Opium vs. Cactus Jack: Artist Run Imprints Fighting for the Underground Rap Audience

Today we’re looking at artist run imprints, which are joint ventures between major labels and superstar artists to help break new artists that have a similar audience as the established artist. Two of the most talked about imprints right now are Opium (run by Playboy Carti) and Cactus Jack (run by Travis Scott). These imprints have a lot in common. For starters, both are backed and distributed by major labels. Opium is backed by Interscope, which is a subsidiary of Universal. Cactus Jack doesn't have an exclusive distribution deal so there are some joint deals, but they mostly distribute through Atlantic Records (Warner subsidiary). This means they have similar amounts resources and access to talent. Additionally, these labels are both started by artists of a similar scope, which makes them comparable. This is important to remember as we dive into the differences in strategy between these labels. Let's take a look at the successes and failures of these imprints by putting each artist on the label into Mortal Kombat with each other in chronological order, as my beautifully illustrated cover implies.

Cactus Jack signed their first artist in 2018 with Shek Wes. If you remember 2018, this is when “Mo Bamba” was getting played in every college basement around the country. After riding the hype of his smash hit and the excitement of getting signed to Cactus Jack, Shek Wes announced his debut album Mudboys. The album was released later that year and had a mixed reception both among fans and commercially selling around 25,000 AEU (album equivalent units) first week. The troubles for Shek Wes came after that though, with having an erratic releases of only singles which are all stuck under 10,000,000 streams. Today, his newest song “Pain” is sitting at 712,202 which is a fall from grace from the 863,000,000 streams that “Mo Bamba” has accumulated.

In comparison, Opium’s first artist was signed in early 2021 with Ken Carson. This was fresh off the formation of the imprint and release of Playboy Carti’s third studio album “Whole Lotta Red.” ?His first project on the label, Project X, dropped in July of 2021 and was adored by Playboy Carti fans and the broader underground rap community. Later that year, Playboy Carti starts performing the album and brings around Ken Carson as an opener. While some fans were slow to love the Whole Lotta Red album, there’s no doubt the tour changed minds. Videos went viral of venues breaking out in riots and energetic performances. This press for Playboy Carti and the album indirectly helped to grow Ken Carson (and later signee Destroy Lonely) and ultimately helped to build a foundation for the aesthetic which would be developed with later signees. Eventually, Ken Carson released his second album under the label X which debuted at #115 on the Billboard top 200 albums chart. He was also featured on projects with Homixide Gang and Destroy Lonely (artists who were signed to the label at this point and will be discussed later). In November of that year, Ken Carson would release a deluxe version of X. After all these projects were released, Playboy Carti announced the Narcissist tour, which would later become the King Vamp tour. Ken Carson was brought on as an opener.

Cactus Jack’s second artist is one of my personal favorites right now. Don Toliver was signed to the label in late 2018 and had a breakout year in 2019. A lot of his success was from a few of his songs blowing up as Tik Tok sounds, such as the song “No Idea.” His studio album was released in October of 2021 with “Life of a Don” which sold 70,000 AEU's in it's first week – a huge win for Don Toliver. However, controversy would later befall the artist and Atlantic as a whole. Don Toliver’s newest video “Do it Right” released on November 22nd, 2022. The rollout for the single and music video wasn’t as coherent as the album or previous singles, so not a lot of people knew about it. Fans quickly noticed that the music video numbers were especially suspicious. The video had 7,500,000 views the first day and then got to 7,700,000 the second day. The music video remained stagnant at 7-8 million views until today. This led many fans to claim that Atlantic and Cactus Jack had to bot the release to avoid a flop and negative PR. If you are unfamiliar, these allegations mean that Atlantic paid someone to create inactive accounts (bots) programmed to swarm the Don Toliver video to increase viewership and interaction. In an exclusive interview with TMZ, Atlantic has denied the allegations. Read more here.

Opium’s second artist is another Atlanta underground rapper, Destroy Lonely. His rollout follows the Ken Carson pattern very similarly. He was signed and released his debut album, No Stylist which only had one feature from Ken Carson. This project was released within 2 weeks of the second Ken Carson album in August 2022. In November of the same year, he released a deluxe version of the album called NS+ which was released within a week of the deluxe Ken Carson album. He was also featured on later signee, Homixide Gang’s debut album which released the week after both deluxe albums were released. Finally, he was brought on tour with Playboy Carti for the King Vamp tour in addition to the rest of the roster which brings us to the present.

The third artist on the Cactus Jack imprint and arguably the one with the most potential was SoFaygo. The sound of rap was beginning to change at this point (which is 2020-2022), the sound was beginning to shift towards erratic, speedy rhymes over atmospheric trap beats. To get with the new times, in February of 2021 Cactus Jack announced their new signee, SoFaygo. Shortly after, his debut album Pink Heartz was announced as well. Cactus Jack ultimatly failed to capture the momentum of SoFaygo’s Tik Tok fame, and didn’t release the album until November of 2022. During this time SoFaygo was getting outplayed by the artists who were consistently releasing. Namely, the Interscope superstar with a similar sound and fanbase, Yeat. This was also around the time where the Opium roster was really starting to take hold on the underground community (July - November 2022). At this point, the Opium roster was lapping SoFaygo at this point as well. When it finally released, Pink Heartz was also a colossal disappointment and failed to chart on the Billboard 200 chart that week (which would mean it sold less than 6,000-7,000 AEU’s). The underground rap community ridiculed the album, the fact that they waited so long to release, and the album's commercial disappointment.

