VIDEO: Tinie Tempah signs record deal

I didn't do any of this when I signed my deal. You all know how long the process was for me, wasted a lot, A LOT of time dealing with the actual contract. Should have put out a single and a mixtape in that time but I was stuck. Ho hum. By the time the contract was actually finished I got a call from my lawyer saying it was done. I asked him if we had the time to sign it there and then and get it back to Universal before the end of the day, he said we could, I jumped in the whip, drove to the lawyer's office and got it done. Kind of an anti-climax to be honest. I think if the process was at all smooth I'd have been happier but I just went home. Never actually popped a bottle on it at all. Took a MINUTE for the advance to finally clear and a HOT MINUTE for my studio budget to clear. Fucking labels. They both cleared eventually though, so Universal will always be cool to me. That was my second record deal. My first [which was a development deal- also through Universal] was even less sensational. Tego brought the contract to my house one night, we took a picture of me signing it but my phone was extra crappy at the time, I doubt that picture still exists.

Anyway, congratulations Tinie Tempah, I have little doubt that he'll be going the Chipmunk, Tinchy Stryder route and more power to him, his single with Davinche 'Tears' was serious.

IPS servers to save industry with stern letters!

As Universal hand the keys over to Rupert Murdoch ISPs in the UK are finally ready to accept a little bit of responsibility for illegal downloading killing the music industry. Not much, there are no compensation packages and you can pretty much bet that all of their advertising will continue to revolve around upload and download time but at least they acknowledge the problem. And I assume those letters will explode?

Kid Rock doesn't like taste of Apple

Kid Rock is boycotting Apple's iTunes because he believes that the artist back end is too low. Kid Rock's a few tens of millions down the line at this point so is in that beautiful position to be able to reject distribution, the most important online distributor no-less, some of us are not in that position and I don't want to piss anybody at Apple off because I'm a bitch and I have no choice but what Kid Rock says is not entirely untrue. The back end for artists out of an iTunes sale is outrageous.

This story comes off the back of billionaire geniuses Kiss announcing that they're not going to record a new album until fans start getting real and start to calm down with their downloading ways. Again, Gene Simmons and the gang are so rich it's beyond consideration but it's well documented that Kiss have many millions of fans worldwide and a Kiss record regardless of era or quality will do well, the fact that they've taken this stance affects the fans who want to buy Kiss records, or want to hear Kiss records, they appear to be doing back to the fans what the fans are doing to the industry; I respect that...saying that, I give a lot of music away and I love my fans, I will probably always sell and leak music in tandem, that's kinda the way it has to be in this era. Will illegal downloading ever slow? My thing is that there are kids now, who have grown up with downloading, there was no other, buying a C.D? What? I had broadband as long as I can remember. Can we breakthrough that mentality or have we lost a generation?

I say, Universal, Warners, EMI, Sony etc. get together and build like 50 million record players, give them away and stop releasing music on the internet completely, no digital formats, records are on Vinyl again and if you want it, you have to buy it! Unless you're listening to one of those horrible audio rips.

Hater like Star and Buck

I'm thinking of renaming my blog. Something along the lines of "Marvin reads Guardian articles, BBC.co.uk news stories and watches Youtube" what do you think? If you didn't know me from Adam and came to this site you'd think that's all I do...it's not I promise you. I was at Example's Nando's gig last night, I will blog the night at some point. I'm so far off topic right now it's actually pretty impressive. I will pull the topic back in by saying "Cafe Nero" there we go. Back on topic. This is a pretty interesting article that appears to be about a guy who's on a promo tour playing at Cafe Neros throughout the country, but actually it's about a few of the new ideas being thrown around that will "Save the industry". It's interesting because as much as I would love to think people are going to run out to the shops and buy 'Devil In The Distance' just because I tell them it's great, that's pretty much not going to happen, especially when the Megaupload link is right in front of them. Which means that I am personally engaged with the plight of the industry as things stand. My career, my rent, my potential wealth, my potential happiness would appear to be intertwined with the state of record sales. This article is suggesting a corporate tie in of some kind, which I find to be a very dark concept. Jermain Dupri just launched a label with Def Jam and Tag which I'm told is a kind of body spray in America. Kriss Kross, Lil Bow Wow and Dem Franchize Boyz selling deodorant under the guise of credible music fills me with such dread in the pit of my very soul. What the article did get me thinking about though was the concept of the promo tour in 2008. We do live tours, I've supported Akala, Yes Boss, Goldie Lookin Chain, Lethal Bizzle, Skinnyman and Example now. But I always feel like there could be more gained from a tour of the UK. We talked about it around the 'Superhero' release, going around Student Unions and engaging the people I feel would take the most from my music, giving them something, having a good time and actually getting a feel for every city I touch down in. We're talking about setting something up at the moment along those lines and I'd love to do it. I think if everybody outside of the major label system is trying to be as flexible as possible with non-traditional promo and income then everybody inside the system (for however long they may be within it) needs to do the same. Not that a promo tour is revolutionary, far from it, but I think it's a basic tool that we seem to have ignored over the last few years. The people buy the records, the people buy the tickets, why are they ignored? I don't want to tour Cafe Neros though. Maybe a Nandos tour, or a Woolworths tour, me and Jackie Chan could work out some rap/ Hong Kong John Wu choreography would go down well in the gardening isle.