Kali explained that there was one last leak they had to have. Actually, two last leaks, both of which were scheduled to come out on the same day. There was a rivalry: 50 Cent and Kanye West had scheduled the same release date for competing albums. Now they were beefing in the press about who would sell more—and Fifty said that if he didn’t win, he would retire. The beef had made the cover of Rolling Stone.
Of course, Kali knew it was all bullshit. Better than anyone, he knew the rappers were both distributed and promoted by the same corporate parent: Vivendi Universal. What looked like an old-school hip-hop beef was actually a publicity stunt overseen by Doug Morris to boost sales. Clearly the idea was to trick consumers into thinking they were clever by buying both. Kali wasn’t fooled, and he wanted the suits at Universal to know it. RNS had leaked every release either of the artists had ever put out, including a 50 Cent album most people didn’t even know existed. The group might be shut down, but for Kali going after Fifty and Kanye was a sacred matter of tradition. Two albums: Kanye’s Graduation and 50 Cent’s Curtis. Glover told Kali he would keep an eye out for them.
Their official release date was September 11, 2007, but the albums were first pressed at the EDC plant in mid-August. Glover obtained them through his smuggling network and listened to both. Graduation was ambitious, sampling widely from krautrock to French house, with cover art by Takashi Murakami, a daring marriage of pop rap and high art. Curtis played it safer, favoring hard-thumping club music anchored by hits like “I Get Money” and “Ayo Technology.”
Glover enjoyed both albums, but he was in an unusual position. He alone had the power to decide the outcome of this overhyped feud. If he leaked Graduation and held on to Curtis, Kanye might lose. But if he leaked Curtis and held on to Graduation—well, he could make 50 Cent retire.
There was also the power he had over Kali. For years, the two had been trapped in a dysfunctional relationship of distrust, exasperation, and need. Glover was sick of it all, and he finally lashed out. He decided he would release one album through Kali, and another through his new buddy RickOne at OSC. Glover listened to both albums for a second time. It was hard to choose between the two. Finally, he decided he didn’t like Kanye’s attitude, and that Graduation was just too strange. He decided to leak it first to RickOne.
On August 30, 2007, Graduation hit the topsites of the Scene, with OSC taking credit for the leak. Within hours, Kali was calling Glover in anguish. We got beat, man! How did we get beat? Glover told him he wasn’t sure. He lied, explaining he hadn’t seen the album at the plant yet. But, he said, Curtis, yeah, I saw that at the plant today. I’ll have it to you soon. On September 4, 2007, Kali released Curtis to the Scene. He credited the leak to the Scene group SAW—a nonsense acronym that stood for nothing.
Universal officially released the albums on Tuesday, September 11. Despite the leaks, they both sold well. Curtis moved 600,000 copies in its first week; Graduation sold nearly a million. Kanye won the sales contest, even though Glover had leaked his album first. Glover was surprised—he’d just run a controlled experiment on the effects of leaking on music sales, an experiment that suggested that, at least in this case, the album that was leaked first actually did better. Regardless, Glover was happy with the outcome. In the days since the leak, Graduation had grown on Glover. He still didn’t like Kanye, but he felt he deserved his victory, and Fifty didn’t retire after all.
Besides, Glover figured, they were still getting paid. Fifty had nickel-sized diamond earrings and a founder’s stake in Vitamin Water. Kanye dated runway models and wore an obnoxious gold pharaonic necklace reportedly worth 300,000 dollars. Two months earlier, Doug Morris had purchased a ten-million-dollar condominium overlooking Central Park. Dell Glover, by contrast, worked 3,000 hours a year in a factory to pay his child support, and he had beaten them all at their own game with a rubber glove and a belt buckle.
The day after the release, Glover went to work at the EDC plant. He had a double shift lined up, lasting the entire night. Starting at 6:00 in the evening, he worked six hours regular pay, plus six hours overtime. He finished at 6:00 in the morning on September 13. As he was preparing to leave, a coworker pulled him aside. There’s someone out there, the coworker said. Someone I’ve never seen before. And they’re hanging around your truck.
In the twilight before dawn Glover walked through the parking lot. He saw three men, strangers, who did indeed seem to be staking out his truck. As he approached the vehicle, he pulled the key fob out of his pocket. The men stared at him but took no action. Then he pressed the remote, the truck chirped, and the men drew their guns and told him to put his hands in the air.
The men were from the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office. They informed Glover that the FBI was currently searching his house, and that they had been sent to retrieve him. Glover looked at the men. He was still holding the key fob in his upraised hand. He asked if he was under arrest. They said that he was not, but that they were going to accompany him on the drive back to his house.
Twenty long minutes on the road followed. Glover’s mind went blank. Arriving home, he found an ugly scene. In his front yard were a half dozen FBI agents wearing bulletproof vests, accompanied by a SWAT team. His neighbor, who didn’t like the police, was yelling at them to leave Glover’s family alone. The agents were yelling at her to go back inside. As he walked through his front door, he noticed it had been kicked in. He proceeded to the kitchen, where he found his girlfriend Karen Barrett holding their infant son. On her face was a look of bewilderment, or perhaps recrimination, and there were tears in her eyes.
Special Agent Peter Vu introduced himself. I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Vu said. More than five years. Your friend Dockery has already spilled his guts. You’d better start talking.
Glover asked to see the FBI’s search warrant. Vu showed it to him. Glover read it closely, hoping that the terms of the warrant didn’t extend to his vehicle. If they did, and the FBI searched its CD player, they’d find what they were probably looking for: the leaked copy of Kanye West’s Graduation.
CHAPTER 18
By the end of 2007 compact disc sales had fallen by 50 percent from their 2000 peak, and that was with aggressive price discounting. Digital sales of legal mp3s didn’t begin to make up the difference. Both margins and profits were squeezed, and once again Morris had been forced to fire hundreds of employees across every department.
Meanwhile, Project Hubcap was rolling to a stop. The RIAA’s educational lawsuits against the file-sharing public had had no discernible effect, even though they had yet to lose a case. The vast majority of the accused had settled. A small number of cases had been dropped, but only one—out of almost 17,000—had been brought to a jury trial. On October 4, 2007, Jammie Thomas of Brainerd, Minnesota, was found liable for infringing the copyrights on 24 songs she had downloaded off Kazaa. The jury ruled that she owed the recording industry $9,250 a song—a total of $222,000. (Thomas appealed the ruling.)