Public Enemy Gives BitTorrent Fans an iTunes Record Deal

[DreamTheater]

The Public Enemy Bundle has been downloaded by more than a million fans. The group’s new remix collection, created by BitTorrent listeners and curated by Public Enemy, debuts on iTunes and as a BitTorrent Bundle.

 

Public Enemy rewrote the rules of hip hop. They pioneered a socially-aware, sonically-dense brand of rap that still reverberates today. It influences what we hear. And it influences what we play. Because they didn’t just rewrite the rules of rap sound. They rewrote the rules of music, too. Public Enemy changed the architecture of listening.

 

 

In 1999, the group released There’s a Poison Goin’ On exclusively online. It marked the first time a major artist made their album available as a download. And it made a statement about how distribution should work: a stake in the ground for digital, during a time when the MP3 format was something that labels were actively trying to kill.

 

Flash forward fourteen years. We’ve come to accept the MP3. But we still haven’t come to terms with online distribution: the promise or the value of direct-to-fan. Can digital delivery bring artists closer to listeners? Can it create more, not less, value? Amid Internet sprawl, the radio station of everywhere, can it solve for discoverability? Public Enemy helped start the major shift to MP3. We worked with them to figure out what’s next.

 

In June, we partnered with Public Enemy to reinvent the hip hop collaboration, bringing the tools to remix the group’s single “Get Up Stand Up†to fans around the world.

 

Over a million multitrack Bundles were downloaded. 91 thousand iTunes album impressions were generated. And 100 new songs were created.

After listening to the BitTorrent fan remixes, Public Enemy chose five tracks to release as a new EP. Today, that record is available on iTunes. You can sample the new EP as a BitTorrent Bundle: with remixes from Jerome “Jay†Bosco and Counter Intelligence, plus all the multitracks you need to make your own Public Enemy track. Get the iTunes EP.

 

Public Enemy Presents: Get Up Stand Up | The Remix EP

Featuring new music from Beau Jestice / Counter Intelligence, Ian De Quadros, Ajay Paul Singh (DJ APS), Jerome “Jay†Bosco, and Tim Raiswell (T/RAZE).