April 16, 1999

Rap Revolutionaries Plan an Internet Release

By NEIL STRAUSS

OS ANGELES -- The rap group Public Enemy plans to release its new record through Atomic Pop, an Internet record label and Web site, allowing buyers to download the album from their computers. Executives at music and Internet businesses say this is the first time a well known, platinum-selling recording act has released a new album this way.

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The record, "There's a Poison Goin On," will be available through the Internet in early May (via download and mail order) and in record stores beginning on June 16, Al Teller, founder of Atomic Pop, said today.

The price for downloading the album has not been set, Teller said, adding that the record would sell for $10 through the mail and for the regular price of a CD in stores.

Public Enemy's move is slightly ahead of the technology.

Though Atomic Pop has not decided which of several competing formats it will use to compress the album into a computer file, Teller said that in any format it will take "a very long time" to download the entire recording. "People are going to have to be patient," he added. Depending on the computer, the downloading will take five minutes to three hours.

Over the last year the music industry has been preparing to transfer a portion of its business to Internet sales, with updates and technological advances being announced almost daily. Just five months ago Public Enemy ran afoul of its previous label, Def Jam Records, when the group made unreleased music available at no cost on the Internet without its label's permission. Its new deal with Atomic Pop is a large step in the music industry's march toward digital music distribution.

If Public Enemy's approach succeeds, it could inspire like-minded bands to follow suit.

"Change is inevitable, and everything is about to change," said Chuck D, the rapper who leads Public Enemy.

"Once one record goes through this, it's the shovel in the dirt." Teller said that because there were no manufacturing costs for downloaded music, his label would offer lower prices for customers and more profit to the artists for each CD sold.

Public Enemy plunges into digital music distribution.

"At the end of the day," Teller said, artists "will see a larger dollar amount than from the traditional way of selling records."

Rival executives in the Internet music business called Public Enemy's deal a smart one, a good way to drum up publicity for the record, even though it is likely to sell most of its copies through stores. And representatives of Internet labels that had negotiated with Chuck D said he was very conscious that his endorsement of an Internet site would attract other established acts looking for deals and asked for a very high advance payment. (The Atomic Pop site is at www.atomicpop.com.)

Teller and Chuck D declined to discuss the exact terms of their contract, which was for only one record. But unlike traditional contracts, in this one the group will retain the rights to its master recordings. Teller used to be the chairman of MCA Music Entertainment and the president of CBS Records, where he worked with Public Enemy on its first albums.

	The Associated Press
	Chuck D, the frontman for the rap group Public Enemy, spoke to Columbia University students in New York last April.

In the late 1980's Public Enemy revolutionized rap, adding volume to the music's political message. Today, considering that rap fans do not reward pioneers with record sales, the band is holding on, with its last full studio album entering the pop charts at No. 14 in 1994 and its recent soundtrack to the Spike Lee movie "He Got Game" peaking at No. 26.

Public Enemy and Def Jam Records parted ways in January. Chuck D said a conflict arose when Sony sold its 50 percent stake in Def Jam to Polygram in 1995 and did not offer Public Enemy equity in the company. Def Jam did not return calls seeking comment in time for publication.

With his Internet deal, Chuck D once more considered himself a "rebel without a pause," as he once rapped, with the Internet his wild West.

"Sony, WEA, Universal, EMI and the notorious BMG," he said, naming the five major recording companies. "They can always give Chuck D a call, and I can tell them exactly what to do with the wild, wild West. I can give them a template. But it will cost each one of them royally."