Can a rapper bring scarcity back to the music industry?

New strategies for getting people to pay for music

My econ teacher in college was an idiot. TA surfer dude from San Diego. One day he told us this awkward story about how he was explaining economics to a hot chick. She said: “It’s all about supply and demand, right?” His response: “No, it’s really all about scarcity.” Wow. What a line! But for those unfamiliar, economics is really based on this idea of there not being enough of what people want.

Going into 2014, the music industry represents the complete opposite. Music is everywhere. And marketers are constantly fighting for attention. How do you get people to care and ultimately pay for tunes under these conditions?

Nipsey Hussle’s approach: Press up hard copies of a mixtape that anybody will be able find online and download for free and sell them at a premium as part of an in-person event. What if you only print 1,000 copies? And you charge $100 per copy. Well, from his Proud2Pay campaign, he pulled in $100,000 in a day.

While the concept of letting a few super-fans shoulder the burden that artists usually spread across the broadest possible audience is interesting, the idea of creating scarcity might be an even bigger concept. Deluxe versions of CDs at Best Buy are not limited editions. But an autographed, hand-delivered copy from a batch of 1,000 is truly limited and of value.

As the artist later explained, this idea came from Jonah Berger’s book “Contagious: Why Things Catch On.” Bet you didn’t expect a rapper to be among the first to try out a new marketing idea from a damn book. But somebody had to start looking outside the bubble and let themselves be inspired by best practices from other industries. We’re all surrounded by examples that aren’t about exactly what we do, but one thing the music industry really has to do is start learning by analogy as Seth Godin explains. Nipsey Hussle’s approach is a great example of doing exactly that.

So now we’ll see others try to do the same. And most will probably fail. But could it ultimately work for other artists? Is it a new model? Time will tell, but it’s an interesting case study regardless. As much as we all love it, music itself may not be valuable enough for max monetization at this point. The lesson really is: Create value however you can. If you have to limit the supply, so be it.