Cool Marketing: Spotify and 21 Savage launch ‘Issa Website’ to help identify what’s in your photos

Album exclusives are bad for the music business, and the industry as a whole has begun to recognize this as truth. Jay-Z’s latest album may have gone platinum in under a week thanks to support from Sprint and Tidal, but it was also pirated more than one-million times within three days of its release. It seems as much as exclusivity may attract new users it also encourages piracy because, honestly, no one needs more than one streaming service and using illegal links is still easier than cancelling a trial subscription to most premium platforms.

So if album exclusives do not produce the desired results for artists or streaming platforms, then those hoping to cash in on the hype behind an upcoming release need to think outside the box. If a company wants to align themselves with a talent without having exclusive rights to their new music they need to do something that sets their service apart. You may be able to find artist X on any website, but what website does that artist prefer you to use? The answer, at least for 21 Savage, appears to be Spotify.

This week, 21 Savage partnered with Spotify to launch a promotional website for his new LP, Issa Album, which will be released to all services on July 7. The site, fitting titled ‘Issa Website,’ works best on a mobile device. Simply upload any photo or take a picture with your webcam or phone camera and the voice of 21 Savage will try to help you identify whatever you uploaded. If he is unable to identify what you’re trying to input, he’ll give you answers like “issa error” or “issa I got no fucking clue.”

We played with ‘Issa Website’ for about thirty minutes today and found the project to be much more intelligent than one might expect. Before users even upload the site appears self aware, spouting “issa machine learning” and “issa Spotify.”

You can try ‘Issa Website’ for yourself right now.