Hip Hop's place online: credibility in image

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Written by Fab D | 23 February 2010

So 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.

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!"

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Mp3 to MusicDNA, download the gene

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Written by Fabian D | 27 January 2010

During the MIDEM music industry trade fair in Cannes this week, a new ground breaking music file format was unveiled named MusicDNA. Brought to us by the same inventor has the MP3 Dagfinn Bach and his company BACH Technology.  

The new format aims to fight piracy by offering more content to music  fans such as - lyrics, news updates, tour dates and social network information - by embedding the content along with the track.  MusicDNA will also be backwards compatible with MP3, so you can still still play music from MDNA on MP3 players including an iPod.  Apple released a product with a similar concept (music with data) recently called iTunes LP, however BACH claims their new format will offer more content with the advantage of automatic updates.

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