Did you know that “making it rain” in a strip club can result in a positive ROI? At least in Atlanta, strip clubs can now be a marketing powerhouse. (For record labels.)

I was driving to pick my father up from the airport yesterday, and I heard an interesting segment on NPR about how record companies head for the Atlanta strip clubs first when they’re trying to promote a new rapper.

The companies test out the songs by seeing how the girls react to them as dancers, and how the audience reacts to the song. Also, songs sound better with a girl dancing to them, according to one record company manager.

So how does the process work? They start with the dancers.

The company will approach one of the dancers, and give her a copy of the song and some money. If she agrees, she’ll ask the DJ to play the song during her dance.

Then, when the song comes on, an employee from the record label will start throwing cash at her, AKA “making it rain” in order to get the attention of the other patrons in the clubs, to draw their eyes and ears to the show. This is also their method of paying the women for getting the song played.

The patrons hear the song, the rapper starts to get a fan base, and eventually, the song ends up on the radio. All in all, this seems to be a pretty good marketing ploy.

This story fascinated me, because I knew a guy from college who really wanted to be rich. One of his fantasies was being able to shower money onstage at a strip club - not so much for the girls I think, but for the  feeling of having so much money that you could just throw it away like that. I think he also liked the idea of other people seeing him show off the cash.

But this news article shows that the people he’s seen doing this, and that he wants to emulate, might not really have all the money he thinks that they do! They might simply be making an investment!

Listen to the segment here on NPR.org

Happy Boxing Day!