Music Thread #1 For 11/17/09: This Is Part Of A Bigger Goal For Wale?

It really says something about how labels don't give a damn about their artists when Wale gets only 30,000 copies of his album shipped out.

“This is my biography. It’s honest. Raw emotion. It’s close to me,” Wale detailed. “That’s why part of me will be a little offended if it doesn’t get heard. I don’t want people to take lack of sales as me taking a hit. This is something different. My label is letting me put out an album with a single that released seven months ago. We’re not going for first week sales. We only shipping out 30,000 of them. We’re going for that grind. We’re showing people that you can build a fanbase the old fashioned way.”

Now I can understand from what Wale is saying there that this is a long term process for him, and he is immersed in "the grind." He doesn't want to flash out and be gone from the game in an instance like almost every newcomer has today.

But I can't picture this at all happening to an artist in the pop or rock field signed to a major label. And I can't picture that happening to an artist who had Lady Gaga featured on his song as his first main single (outside of "Nike Boots") this past summer.

This just has the feeling indeed of another decently talented artist getting shunned out of the public eye.