This Chappelle/Netflix/Comedy Central situation is making me think of a similar thing in music. As listeners we just want all the songs we grew up on to be available on streaming services too. But it’s important to know why some records are there and some aren’t.

I’ll start with a lil story. About 2 years ago, @boilerroom asked me to participate in a series called Mixtape, where I would play a set in a style of music that I grew up on. I decided to play a 90s backpacker hip hop set. You know: Company Flow, J-Live, Dilated Peoples, Mos Def

...Non Phixion, East Flatbush,  Natural Resource...that whole bag. Mind you, this was INDIE rap.
My record collection is still mostly in Canada after all these years. I only had a handful of these songs digitized. That’s when I realized how impossible it is to find this stuff now

I ended up having to assemble a super team with @itsDJEclipse @djWarrenPeace @StretchArmy etc and asking friends to rip songs from THEIR collection in order for me to play a set of songs that I used to play all the time. So...how did we get here?

A couple years ago I could have gone to music blogs and downloaded most of the songs I needed. But when the streaming titans got put in place, the music biz bulldozed all illegal/p2p music and to me the biggest tragedy of the streaming age is you’re left with some gaping holes.

Does the concept of “illegal download” even apply when a label doesn’t exist anymore? Or in some cases when a release was a bootleg in the first place? No, everything was flattened.

Needless to say the record industry is designed to be more favorable to big corporations. When you sign to a major label, you’re probably giving up your rights for many many years and they will trade/sell your art like a faceless asset.

The flipside of that is: if you made a record in the 90s on a major, I can probably find it on streaming services now!!
Even if that label doesn’t exist anymore. Even if your contract didn’t have the word “streaming” in it. That label probably sold to another label that merged...

...with another one, and voila, your songs are on streaming. 
In those years I had my first label with my brother, Audio Research. Our releases aren’t on streaming — we only made vinyl and a few CDs back then. Dissolved the company in 2007. So no one even has the rights anymore.

All it is now is some DATs in a shoebox in a storage space in Canada. One day I’ll go dig those up, master them and ask the artists if they want to do new contracts so that our music (the result of our passion!) can live on. I’m sure it’s a similar story for a lot of groups.

If a song happened to be on a compilation in those years, and that compilation was on a major or licensed somewhere along the way, you might find it now. It’s crazy the amount of random circumstance that determines whether something gets passed down in history.

Even if you were on a big label, if a record is tied up in lawsuits, e.g. with samples (ahem, DE LA SOUL) it might not survive those formats. Which is heartbreaking because we can’t let De La get erased from history.

So to zoom out: big companies are very well equipped to CONTINUE SELLING YOUR IP through the years, through the changes of formats. As listeners/viewers, we want to have access to everything but we don’t always think about what makes something available.

Even when someone is as big as Chappelle, their IP might end up on a new platform without anyone even telling him. I think Chappelle is very lucky to be in a position to say “please don’t do that” and they listen. Most people don’t have that leverage.

If you want to listen to that backpacker mix: https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/tTERNpB6yaep68Jo6