is that there are a couple of business factors going on that I don’t think anyone consciously tries to do, but they do weigh on things. You saw the death of the group a decade or two decades ago because it doesn’t make sense to tour 18 guys if you can just bring a guy with a microphone. And now it’s sort of gotten back to where the live band is part of the equation, but it’s still economically tough for labels and artists themselves to tour with a band if they’re not really cemented.

Likewise, there’s so much talent in the world, and when you speak to a New York artist or an L.A. artist, they pay New York or L.A. rent. So I’ve got plenty of experience with amazing New York and L.A. artists who are struggling financially, and when you talk numbers with them, they’re paying more per month to share an apartment than you’re paying to buy a house with a mortgage, land, and school district. Living in New York doesn’t sell records, talent does. So if you can find an artist who is not based in New York or L.A., but has talent, money goes farther. And so I think that that plays a factor with a lot of artists because you can go to places like Seattle, Detroit, and things are more reasonably priced without being outside the sphere of understanding, it’s not like you went to some country town where there’s only one building–the experience is similar.

Due to their styles and hometowns, some of Mello’s artists carry the status of hip hop outsiders. How has this helped carve a niche?

MT: There are people who are privileged, people who are not privileged–you get the whole spectrum–but in general most people in this country are somewhere in the middle, and we try to reflect that with music. So when you have someone like Stik Figa from Topeka, Kansas, or Red Pill from Detroit, you get these very American experiences that are unique to the regions. If they’re being truthful in their music, that resonates with people, and it resonates with me. I’d like to imagine we’re building a narrative or a story through all these different people from these very American places, portraying everyday existences with little distinctions that make their stories speak to people.

One thing I noticed with other people I worked with outside the label is that they have this ritual–it’s very hip hop–it’s, ‘Let’s get this big studio that looks awesome, this giant mixing board that we’re not gonna use. We’re gonna smoke tons of blunts, and we’re gonna write our rhymes in the studio, and somebody’s gonna pay $300 an hour for this, and it’s gonna look cool.’ And our artists don’t really work like that. They’re out writing stuff on the plane, on the bus, while they’re sitting in the town square, while they’re traveling, they’re writing as they go, and they only hit the studio when they need to record.

I think a lot of artists have a great first record, because they bring in their experiences from the world. And if they have success, they then tour, they live in hotels, they live in the studio and talk rap music. And that’s what you get on the next record, and the next record, and the next record, as long as they’re successful. But with us, you look at our artists, you don’t hear about that experience, because that’s not what they’re living. They’re continually out in the world writing about their experiences. They maintain a life rather than an industry existence.

Revenue-wise, what’s the current breakout between the digital and physical markets?

MT: I don’t care what format people listen to music in–it’s the music that matters. To that end, we do everything. I personally think CDs are great, vinyl’s great, we do some cassettes now too. Downloads are awesome, streams are awesome. But I’ve watched it change. We used to be pretty evenly split between physical and digital–it would be about 30% CDs, 20% vinyl. Then Apple eliminated CD drives and automakers eliminated CD players, so in the last year or two CDs’ share has decreased, but they’re still about 20% of the market. Streaming has taken over very quickly in the last 12 months, to where, revenue-wise, it has an equal share. Now it’s a little bit tilted–maybe 60% digital, including streaming and downloads, 40% physical.

Within digital, I’d say the most interesting thing is that it’s now about equal between streaming and downloads, which until recently wasn’t the case. Spotify is fantastic to us. Anybody you hear complaining about it, I don’t think they’ve really looked at the comparative picture. iTunes and Amazon are great to us–they’re about the same in terms of revenue. I think that’s why you saw Apple move to Apple Music, and it’s going to get bigger. Some of the iTunes people will move to Apple Music, but hopefully revenue will be equal there. I still think CDs will make a comeback in like five or ten years, and be the vinyl of that age.

Over the last year or so, I’ve been really surprised to see cassette tapes make a bit of a comeback. What do you attribute that to?

I think a few things happened. Vinyl became so trendy, and about two years ago vinyl buyers started requesting free download codes with their purchases. I think the market went from people buying vinyl because they really listened to it–and there’s still that market, that 50% of real vinyl buyers–but there were also a lot of people buying it because it was cool. I think that created a little bit of a bubble, but I still think the core of the vinyl market is very solid.

So then the prices started to go up, and pressing vinyl is still a long process–we’d have to hand records in four months in advance–I think people wanted more of a lo-fi alternative, and it was tapes. I will say that no one’s pressing thousands of tapes, we’re probably talking hundreds at best, even if it looks like they’re everywhere. It’s pretty niche still.

Do you think Mello’s artwork and special edition releases have helped capitalize on the remaining physical market?

Yeah, for me, it’s like Netflix. I stream lots of stuff, but once in a while Netflix changes the selection, and I can’t watch one of my favorite movies. You want to have a copy they can’t take away from you. I don’t want to subscribe to PhotoShop and have to renew it every month, otherwise I can’t open my files. So while I still want to be a subscriber to those services, I want the option of the hard copy.

If I’m pressing something to vinyl, I want it to be a work of art. I joke, I stream it when it comes out, if I like it enough to listen all the way through I’ll buy the digital download. If I’m still listening to it a week later, I’ll buy the CD or vinyl so I can have a physical copy in the house. I know a lot of people don’t do that, but for me, if I have something on vinyl, that means I’ve been listening to it a while, and I want to make sure it’s there, like a book on a shelf. I read digital books, but I have books I really love in paperback or hardcover on a shelf.