Kidz in the Hall’s new single—a synthy, effervescent reinvention of Special Ed’s 1989 semi-hit “I Got It Made”—earned the Chicago hip-hop duo a bit of buzz when it hit the Internet in mid-March, thanks in part to the recent crossover success of their second full-length, The In Crowd (Duck Down). If you’re listening closely to Naledge’s rhymes, you might catch references to “Pumps” and “Dee Browns,” and in the video—a professional-looking piece of work for a group that’s still mostly a blog darling, but not suspiciously slick—you might notice that the camera occasionally lingers for a split second on somebody’s Reeboks. But sneaker fetishism is so endemic in hip-hop that you could be forgiven for thinking little of it here.
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About two years ago I wrote a column headlined “In Praise of Selling Out,” where I argued that the poor health of the music business makes it excusable, if not necessary, for indie bands to license their music or accept sponsorships. It’s a way to get corporations working for them, to get the kind of exposure that normally takes a major-label promotional push without major-label creative interference: companies that license music just pick from songs that already exist.
Because “I Got It Made” was commissioned by Reebok and Kidz in the Hall appear on the Classic Remix site, their personality, image, and credibility are a part of the marketing scheme to a much greater extent than if they’d just licensed a song. And Reebok isn’t the only company doing this. Mountain Dew was one of the first brands to take the idea seriously, debuting its Green Label Sound last August with an exclusive Cool Kids song, “Delivery Man,” accompanied by an MTV-worthy video, a remix by respected producer 9th Wonder, and publicity push befitting a viable major-label single.
Anyone even slightly familiar with capitalism knows that companies getting into indie music this way expect a return on their investment. Reebok doesn’t think you’ll buy those SK 7000s because you want “I Got It Made,” which takes about two seconds of Googling to find hosted elsewhere. It thinks you’ll buy them because you associate them with Kidz in the Hall. Mountain Dew is happy to give you a Cool Kids song, provided it reminds you of Mountain Dew when it comes up in your iTunes. They want to buy everything your favorite artists stand for in your mind. For people who take music seriously, that’s a painful prospect—but anyone who wants the artists he loves to turn down “dirty” money first ought to delete any illegally downloaded music on his hard drive.
