Duck Down
Duck Down is an American music label specializing in hip hop . The registered office is in New York City . Various company names are used, such as Duck Down Music , Duck Down Records, and Duck Down Entaprizez . The label is best known as the musical home of Boot Camp Clik .
history
Duck Down was founded in 1994 by Dru Ha (Drew Friedman) and Buckshot (Kenyatta Blake). The store was named after the song "Duck Down" by Boogie Down Productions . Initially it was a music management company that should represent the groups Black Moon (of which Buckshot is a member) and Smif-N-Wessun . The following year it expanded to become a music label after the music of the two aforementioned groups caught the attention of Priority Records . Duck Down finally concluded a distribution contract with Priority and signed Heltah Skeltah and Originoo Gunn Clappaz as further groups , so that Boot Camp Clik was created as an association of all rappers who had been organized at Duck Down up to that point.
By 2000 a total of 9 albums had been released in cooperation with Priority Records, 7 of which were in the top 50 of the Billboard 200 . Thereafter, the distribution partner was changed and the CDs and DVDs Duck Downs were distributed in the United States of America and Canada by Koch Records , while the digital products were offered directly via the iTunes Store .
In 2005, the “Triple Threat” marketing campaign was carried out in collaboration with Marc Ecko . The three albums "Monkey Barz" by Sean Price , "Chemistry" by 9th Wonder & Buckshot and "Reloaded" by Smif-N-Wessun were released within a year , the covers of which were all designed by Ecko in the same style. However, there were no chart successes, only "Monkey Barz" and "Chemistry" made it into some of the charts of the Billboard magazine .
Nevertheless, the label expanded from 2007 and signed artists for the first time without a direct connection to Boot Camp Clik. Works by B-Real , Plug 1 and Plug 2 by De La Soul , KRS-One , Murs , Fashawn , Pete Rock , Pharoahe Monch and Statik Selektah have been published .
In total, more than 50 albums have been released in the history of the label, of which over 3.5 million copies have been sold.
further activities
In addition to the classical publication of music, Duck Down also tries to accommodate the contractually bound artists and their songs in marketing campaigns of well-known companies. So far, there has been cooperation with Belvedere , Coca-Cola , Pepsi , Reebok , Rockstar Games and Smirnoff, for example .
The same principle is also implemented when dealing with films, television shows and video games . Duck Down music was played in No Limit , Entourage , Dangerous Gangs , Jersey Shore , Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Midnight Club: Los Angeles .
In addition, Duck Down is also active in talent management . In 2010 and 2011 a competition was held in which unknown musicians could win a placement of their song in the game NBA 2K11 and its successor.
Web links
- Official website (English)