When Vinyl Me, Please launched as a record of the month club in 2013, the company sprinkled in beloved rap albums like J Dilla’s Donuts and Madvillain’s Madvillainy. Three years later, a pressing of Young Thug’s Barter 6, one of the first exclusive vinyl offerings in its store, sold out of 1,000 copies in an hour. “That was a moment for us as a team,” says VMP head of A&R Alexandra Berenson. “We were like, oh, there’s a market for this right now that’s not being satisfied.” The company realized then that the rap reissue market had outgrown its origins as a niche for backpack and golden-era hip-hop.
The past decade or so has seen a flourishing market for all styles of music on vinyl—in the first half of 2021, sales of the format have grown 108 percent. But hip-hop vinyl has its idiosyncrasies, from the dominance of independent labels to a bottomless appetite for outlandish colored vinyl and gimmicky packaging. Over the years, the demise of CDs and the rise of digital downloads and then streaming led to a bigger customer base than just hardcore crate-diggers who already own OG copies of Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). As hip-hop has grown more popular than ever, casual fans are creating unprecedented demand for reissues of best-sellers as well as hard-to-find original pressings.
Now, the market is undergoing its own unique growing pains—many like those in the vinyl industry at large. Multiple label owners spoke to Pitchfork about their inability to meet rising consumer demand; major labels monopolizing production capacity; navigating a shipping landscape marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, heat waves, and geopolitical issues like Brexit; and reckoning with the effects of structural racism on marketing campaigns and label ownership.
One of the prominent labels in the rap reissue game, the Boston-based Get on Down, was part of the first wave of hip-hop reissue labels that emerged in the late 2000s. “We’re happy there’s a whole new demographic of kids buying vinyl, I figured it would have aged out with us,” says Matt Welch, who co-owns Get on Down with Papa D and Joe Mansfield. As longtime hip-hop heads in their mid-40s, the trio continually marvels at how much casual record buyers have grown to love golden-age rap. It’s a phenomenon that was less common in the mainstream even a few years ago.
That kind of evolution mirrors the overall growth of rap reissues, which initially focused on compiling material from the ’80s and ’90s. In the U.S., One Leg Up Records surfaced demo tracks from the likes of Nas and Grand Puba. Dope Folks Records did the same with underheard acts like the Bizzie Boyz and Darc Mind. In Britain, there was Diggers with Gratitude, which grew out of a popular message board, and Chopped Herring Records, run by longtime Manchester DJ Bob “DJ Chubby Grooves” Lipitch. In Germany, there was Vinyl Addicts, which dropped a 12-inch of Lord Finesse demos. These imprints emerged at a time when vinyl collectors valued rare 12-inches like Rammellzee and K-Rob’s Jean-Michel Basquiat-produced “Beat Bop” and obscure “random rap” CDs and cassettes. By comparison, copies of major-label albums like Fugees’ The Score and Lil’ Kim’s Hard Core were relatively easy to find in secondhand stores.
These days, the major labels often turn to well-branded indies to manage their reissues. Sony Music enlisted Get on Down for an elaborate 30th-anniversary edition of Cypress Hill’s classic debut. Vinyl Me, Please worked with Sony on a 25th anniversary “neon green and blue galaxy vinyl” edition of OutKast’s ATLiens. (Not to be outdone, Get on Down is also producing an edition of ATLiens, complete with a glow-in-the-dark 45 of “Elevators.”) Those kinds of reissues now quickly disappear from online and brick-and-mortar stores. “The audience for hip-hop vinyl feels like it’s always growing in a way that the audience for classic rock vinyl isn’t keeping the same pace,” says Andrew Winistorfer, VMP’s Classics and Country director. “So much of the classic rap canon wasn’t released on vinyl when it came out, or it was under-released.”
The vinyl boom has proven surprisingly resilient so far, flummoxing skeptics who have predicted a collapse that may or may not be on the horizon. Still, as the market for reissues grows, existential issues, as well as unexpected calamities like the Apollo Masters fire last year, threaten to repel consumers sick of rising prices and hard-to-find product.
Here are four key issues the rap reissue market faces as it matures and expands.
