Free mp3 music rap

Time to ace the music

He's the music industry's worst nightmare--a powerful, popular, established star fighting for a far larger share of music royalties and egging on fellow artists to do the same. As recently as a year ago, Chuck D might have been safely ignored by the big record labels. But technology is forcing the industry to take the front man for the rap group Public Enemy very seriously. Music industry executives packed themselves standing-room only at an industry conference in New York last week to hear Chuck D tell them their game is over and they're going to have to play by new rules.

In a speech laced with words that rhyme with "luck" and "duck," he said the advent of digital music downloaded over the Internet to computers, stereo systems, and portable players will break the five major record labels' hammerlock on compact disk distribution. And that, he claimed, will boost performers' royalties from less than 10 percent of each sale today to as much as 50 percent. "It won't kill the record labels; it'll just force them to share," said Chuck D, whose band put out such best-selling CDs as Fear of a Black Planet.

Record executives pointed out that most artists aren't nearly as popular as Chuck D and need the labels' money and marketing expertise to make it big. Maybe Chuck D can go it alone, says Rykodisc President Don Rose. "But Chuck E, F, and G need a label to become well known." Still, it's the major stars that pump the bulk of profits into music companies, and, like baseball free agents, they're the ones most able to bolt. Goldsmith--Corbis)