Connecting Hip-Hop to An Untapped $14 Million Vinyl Records Market Dev T. Smith/Sep 29, 2018, Urban Legends is a cross-platform initiative devoted to the curation and celebration of over three decades of urban music and culture. Launched just this year, it is Universal Music Group’s attempt to provide context around a retail product. Standing at the helm of this effort is Andre Torres, Vice President of Urban Catalogue at UMG. Offering classic albums in vinyl record form, Urban Legends is pulling on the heartstrings of its target demographic, while taking advantage of a bubbling market.
According to Billboard, vinyl sales hit a record high with over $14 million in revenue in 2017.
It was the 12th straight year of growth in vinyl LP sales, making up 14% of all physical album sales. Retailers like Amazon, Urban Outfitters, and Barnes & Noble have their hands in the pot as well, offering new and classic albums in vinyl format. Why shouldn’t an actual music entity join the party? Even if it’s focused on Hip-Hop & R&B, cornering the market for 13% of vinyl sales is a potentially brilliant move by Universal.
Torres’ task is to reintroduce the extensive catalog of material, owned by Universal, to the masses. By taking a hard look at the label’s intellectual property stretching across decades, he found a golden opportunity. Torres decided to redistribute countless hours of rare and unreleased albums, singles, remixes, photos, and video footage in a modern format, directly to the consumer.
“I imagined creating a platform that would utilize archived material to tell a story around the retail product, vinyl records,” he explains.
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