How the Internet Saved and Ruined Hip Hop at the Same Damn Time

You see what I did there?
 
Hip Hop’s golden age was from 1995 to 2003. Rap music was getting mainstream love and those mainstream dollars along with it. It was like overnight rap artists went from driving BMW’s, Jeep Wrangler’s, Lexus’s, and big bodied Benz’s to Lambo’s, Bentley’s, and Ferrari’s. Rappers were setting trends, not just for kids in the inner city but for kids all across the country. Little suburban white kids were walking around with the big headphones on the CD Walkman, singing along to the latest Jay-Z songs.  It wasn’t a big deal to go platinum. MTV Cribs showed us our favorite rap stars in million dollar homes, with millions in cars and jewelry… all that just for saying catchy shit on a microphone. The numbers rappers are doing now from 4 singles and an album sitting on the shelf in Best Buy for a year is like what an artist like Master P was doing in a week. 150k your first week aren’t bad numbers now, but 150k your first week in 1997 was going to get you dropped from the label and your Bentley repossessed.
 
And then everybody wanted to be a rapper
When I was kid, I used to freestyle with my friends. Don’t judge me bro; if you didn’t drop a rhyme here and there, you didn’t grow up around black people. We were doing it just to be doing it. Nobody had makeshift studios in their standup showers. I didn’t know anybody who had a Karaoke machine let alone anyone who owned a microphone. We still wanted to be Michael Jordan, Barry Sanders, and Bo Jackson. When 2000 came around, I couldn’t go farther than 3 blocks from my house without somebody trying to force a mixtape on me. To top that, every week we had a new one hit wonder and just as quick as he blew up in the rap game, he would fade away into nothingness… sometimes without even releasing an album. Anybody remember Smilez and Southstar, Major Figgas, Cool Cool Cal, or Bone Crusher? The market was way oversaturated, and the sales started to slow.
 
And then came Napster
Napster made inner city bootlegging look like kids gambling for penny candy. If you thought the guy with the suitcase full of CD’s outside the carryout was stealing from the artist, then Napster was Robin Hood. Everybody with a Dell and DSL could have their favorite artist’s entire catalog for free. Record sales took a spiraling downfall especially since the people that weren’t going to the bootleg man in the first place were white people, and they were also the ones with internet access.
 
And then came the end of street cred
Once upon a time in hip hop land street credibility was everything and rumors alone could end your career, but all that was pre-Google, Media Take Out, and the other million celebrity blog sites. When rumors went viral and became fact, all of sudden nobody seemed to really give a fuck anymore. The Game was a stripper, Lil Wayne was kissing Birdman in the mouth, and Plies was a nurse, but somehow it didn’t manage to take the sheen off their rap careers. Shit look at Ross, and I know, “fuck a blog dog because one day we gone meet and you’ll spazz on me like you’re on E.” But, Ross is the biggest example of a studio gangsta ever; he was a fucking corrections officer. That fat boy is still cranking out those hits and talking cocaine work on every other verse. He won... Ughhhh.
 
And then came free music
With payola and radio pretty much going pop, if you weren’t signed to a major label, media was going to freeze you out. Then places like YouTube and Dat Piff gave the unheard, unsigned, and indie artist a spot to showcase all their free music. Without radio, music videos, or label support, a dude that was rapping in his mother’s basement last year could start label bidding wars and do tours this year. Souja Boy was a pioneer in this shit despite his actual lack of rapping ability. He pretty much gave his first album away via YouTube and still managed to turn it into platinum success. That free music formula opened the door for artists like Wiz, Drake, and Big KRIT. The internet gave us the options that labels and radio had never offered.
 
Street cred and album sales might have died, but dot.com mixtapes are keeping rap alive.
Jean DeGrate has spoken