Since rap reissue labels offer previously recorded material, they bring items to market through licensing deals. (And yes, there will always be bootleggers.) More often, reissue labels strike deals with whoever has the rights. Get on Down’s Welch says, “We’ll send in requests to companies to see if they’ll be interested in licensing. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can get the artist involved. That’s the ideal situation.” Nas’s team wasn’t directly involved in a 25th-anniversary reissue of It Was Written. “However, Nas promoted it—or whoever runs his Instagram promoted it,” adds Papa D. “It really does vary from release to release.”
That philosophy of dealing directly with licensees—whether it’s the artists or not—went awry when DJ Paul claimed on Twitter that Get on Down’s reissues of Three 6 Mafia’s Chpt. 2: World Domination and Tear Da Club Up Thugs’ CrazyNDaLazDayz were “bootlegs.” Get on Down’s Papa D says he tried to reach DJ Paul via direct message but didn’t get a response. He acknowledges potential reputational damage but adds, “We fully license from whoever owns it. In their case, I don’t know what the situation is between [Three 6 Mafia] and [Sony].”
VMP’s Winistorfer admits the company has had a similar issue “once or twice,” declining to get into specifics. “We learned in our earlier days when the label wasn’t as communicative with the artist as we assumed they would be that [it needs to be] something that we really push for on our side,” he says. “[Whether it’s] the artist team, management, or estate in some cases, the project is always going across their desk.”
Some rappers who own their masters choose to bypass labels entirely, whether it’s long-established artist collectives like Hieroglyphics or cult figures like Tommy Wright III (who sells CDs on Facebook). It may be easy to mock the Mach-Hommy strategy of charging ridiculous prices for physical copies. But by reproducing their catalog themselves, these musicians are reclaiming their autonomy.
Delroy Edwards primarily uses his label, L.A. Club Resource, for his enigmatic house productions. But he also proudly claims to be the first to reissue a Memphis rap tape on vinyl. In 2014, Edwards released Shawty Pimp and Red Dog’s 1995 cassette Comin’ Real Wit It after contacting Shawty Pimp via Facebook. Three years later, Edwards released a cassette edition of one-time Project Pat associate MC Mack’s Lost Files: 1991-1994. MC Mack now has a full-fledged web store with vinyl priced at $85.99 and up. “I think if they’re making something that they’re working hard on and that’s what they want for it, I gotta respect that,” says Edwards. “If artists are good at what they do, then people should pay them.”
It’s not hard to find positive and negative consumer feedback on everything from the reissue industry’s current infatuation with colored vinyl to the quality of a pressing. Buyer reviews on Discogs and Amazon gather comments on the audio source of a reissue (i.e., is it the master tape?), how well the record has been pressed, and whether the packaging is created from the original art separations or just a photocopy. It’s not uncommon for one buyer to rave that their copy sounds fantastic and another to complain that the same release is “noisy” vinyl stricken with minor scuffs and flaws.
“Ten or 15 years ago, it was nice that something was just available on vinyl again,” says Christopher Stevenson at Be With Records. Since buyers can usually find a well-known album on the internet, they’re focused on reissues that provide a superior listening experience.
Then there’s the collectability aspect: it threatens to turn record collecting into a flipper’s bazaar that has little to do with listening to records. With only 750 copies available at $60 retail, Get on Down’s 2013 “chess pieces” edition of GZA’s Liquid Swords now trades up to $300. “The whole collectability, and ‘there are only 200 copies of this made,’ that bums me out because everyone should have access to owning a record of music they love,” says Get on Down’s Papa D. “But the trend is people want to find collectible stuff.” His company tries to strike a balance, offering limited-edition variants and “good catalog” black vinyl editions.
But Chopped Herring Records’ Lipitch is unapologetic about limiting his runs to around 500 or less. “There’s plenty of ways you can get the music. They’re not getting the article, is what they’re not getting,” he says. “If you can make people hunt for it a little bit, they appreciate it more when they find it.”
As the market diversifies beyond its male-dominated DJ and crate-digger origins, the racial and gender dynamics of the labels fueling it remain the same. The fact that white men in the United States and Europe are cataloging and repacking an artform created mainly by Black artists makes for an unsettling discussion about who profits from this booming market. When asked about structural racism and sexism within rap reissue labels, one label owner declined to comment. A second danced around the question by asserting their decades-long commitment to the genre.
