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Indie Labels: Players With the Rap Attack Making the Most Impact — and It's Not Just for the Money

Vernon Gibbs, Billboard, 18 June 1988

INDEPENDENT LABELS have always been critical to the exposure of new black music. In the '50s, labels like Specialty and Chess gave pioneers like Little Richard and Chuck Berry a chance to be heard. In the late '70s and early '80s, All-Platinum and a struggling new company, Profile, did the same for rap which as a genre has become a major source of income for the indies.

Total word count of piece: 1867

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