Deodorant maker's investment sweetens hip-hop's future

Tired of hip-hop artists that stink? At last there's an initiative to join high-profile rappers and spray-on deodorant, not just in clubs and concert halls but at the very highest level of the record biz. Island Def Jam Music Group and Procter & Gamble's TAG brand have together launched TAG Records, a joint-venture hip-hop label to be led by Island Urban president (and rapper) Jermaine Dupri. The label will promote new hip-hop artists - and TAG body spray - starting in May of this year. There's nothing new in a label or musician embracing corporate sponsorship, but it's unprecedented for a deodorant company to ally itself so publicly with a credible and heavy-hitting outfit like Def Jam. Def Jam represents artists such as Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Rihanna and Lady Sovereign. Still, money's money, and Procter & Gamble have a lot of it. "Most artists get probably $1m for a marketing budget," explained Dupri. "The TAG artists will receive 10 times the typical marketing support. It will give these artists a chance to be and feel just as big as Kanye West because the marketing budget is 10 to 20 times as much as the average. While it's not actually $10-20 million, the numbers are up in that area and further north." The underarm fragrance industry is clearly doing rather better than the record-selling business. We now hope that other industries will be given the chance to enjoy Procter & Gamble investment. Let's give university anthropology programmes ten times their budget, so long as lecturers promise to wear TAG. Schools could be funded by Brut-smelling youngsters. The dankest of basement punk clubs could be kept afloat through the careful application of body spray. What a beautiful, musky future we would live in.