“It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” says Chopped Herring’s Lipitch. “It’s a really difficult question, man, and it’s a shame that it is the case. Clearly, there needs to be more diverse ownership.”
VMP was founded by two white executives, Matt Fiedler and Tyler Barstow. But Berenson says the company is actively trying to diversify internally with help from Women in Music. “It’s the larger systemic issue that we’re seeing not only in the music industry but across all industries. As a woman of color, I would love to see a world in which that changes,” she says. “The only way to do that is to have people in positions of power who feel strongly about making those changes within their organization.” (Before this story went to press, VMP announced that it had hired journalist Marcus J. Moore as the director of its hip-hop division.)
Some in the music industry have argued that these companies rely on marketing campaigns tacitly aimed at the usual white collectors instead of actively courting a diverse customer base. Alexandria Henson launched Black Girls Love Vinyl on Instagram in 2017. “I was inspired by the work of DJ Beverly Bond with everything she’s doing with Black Girls Rock,” Henson writes via email. Henson digs for beat classics by MF Doom, Slum Village, and Lapalux. When asked if labels effectively cater to Black women, she says no. “I don’t think it’s on purpose, but just like crate diggin’, are these labels diggin’ for this community?” she wonders. “Our music taste has range and is very eclectic. Get into it and do the research!”
Edwards’ L.A. Club Resource is a rare case of a Black-owned label that produces rap reissues, although he’s only put out a handful so far. When asked about the lack of Black entrepreneurs in this space, he responds, “Yeah, I think about that a lot.” But he adds, “I’d like there to be more Black-owned independent reissue record labels. But to be honest, the world right now is messed up… However the music gets out there is OK by me.”
The landscape for vinyl reissues has grown hyper-competitive. Like ATLiens, certain albums result in competing deluxe reissues, whether from Get on Down, Vinyl Me Please, or retailers like Urban Outfitters and Newbury Comics. “With more labels out there chasing fewer low-hanging fruit, it is more common for us to have a reissue request turned down because someone else has got there first, or the person who owns the rights is reissuing it themselves,” says Be With Records’ Stevenson.
With so many (and perhaps too many) cooks in the kitchen, it’s unclear who will outlive the vinyl boom. It’s a segment of the music business with high manufacturing costs and typically low pressing numbers—despite being beloved by collectors and some audiophiles, vinyl hasn’t been a dominant music format since compact discs took over at the dawn of the ’90s—resulting in modest profit margins. Miscalculations in demand for inventory can sink a company, as VMP’s Fiedler admitted in a 2018 interview.
When Chris Schulist and Jon Kuester started Dope Folks in 2010, it was relatively easy to contact an artist directly and license their material. That led to delightfully unusual projects like a reissue of obscure Philadelphia rapper Lord Aaqil’s 1993 12-inch “Check It Out,” which features early production from Questlove. “At the time, there were only two or three labels out there,” says Schulist. “There are a lot of labels that popped up after us, and we’ve lost releases because of other labels trying to talk to the same people as us.”
One key player that’s currently on hiatus is the London imprint Omertà Inc. The label attracted industry attention in 2017 by reissuing big-budget Southern classics like Three 6 Mafia’s Most Known Unknown and Future’s Pluto alongside newer works like Saba’s Bucket List Project and Nipsey Hussle’s Crenshaw. “There were loads of newer artists we were listening to that we felt were never going to get their tapes pressed to vinyl,” Omertà co-owner Sam Gilbert writes via email. While beloved by collectors, Omertà stopped issuing records after two years. “We needed to take a pause,” says co-owner James Batsford, blaming an aggressive schedule of two releases per month as well as internal factors. “We’ve talked about bringing it back a few times, and I think, eventually, we will. We’ve both learned a lot and could refine what we had in place the first time around.”
Omertà Inc. may be the most high-profile example of a rap reissue label struggling amid a shifting landscape, but there are plenty of others. Previously mentioned imprints like Diggers with Gratitude, One Leg Up, and Vinyl Addicts no longer exist. Today, Get on Down and Vinyl Me, Please may wrestle over who can drop the most impressive-looking OutKast reissue, but tomorrow isn’t promised. “We’re just really grateful that people are still buying records,” says Get on Down’s Welch. “We haven’t had to go get a real job yet.”
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Omertà Inc. had shut down; the label is on hiatus.
