Your Favorite White Boy

(Recreated from YFWB 1.0) My man Steve over at OGHipHop is in a funk, and I feel for him. In a recent post he laid it out for us:

“I’ve hit a slump. I wasn’t very excited about many things hip-hop for the past three months or so. I look forward to a Jay-Z leak here… but I’m numb to the slew of new music coming out today..”

He went on to say that the majority of material on hip-hop blogs and websites lack that essence, that hunger, that originality that first made us all fall in love with hip-hop in the first place.

He’s right. However, to a certain extent, we’ve brought it upon ourselves as bloggers; its certainly something that struck me as I set up YFWB to launch on the world. There are sites after sites after sites that are essentially clone stamps of Nah Right, 2DopeBoyz and other big dogs. These established sites are the first stop for labels and artists to go to when they are dropping a mixtape, album, video or trying to build a buzz. Unfortunately, all these Internet drones that post the same video on 200 different sites may be good for the artist trying to build that buzz, but it tends to become a damn echo chamber.

This is not a shot at Eskay, Shake, Meka, etc. In fact, I think we share a lot of the same tastes. I also tip my hat to them for building up their sites into a position that artists and their reps come to them. But for real – is it healthy to let them dictate who or what gets on? For every video or download that gets posted, how many get the delete treatment? Dunno.

Which gets me back to the heads who have taken it upon themselves to start a site or blog to cover hip-hop music and culture. They have a responsibility – yes, a responsibility – to look for and promote dope music. Its far too easy to think in terms of online ads, readership and number of posts when you blog – not about actually adding to the conversation. Its pretty damn easy to copy a piece of code from the big dogs and post in on your site, often without comment.

Instead, bloggers should see themselves as the online A&Rs of this rap game. We are the first and best line of defense to keep hip-hop music pure and, more importantly, dope. We are in a hybrid stage where the label structure is in flux. Dropping off a demo and bugging the A&R used to be the only way to get on. Now its only one option. Bloggers and site administrators can now be the judge and jury on who/what is dope.

With the advent of the Internet, there is no longer a real barrier to creating and distributing music. While that creates its own challenges, it also makes it incredibly easy to find. It just takes the wherewithal to actually look, rather than post some new joint from the latest “hot rapper.”

For those bloggers out there who say that there is no good stuff out there, you need to ask yourself: have you looked for some new music? Have you sat down and listened to a mixtape or songs from an artist you’ve never heard of, just to see how it sounds? If not, you need to close up the site, dude. You’re part of the problem.

As Steve points out:

“So where are the artist’s artists of the next generation? The Lupe Fiasco-type emcees and the Kno-type producers? They are in basements as we speak. They are wearing glasses, drinking kool-aid and banging out beats that move their souls. They are blending their influences, chopping their favorite songs and mixing it with their own special sauce to create music the way they, as artists, see it.”

Indeed they are. They are out there right now creating and producing music, grinding it out in the hopes that someone will listen to their joints and give their stamp of approval and put their network up on them.

Why leave that task to others? Why can’t that be you?

Tags: blogs