Homixide Gang, the third artist under Opium, followed the same blueprint as the two previous. They were signed after the first album cycle from Destroy Lonely and Ken Carson, released their debut album after the Ken Carson and Destroy Lonely deluxe albums, with features from all 3 Opium artists. To recap this hectic time frame: on July 22nd 2022 came Ken Carsons second studio album, X. Two weeks later, Destroy Lonely's debut No Stylist released. The announcement of Homixide Gangs signing to the label would come the week after. It was quiet until November, when Destroy Lonely and Ken Carson would release the deluxe versions of these albums within a week of each other. Finally, the debut of Homixide Gang released on the last week of November. These releases had features from all the Opium artists on them. After these releases, the King Vamp tour started and had all 3 of the artists on stage with an established superstar. These releases were not done this way on accident, this abundance of music released in such a short period of time allowed for Opium fans to have new Opium music to digest over an almost month-long period. This deepened the cult-like fanbase of the Opium artists if you’re a fan of one artist it’s more likely that those fans carry over into the other artists on the roster.

You’ll notice that the Cactus Jack artists tended to have a downward trajectory from their signage to the imprint, while more and more fans are buying into the Opium roster. Shek Wes coming off a smash hit with “Mo Bamba” is now struggling to break a million streams. Don Toliver, the Tik Tok king, is now facing allegations of botting his videos. SoFaygo, the king of the new sound in the underground rap scene, ended up getting clowned for waiting a year and a half to release his debut album. What is Opium doing differently? Opium has ultimately developed a more productive strategy than Cactus Jack because Opium has done a better job of strategic releases, developing a cult following, and maintaining a consistent aesthetic among their rosters. ??

Let’s start with the obvious one. Cactus Jack failed to implement a strategic release and rollout strategy with their artists to propel the releases to their maximum reach. The Shek Wes album sold decently riding the hype of “Mo Bamba” and coming off a Travis Scott feature. However, after that album released it was all random singles from there. Including the single "YNWA" which celebrated a soccer player from his country, which is a bit random for an American rap song. SoFaygo is another poor example of this where the failure to release his music strategically when his name was getting thrown around cost him valuable audience capital. In contrast, Opium has had extremely strategic releases. There would an announcement of the new signee, then shortly after a debut album would release in conjunction with the other Opium artists. Many major labels stay away from releasing their artists back-to-back like the plague because they fear it will cannibalize sales, but this shows the complete opposite and furthers the collective and aesthetic of the imprint.

Opium has also done a superb job of creating a cult following for all the artists on the label which guarantees some baseline of commercial success. One important thing to understand is the difference between Playboy Carti fans and Travis Scott fans. Travis Scott has a significantly broader demographic vs Playboy Carti, which makes him a bigger artist but more difficult to use as a base for an industry plant. If you were a fan of Travis Scott, you might be a fan of Don Toliver since they have a similar vibe but it wasn't consistent across the roster. None of the Cactus Jack artists inspired a cult following, mostly because they were signed after they had some mainstream success. Shek Wes had a wide appeal with “Mo Bamba” and Don Toliver had a built a fanbase from Tik Tok, but when it was time for people to show up outside of those settings there was nobody invested enough. In comparison, if you’re a fan of one artist on the Opium roster it is way more likely you like all 3 artists on the label. Opium has put in the work to build a community from the ground up. They have created a cult following by maintaining a similar aesthetic and sound among their artists, which makes their fans more invested in every project they have.

The final major aspect of Opium’s strategy that I believe has contributed to their success is the aesthetic. Ever since the release of Whole Lotta Red, Playboy Carti has been building an aesthetic. It’s punk rock, all black clothes, riots/mosh pits, and satanic imagery is all the visual aesthetic being put forward. The sound has an aesthetic too, it’s the new wave atmospheric beats and erratic rhymes. Cactus Jack didn’t have a sound or visual aesthetic, except when rolling out a collective project. Even then, that aesthetic shifted from project to project. This ultimately contributed to these artists not having the support they need to grow their careers and utilize the momentum they were signed with.

In conclusion, there’s a lot we can take away from this whole situation. Not only for artist run labels, but even for artists on traditional labels. How do I create an aesthetic for my roster? What opportunities can I create for my artists to collaborate with each other? Which up and coming sound fits with who I currently have on my roster? What are some innovative ways to use a superstar artist to break an up-and-coming act? As more of these types of labels pop up across all genres, I think it’s important that we look at the success/failures to better understand how to utilize an established artist to build the rest of the new roster.