For Cameron Giles, the rap game is one brimming with opportunities.
"If you don't stay up with technology, you're gonna fall out of the loop and not make any money," he cautions his fellow rappers stuck in traditional mindsets.
Known to millions by his hip-hop pseudonym Cam'ron, the New York City native has been in the business for some two decades. Finding support and success early on, he earned his first RIAA gold certification back in 1998 for his debut album Confessions Of Fire, released via
Feeling blessed, Giles remains grateful to the fans who continue to appreciate his discography and still show him love. "They treat my stuff like wine," he says. "It just gets better with time."
Each of these sales accomplishments come from the days before Spotify and Tidal, a time when units shipped to retail stores were the key metric as opposed to streaming sales equivalents. Giles has lived through myriad changes to the music marketplace and artist compensation. As someone who found some of his best success from putting out albums, Giles acknowledges that, from a commercial perspective, it's more of singles-centric culture now than back in the day.
"When people put out an album [now], their second week sales decline drastically," he says, though he insists that there's still some demand for long players. "It just depends on what kind of artist you are."
None of this seems to be deterring Giles from putting out another solo album. He anticipates that his new album entitled Killa Pink will drop this coming November, and already has a unique angle to the record's release strategy underway. Working with Pantone's Color Institute, Giles commissioned a custom pink for use in multiple aspects of the album's promotion, including a limited edition Reebok sneaker utilizing this Killa Pink color. His last collaboration with the footwear company earlier this year swiftly sold out of its 1,000 pair run, which bodes well for this next iteration.
"We're going to market heavily in October, as it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month," Giles says, implying that there will be some charitable components to the rollout.
The Pantone color development jibes well with his current career strategies designed to maintain and invigorate a brand he's worked hard to build. A testament to his multi-generational relevance, in recent years he began to notice unlicensed and bootleg merchandise utilizing and appropriating his intellectual property. "I was like, these people are making money off my likeness," he says, recalling all kinds of apparel and housewares with his face emblazoned on it in that nebulous space between parody and homage.
Rather than despair or engage in the expensive game of trademark whack-a-mole, Giles instead recognized the inherent business opportunity to leverage the Cam'ron brand and cash in. He partnered with a third party to produce official items as conventional as t-shirts and as creative as shower curtains, all sold directly through his own website's dedicated e-commerce.
"You gotta think outside the box," he says, adding that the limited edition nature of some of the items he's sold makes a big difference to his merchandising business' bottom line. "It's been very successful, very lucrative."
"To be honest, the real money is in merchandising and performances," Giles says. To that end, he's about to spend much of his summer on the road headlining The Smokers Club tour, a traveling marijuana-themed hip-hop festival that also features a number of younger rap artists including The Underachievers and G Herbo.
What marketing advice can this rap veteran give to his more junior tour mates? "They've got a great tool in the Internet," Giles says. "If you've really got a good movement, you can see who likes you."
