Hip Hop's place online: credibility in image

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Written by Fab D | 23 February 2010

Hip Hop Online - Headphones ImageSo where does hip hop sit online? Is it hip hop to be online?

One of the dilemmas faced when marketing music, is the attention that needs to be paid with staying credible to your audience. Hip Hop was born on the corners of New York, associated with a repressed culture who used hip hop and rap as their voice. This voice, was often spoken by people who were angry - angry with the government, angry with a suppressive society and even Hollywood (See PE and Ice Cube- Burn Hollywood Burn). So as a consequence hip hop was labeled 'bad' , 'offensive' and 'gangster' and to an extent even banned. What followed over time were fans who associated with the rebellious nature of hip hop, they didnt want to conform and it became cool not to.

Hip Hop Graffiti

However, as the years went on -the gangster image and hip hop as a voice changed. Subject matter (as a whole) became more mainstream and not relative to the streets and struggles it was born from. A wider-global audience can now listen to rap and be apart of hip hop just as easy as they can with pop. The softer tangent of rap music came from rappers who didn't live the gangster life or who had been detached from it for so long - there was no point to talk about it anymore. Besides now being coupled with globalisation - the majority of their audience wouldn't relate to those hard-body themes.  This audience though, as a mainstream has proven to like the illusion that hip hop of today still has the tough face of the early 90's. Although the music is no longer as rough - the image by nature is not allowed to be soft. Blogging is not gangster...yet

Let me raise the point to those not familiar with this genre, to do so i will quote the legendary KRS-ONE:

"Rap is something you do! Hip Hop is something you live!"

Hip Hop is the culture - this culture never had to be gangster (remember Kid & Play?) the kids who grew up in the 80's and 90's listening to rap, break dancing and loving graffiti today make up as a whole the largest percentage of social media users. Today if you want to listen to the latest 50 Cent track, you don't wait for it to pop up on the radio - you head over to  http://www.thisis50.com/ and listen. Today if you want to see the latest Jay-Z video, you don't wait for MTV - you YouTube it. These artists know the image they have to keep, but also realise that to capitalise they need to be online. 50 Cent, who was formerly a drug dealer out of Jamaica, Queens, NY - relates to his online audience like a drug deal. He uses his website as grounds to give out testers (free music) to the feins (fans) and gauges their reactions. In the video clip below he mentions the benefit of recording a music video and putting it on Youtube, which has unlimited rotations and a global audience, as opposed to the 400k+ it costs him to put the same video on BET which has capped rotations and can't be played on demand.

Play this video to see 50 Cent talk about thisis50.com - 30 million unique views a month, and how he embraces online technology.

 

Hip Hop is informally accepted online. In fact it could not exist if it didn't embrace the blogger's, the websites, the forums and social media. Depending on the image of the rapper  varies how they can apply their online strategy. 50 cent would lose credibility if he blogs because of his hardcore subject matter, on the flip side to the coin (no pun) Kanye West has one of the most popular blogs in the music world - which he often writes himself . These days you would be hard pressed to find a rapper that didn't use twitter or have a Myspace/Facebook page.

To survive in today's market, hip hop has had to jump head first into the online world (if not sitting at the forefront of mp3 download and sharing) - hip hop entrepreneurs such as Ludacris, Naughty By Nature, Kanye West and 50 Cent have all found success one way or another using online mediums (see a list below). It depends on their branding to how they utilise their resources - and i can say without a doubt, hip hop is not disowning the online world any time soon. It is a sink or swim environment - where understanding your image is the only real limiting factor.

Hip Hop website examples and links

http://www.wemix.com/ - Ludacris website for unsigned artists

http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/blog/ - Kanye West Blog

http://www.thisis50.com/ - 50 Cent hip hop news portal and community

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ0RdoqtoN4 - Vinny Brown from Naughty By Nature had a venture with Windows Mobile promotion

http://www.naughtybynature.com - Naughty By Nature deals with Windows Mobile themes, and are heavy social media influencers

http://www.sohh.com  - Hip Hop News and online community portal

http://www.allhiphop - Hip Hop News and online community portal

Comments (5)
  • |2010-02-24 02:59:23 Jim  - http://allaussiehiphop.wordpress.com/
    A real Australian Hip Hop website!!
    ReplyQuote
  • |2010-02-24 03:50:22 Fab D  - re: http://allaussiehiphop.wordpress.com/
    Jim wrote:
    A real Australian Hip Hop website!!


    Nice. I can add this to our web links.
    ReplyQuote
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