Makin’ It Magazine’s first annual Media Matters Soundstage was a huge success. Writers and representatives from AllHipHop.com, BallerAlert.com, WhyCauseICan.com, Hip Hop Weekly, HipHopSince1987.com, OMHHI.com, Livemixtapes, Worldstar and a ton of other independent media outlets came thru.
If you want to be Hip Hop’s next big Producer, don’t purchase Fruityloops or Reason.... BUY SERATO! While that may sound odd, a quick look at some of Hip Hop’s top hit makers will clearly illustrate the strong connection between DJing and great production. Just google the discography of DJ Premier, Dr. Dre, Timbaland or Swizz Beats, all of which cut their teeth as DJs prior to becoming some of the most influential producers in hip hop.
Eight years ago I started this magazine with one goal: Help independent artists! The first issue of Makin’ It Magazine was actually just a four page black and white newsletter. I printed 5,000 copies and hit the streets myself, passing them out in every open mic, mall and record store in Atlanta. I can clearly remember promoters charging me to get into events that I had helped promote for FREE. I remember promoters hassling me about passing out magazines in their events. I can remember industry “professionals” having “beef” with me because I was FREELY giving away information they charged for. I was banned (still banned) from “networking” events because promoters feared the message that I spread. The urban music industry is in bad shape because there are so many “professionals” that would rather make a quick buck off an artist’s dream than putting them in a position to succeed.
When it was announced that Apple was acquiring Beats for $3 Billion, the hip hop blogosphere exploded with talks of Dre being hip hop’s first billionaire. Being the nerd that I am and having followed the acquisitions of tech companies like Instagram and Whatsapp, I understood that there were finer financial intricacies at play than cutting a check for 25% (Dre’s stake in Beats) of $3.2 Billion (The initial Beats sale price to Apple). After the dust settled and the acquisition was complete, Dre’s post-Apple net worth was estimated to be in the neighborhood of $780 Million; leapfrogging him over Hov and Diddy, but still putting him more than $200 Million shy of the billion dollar mark.
It’s been a while since I wrote a No Chaser blog, and since the last one I’ve had several epiphanies that I need to address. Somewhere up in my top 10 of things I have come to realize is that my “hood” upbringing was a blessing in disguise. I say that because in most cases, if you have lived through a circumstance, you are more likely able to understand how or why it is the way that it is. Thus, there are a number of things that I hate about the “hood” that I know will never change. If it did, it would no longer be considered the “hood”. Keep that in mind as I continue.
Today I ran across a very interesting report from Neilson. The report breaks the country down into regions and not only gives stats about how people get their music (Streaming, Paid or FREE), but also which devices they primarily use for listening to music (Phone, Computer, Car, TV, etc) and their primary means of discovering new music, beside radio and word of mouth (ie. Youtube, Pandora, Facebook, etc). What's so interesting about the report is in every region, the Car is the #1 device used to listen to music.
“How the F*** did Macklemore just win an AMA for BEST Hip Hop Album over Jay-Z & Kendrick Lamar? #WTF”
“Hell... I would walk to Brooklyn for some cheesecake if it meant a record deal. I’ve walked longer than that at events selling my CD and there wasn’t a contract waiting in my hotel room.” -Kelby Cannick (The Rapper), 2002
I think we can all remember that infamous scenario when hip hop and reality TV first officially collided. Diddy’s Making The Band 2, showed us just how far some rappers were willing to go for the validation of a record deal. I too was one of those artists, as you can tell from the opening quote, but as that first season played out, I quickly began to see that Reality TV and Hip Hop didn’t mix. It was too up close; too personal; too intrusive into the lives and shortcomings of the cast. It magnified their character flaws to an extent that it overshadowed their talents. The artists quickly became too ordinary, too commonplace, too REAL. This observation would later be proven with the eventual failure and disbanding of the Da Band.
There’s no denying the relationship between hip hop and basketball and no matter how many changes they make to the dress code, the culture is still going to bleed on to the court. In between the fact that every rapper thinks he could’ve went to the NBA and every basketball player thinks he can spit a hot sixteen, I don’t see this relationship coming to an end any time soon. Go to any basketball game and you’re likely to hear MIMS, Jay-Z, or Nelly playing throughout the arena. Turn on MTV or BET and you might just catch a story about Jay-z or Nelly buying a team. So when John Ameachi outed himself, becoming the first openly gay man to have played in the NBA, I had to turn my head toward the hip hop world and wonder... Which one of our favorite rappers is living a life on the Down Low?
Who killed hip-hop? I've heard some say that D4L killed hip hop. I've heard others say it was Dem Franchize Boys, Lil Jon, Three-Six Mafia and even Young Jeezy. Right now we are on the verge of an East Coast/Down South feud that I am sure the media will sensationalize until we loose even more of our talented young men and women in a hail of bullets and bullsh*t. Everybody's talking about who killed hip-hop, but the last time I checked you don't investigate a homicide without a body. With Three-Six Mafia just winning an Academy Award and T.I. nominated for multiple Grammies, hip hop is looking very much alive to me. It seems the more important question on everybody's mind should be, "Who in the hell said hip hop was dead?" Before we turn this into an East Coast vs. The Dirty South beef lets remember that Smoke of Field Mob, just this past summer was quoted having said, "...hip hop is dead and D4L killed it."