It took me some time to realize that rap artists understood the concept of the Minimum Viable Product long before the “Lean Startup” movement had been born.
Hip Hop itself started in the 70s via block parties and made famous by DJs like Africa Bambaataa and Kool Herc. Then it evolved from the parks to the clubs and in between spread like wildfire via mixtapes, conquering clubs in Manhattan and becoming the “It thing” in art circles. Soon after that the major labels transformed Hip Hop from a sub to a mainstream culture.
The concept of quickly testing your product and iterating over customer feedback to understand what the market needs has always been a fundamental part of how Rappers approach things.
The concrete implementation keeps evolving and adapting but the general approach remains the same.
In the early 90s mixtapes became a worldwide phenomenon. To stay on top of what’s happening in New York, people would run to buy the latest mixtapes. These tapes (later CDs) featured the current underground hits as well as unreleased tracks, sometimes up to a year before the official release.
The unreleased tracks where either white label pressings handed to a select set of DJs or DAT tapes straight from the recording studio. Major labels and independent artists a like used this mechanism to test the street crowd reaction on a particular song.
“Feeling satisfaction from the street crowd reaction”
DWYCK
Gang Starr ft. Nice & Smooth
Sometimes the final songs on the album where adaptions of the original version heard on mixtapes. Thinking about it, what they were doing here is really releasing minimal implementations of the product (think Album as product) and quickly receiving feedback from the club and street audience. This feedback might have an impact on the current direction the Album might be taking. Seeing a particular style take off, might be an indicator on what style to focus on music wise.
Fast forward to 2015, rappers have taken this approach to a whole different level. Not relying on big name DJs to play their music via mixtapes anymore, they now release their own mixtapes. Not only their own mixtapes actually, but even videos and single tracks. Sometimes randomly, but always with the final product being the official Album release.
Instead of pressing one or two street singles, they now have a number of outlets to test any direction and style. The approach open ups up the possibility to experiment with new music and quickly receive feedback. in the form of clicks, views, likes and other metrics. This means they are building a MVP and incorporating the feedback into the product, the official Album in this case.
In hindsight these street campaigns are similar to “fail fast , fail often”. Quickly releasing new songs and gathering early reactions is better than releasing the full album and hitting a brick wall - without ever getting any feedback from outside the inner circle or team.
Obviously this mindset has the same uncertainties Startups have to deal with. You’re catering to an early-adopter crowd, meaning that the album might still flop from a commercial or mainstream point of view.
All in all, we can learn a lot about product development just by taking a look at how rap artists have been releasing music over the last 20 years. The methods might have changed, but not the underlying mindset.
