Image by Antonio López from Pixabay
Blue-sky thinking
Artists used to make the bulk of their earnings from record sales and went on tour to promote their album. However, the world of streaming changed all of that, meaning that most artists now use their releases to garner interest in their live performances, with their financial fortunes resting on touring and festival appearances. The music industry is evolving all the time, and marketing and production are changing quickly. While there are thousands of great artists trying to break through or hold on to their former glory, it is only those who ‘keep up with the program’ who are going to continue to make money from their creative endeavours. Some ‘blue-sky’ thinking is sometimes necessary
Hit the road
Being on the road is how so many great bands started out—going from small venue to small venue with their equipment in a van and building up a fanbase before moving on to larger venues or supporting a major artist. However, while it seems glamorous to be jetting off around the world and sleeping in a new city every night, ultimately, it is exhausting. Many stars walk a tightrope, trying to balance their need for fan adoration, a healthy bank balance, and a chance at family life. While it may suit young aspiring artists, many more established artists often try out alternative arrangements.
We have seen the rise of the stadium gig in recent years. While this was once the reserve of genuinely massive bands, more niche artists are now packing out large centralised venues rather than doing multi-town and city tours of smaller, more intimate venues. Someone like Sabrina Carpenter has had such a rapid rise to fame and been able to pack out stadiums, despite relatively limited mainstream exposure in her adult career (she had been a child Disney star). She has not been shy about pulling in the earnings where she can, and fans complained that they had been ‘priced out’ of attending gigs after tickets were changing hands for over £200 (~$270) a pop.
For some music mega-stars, even stadium tours became too much, and the likes of Adele, Donny Osmond, Garth Brooks, and Shania Twain (following in the footsteps of Frank Sinatra) chose to become a resident artist instead. What you will notice, except for Adele, is that the artists who decided to go down the residency route are older and have established fan bases. Rather than rushing around to entertain the fans, they let the fans come to them. Sinatra remains the undisputed star of Caesars in Las Vegas; fans would flock to hear him croon the night away while they had a flutter at the casino tables.
Home from home
However, times they are a-changing and Drake and, more recently, Dizzee Rascal have found alternative ways to bring their music to their audiences without even needing to travel to Vegas. Online gambling has become so popular, with igamers and music fans being able to grab a Caesar’s casino promo code on Casino.org without even getting up from the sofa, that these two rappers are now ‘going live’ in your living room.
Rather than uprooting themselves, they have both come up with a new strategy to extend their careers and appeal to their existing fan bases. Both Rascal and Drake might also find that they attract a whole new audience following announcements that they are brand ambassadors for PlayBet and Stake, respectively.
Matching passions to partnerships
Drake has been live-streaming his gambling antics on cryptocurrency casino Stake’s platform for some time. He has a fairly legendary relationship with gambling and is known for making outrageous, often unsuccessful wagers. In fact, his sports betting failures have led to the term “Drake’s Curse” for any side that he backs. So far, Drake is only streaming his betting on the platform, but there are rumours that he could also use it to platform new music and keep fans entertained in a multitude of ways. There have been complaints that he was not upfront at the beginning of the relationship with the platform and that he had made out that he was gambling with his own money.
However, things were pretty clear when he took to the platform earlier this month for his latest live stream. Focused on celebrating Stake’s eighth birthday, there were hopes that he would use it as a chance to tease fans with new music from his forthcoming album, Iceman. In recent streams, Drizzy had played “What Did I Miss?”, a track that featured shots at LeBron James for his questionable loyalty, but in the end, the stream was all about gambling.
Or a reinvention?
Dizzie Rascal has been more forthcoming about his relationship with PlayBet and, unlike Drake, announced to the world that there was a sponsorship-type deal between himself and the cryptocasino. Having been enormously successful in the early 2000s with massive hits like Bonkers and Dance Wiv Me, Rascal was at the pioneering end of UK Hip Hop and Grime.
However, by the 2020s, his career was decidedly on the rocks, and his hits were of a very different nature. In 2023, the rapper lost an appeal against his conviction for assaulting his fiancée. While he is not the first musician to have a messy back story, the conviction did not sit well with his cheeky-chappy image. Therefore, it is unsurprising that he was looking at career options.
Unlike Drake, Rascal was not known for his propensity to gamble, but it is a safe bet to suggest that the deal to become PlayBet’s brand ambassador would have tempted him. Outside of Britain, many cryptogamblers might not be aware of his dubious backstory and simply know about his music and bubbly personality. Ironically, critics would say that PlayBet’s crypto platform is something of a rascal operator itself. It is unlikely to garner much attention in the UK as neither it nor its parent company, Bitx Operations, holds a UK Gambling Commission license. The cryptocasino does not comply with the player safety standards that license holders have to adopt.
Win/win
Rascal is likely just relieved to be able to perform without too much scrutiny, and Drake must be delighted to indulge in gambling without risking his own fortune. What it will do for either’s music careers is a bit of a mystery, but their bank balances will be healthier, and it is almost certainly a win/win relationship in both cases.