Cover of an original song: Ms Jackson by OutKast

Phoenix Sargant covers- Ms Jackson by OutKast

Our mainstream artist will be covering Ms Jackson by OutKast as his breakout track.

Background

 Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._Jackson, Wikipedia states that:

"Ms. Jackson" is a song by American alternative hip hop group OutKast. It was released in January 2001 as the second single from their fourth album Stankonia. It topped the U.S. charts for the week of February 17, 2001, and won a 2002 Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.

Why it is suitable for our artist

We have chosen this song, because, as you can see above this song is over 12 years old. This is essential as picking a relatively old song means that people will instantly remember the tune from previous experiences, the song will probably have been forgotten so a fresh cover of the song will appeal massively to the widest possible market, as both people who liked the song when it first came out and our target audience will appreciate the fresh cover of the song.

Another reason for picking this song is that it has had previous musical success, winning a grammy and topping the US charts. Picking a song that has had previous success is also essential, as we need to know we have a solid base to go on and that we can potentially improve upon the original song and make it appeal to a different target market than this song, as it was aimed at Rap fans, whilst we are more primarily aiming at a young teenage market.

How we will adapt it to appeal to our target market

With this song we will look to convert it to appeal to a more mainstream crowd, of young teenagers. To do this we will have to remove some of the very long rap sequences and instead replace them with an extra chorus, as ensuring our song is catchy is crucial because we need to appeal to the widest target demographic we can. We will also look to rewrite some of the lyrics, as the original lyrics are aimed at the original artists ex-girlfriend's mother, so there could be a lot better ways to rewrite in terms that would appeal more to our teenage audience, for example singing about love or girls- which is used by many mainstream artists. One final modification to the song is that we will be adding a dance/electro beat to the song, this is extremely popular in todays mainstream culture, as with songs that are being covered they need a twist and something to reinvent the song and give it a broader appeal to a wider target demographic. An example of another song which has done this is the Black Eyed Pea's- The Time (Dirty Bit). This song took the Dirty Dancing classic "Time of My Life" and reinvented it, adding both dance and rap sections to make it appeal to a huge audience, which is shown by its over 200 million views on YouTube. This is definitely what we are trying to achieve with our artist and is key to making as much money as possible from him.