Kanye Vs. Drake: A Prisoner’s Dilemma
This year, there were two musical albums that had more anticipation, exposure, and commotion surrounding them than anything else in recent memory: legendary Chicago rapper and former presidential candidate Kanye West’s “Donda” and Toronto entertainer Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy.”
The two works were set to be released over the summer and were predicted to become the best-selling records of the year. The seemingly friendly competition suddenly turned adversarial when West reignited a decades-long dispute with Drake. The controversy became a media frenzy and one question dominated the industry: who will release their album first?
Clearly, whoever dropped their work first would have a competitive advantage; if Kanye released his album and Drake didn’t, Kanye would get the most sales possible (and vice-versa). On the other hand, if both artists released the same week, their sales would spread out amongst the two and each would suffer. This is an excellent example of the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory. The economic theory describes a situation in which two players each have two options whose results depend crucially on the simultaneous choice made by the other. Both rappers were clearly aware of the dilemma; West delayed his album release not once, nor twice, but three times in fear that Drake’s work would be released the same day.
Now that both albums have been out for several weeks, what do the results look like? Interestingly enough, game theory predicted their results quite well. Kanye West released his album first and made even more sales than anticipated. Drake’s Certified Lover Boy was released several days later, and performed as well as expected, but did not exceed projected sales by a significant amount. As the albums’ respective songs currently fight for their spots on the Billboard Hot 100, it’s clear that either album would have performed even better if the other was not in the competition.
Game theory can be seen everywhere in the competitive, and often cut-throat music industry. However, the dilemma’s application in the industry is illuminated by the question of what “value” truly means in a musical context? Game theory performs well in theoretical economics where values like money or years of a jail sentence are easily quantifiable. However, how can we define what is valuable in music? Are Billboard Top 200 rankings the deciding factor of what makes an album “good”? Aesthetics are deeply personal and subjective; therefore, they describe the antithesis of a quantitative value that may never truly be predicted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/arts/music/kanye-west-donda-billboard-chart.html