Audiomaxxx boom bye-bye
Audiomaxxx.com now points to a news story from p2pnet. There are definitely many folks out there happy to hear that King Raj and the infamous Audiomaxxx have been taken down. CBC coverage indicates that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided the offices on the strength of an on-going investigation by Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA).
Ouch.
Clearly, there is little love lost for King Raj, a notoriously unpleasant person who was essentially selling zip files of the latest reggae tunes and keeping all the cash. For an industry in freefall, this activity caused a lot of anger on the part of reggae producers and fans.
While I prefer that people are paid fairly for their work, it’s safe to say that Audiomaxxx was not the sole blemish on an otherwise whistle-clean dancehall industry. Likewise, some of the criticism from North American observers seems based on an inaccurate model of the biz in JA. Although there are definitely other folks with a better perspective on this, I’ve always understood the reggae economy to work quite differently from pop in the US. Deejays get paid flat fees for dubs and voicings while producers angle for a spot on the limited number of export comps put out by labels like VP.
Dancehall thrives on exclusivity and the music moves fast. “One hot minute” takes on a new significance when 100s of riddims with dozens of voicings come out each year. As internet access has spread, producers pass around mp3s and radio stations stream over the web. Thus, it’s possible for people outside of the island to be up on the latest tracks much more quickly than in the past. As a result, the many-months lagtime between a riddim’s popularity in JA and the international release of vinyl / CD has become intolerable to many fans, DJs, and soundsystems off-island.
Audiomaxxx was a strange, yet inevitable response to this tension. By (presumably) trolling forums, IRC channels, torrents, p2p networks, and working industry connections, Raj was able to provide a centralized, organized library of the latest reggae and dancehall on the web. Much of the music he sold would never be released outside of Jamaica and the tracks that were big enough to see pressing on a riddim collection would not see the light of day for at least 6 months. To those who suggest that Raj was simply smoking a blunt and cashing a check, I protest. Keeping up with the reggae release cycle from Winnipeg requires hard hard work.
The Audiomaxxx takedown came to my attention this morning when I tried to find a place to buy high-quality mp3s of the Dutch Pat riddim, especially Mr. Vegas’ “Tek Weh Yuself”. This is not a new riddim yet I challenge you to find a legal download of it in a non-DRM format. After a few futile minutes of searching, I went to Audiomaxxx to buy Raj’s collection.
In the absence of legal options, I turned to the grey market.
And so a pattern repeats itself.
Tags
audiomaxxx, canada, cria, dancehall, industry, jamaica, kingraj, music, reggae, takedown
Tags: audiomaxxx, canada, cria, dancehall, industry, jamaica, kingraj, music, reggae, takedown
March 14th, 2008 at 19:19:26 (PDT -04:00)
Same thing happens in Jamaica, sort of…I acquired my version of Tek Weh Yuh Self from some dude hawking mix CDs at Hellshire. I don’t even know where you would go to find legit CDs with everything on a riddim or even just the hot hits of the week.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the problem here is the assumption that music comes in “albums” when, for dancehall culture, that’s often just not the case. I’m curious if you think that’s totally off-base or not…
That said:
http://www.amazon.com/Tek-Weh-Yuhself/dp/B000XQT9BW/ref=sr_f2_17?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1205536717&sr=102-17
But I don’t know if 256 kbps can be counted as “high quality”…
March 14th, 2008 at 22:23:56 (PDT -04:00)
I think you are spot-on with the albums v. tracks thing. This is a major weirdness in the North American music industry. The pop ideal is in albums even though everyone I know just wants to hear awesome singles.
Is the digital download the cassingle?
Also, I spent 5 minutes searching amazon for Tek Weh Yuhself with no luck! You have the magick touch. Thank you!
March 14th, 2008 at 23:35:36 (PDT -04:00)
[…] todo mundo » Blog Archive » Audiomaxxx boom bye-bye a thoughtful post on the fall of audiomaxxx and the current state of THE music industry (inna and outside JA) (tags: blogpost jamaica reggae babylonia music industry internet piracy copyright) […]
March 15th, 2008 at 11:11:37 (PDT -04:00)
[…] Kevin’s post about the fall of Audiomaxxx, he links to the video for Mr.Vegas’s “Tek Weh Yuself.” What most struck me while […]
March 15th, 2008 at 11:46:50 (PDT -04:00)
Beatport has got it. Or actually their new “urban” alternative BeatSOURCE has it. I’m pretty happy with them when paying for stuff. ts’all DRM free and 320 and all that. Just sucks to have to log in to two sites now to find stuff.
oh, and, check your gmail homes ;)
March 17th, 2008 at 04:30:11 (PDT -04:00)
It’s really depressing. one of the best parts of dancehall is its exclusivity but now exclusivity is taken to a bare minimum. for the people putting hours of effort to take the site down should now take the appropriate step and build an even better site that offers the music legally. If he could do it illegally, someone can do it legally. I’d say that the death of audiomaxxx is a double edged blade for both the fans and the artists. Artists especially who support the end of this site should utilize the opportunity to remake a site that expands the industry.