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What’s Up With HipHopSite.Com? (*sticky*)
There’s been lots of speculation as to what exactly is going on with this company lately. As the one of the internet’s longest running, pioneering hip-hop websites, we’ve had a long, great history as one of the first online news and information sources for hip-hop since our birth in 1996. The site was started by two KUNV deejays, myself (DJ Pizzo) and Warren Peace, who prior to building HipHopSite would meet every single Friday night for the “#1 show in your area”, Word Up (yes, this show originated in the 1980’s). This show found us in the two of the most important eras of hip-hop music, the golden era (1988-1994) and the birth of the indie hip-hop movement (1995-2004). When I came aboard the show in 1995, I was bringing news updates from rec.music.hip-hop usenet boards, as well as exclusive songs that I got through prehistoric file-sharing methods – that being, trading audio cassettes of unreleased music through the U.S. mail service to other hungry backpackers. Warren then had the idea to turn it around, and instead of just exposing our radio show audience to all of this great information and new music, why not spit it back out to the rest of the web? And thus, HipHopWeb.Com was born…and thankfully, that domain name was taken…and instead, HipHopSite.com was born. Holla.
Back in that era, our original business model was to act as a content based website that would generate revenue through advertising. We had a little bit different of an idea though about how the site should be run editorially. We were fed up with the way hip-hop print magazines were selling out to their advertisers, essentially selling positive album reviews, five page features, and cover spots to whoever had the biggest album budget. In this era of shamelessness, we attempted to provide brutally honest record reviews (i.e. “Cam’ron sounds wack as fuck on his verse on KRS’s “5 Borough’s”…”), and then attempted to – yes, in 1996 – ask those same labels to advertise on our website. It didn’t take. I remember Kevin Black was head at A&M at the time, and we were in his office, pitching this revolutionary idea of advertising on our website to him, and he bugged the fuck out. “Yo, how are you gonna give the Centipedes (he meant Cenobites) four stars and then turn around and say the Players Club Soundtrack is wack!?!?!”. It didn’t take.
At the same time, the world of indie hip-hop was blossoming, with labels like ABB, Rawkus and Stones Throw putting out cutting edge new music from artists that wouldn’t “work” on major labels anymore. The new renaissance was here, and authentic hip-hop music would live on through the sale of underground 12” singles and eventually CD’s. We needed some way to keep the editorial end of the site alive since internet advertising was too new of a concept for people to understand at that time. From there, we birthed our online mail order service, which helped launch the careers of then unsigned artists like Eminem, Talib Kweli, RJD2, Jedi Mind Tricks, Kardinal Offishall, Demigodz, Madlib, and the list goes on. When these guys were coming up, we took a chance on them and carried their debut singles and albums, selling hundreds and thousands of copies to the core hip-hop audience via mail order.
This eventually evolved into our retail store in Las Vegas, which was host to numerous in-store autograph signing events, with cats like MF Doom, Redman, KRS-One, DJ Premier, Slum Village, Lupe Fiasco, Murs, Atmosphere, Mobb Deep, Alchemist, Pharrell, ?uestlove, Pete Rock, and blah blah blah, we’re the shit, etc. I know I’m kind of waxing poetically about the achievements of this company, so I’ll shut the fuck up because many of you reading this know the story. It truly is, at this point, old news. What you don’t know is what happened next and how we ended up here, at this moment in time.
So how did we go from having this massive two-story hip-hop specialty store in fabulous Las Vegas that processed hundreds of orders per day, to, well… nothing? The writing was on the wall. In 2005, we began to see the decline of this industry, which got worse with each consecutive year. Artists that would sell a lot in previous years stopped selling as much. Record stores all over the country were closing down. Distributors were folding. What was going on? We all know what happened to this industry – the rise of file sharing and the transition to digital music. In 2007, our lease for the brick and mortar store was up. We thought long and hard about it. Should we renew our lease and try to salvage this thing? We’re busting our asses maintaining the business for little reward, the site’s original focus of editorial content was beginning to wane because of it, and it the future of music retail wasn’t looking bright.
Sure, we could still kill it and push 1000+ copies every time Dilla or MF Doom released an album, but those types of artists only dropped albums once or twice a year. That would leave some pretty dry months where you were left trying to push a horrible U-God album or whatever on people – which didn’t feel good consciously or financially. For us, it wasn’t enough to justify trying to hold this ship together. As a last ditch effort in retail, we thought we would give digital music sales a try. This was an experiment more than anything. We had high hopes for it, but again, we were too forward-thinking for our own good. Try explaining to an executive at a major label that you want to obtain the rights to Del’s fifteen year old catalog, including the instrumentals, acapellas, and 12” mixes, while they’re trying to convince you instead to sell Soulja Boy. At the same time, try battling Itunes and Amazon for exclusives. It didn’t take.
So here we are in our fourteenth year of business (well, let’s instead say “existence”) and I’m hyped to be typing this out to you. That being said, all due respect to those still running things in the indie retail world – UGHH.Com, Turntable Lab, Sandbox Automatic – more power to you, fellas. For us however, I feel that now we have reached an age where we can actually pursue the original intent of what HipHopSite.com was meant to be – a full fledged news and information source for hip-hop music. With the new site, we’ve got thirteen years of archived content, with over 1100+ professionally written album reviews and 250+ interviews dating back to 1995, available for you to read, right here, right now – with some of this content being offline for two years.
We’re going to be making changes and additions to the site over the next few months until we slide into a comfortable groove of what exactly we want the latest version of the site to be and how it will take form. That being said, we are looking for freelance (emphasis on the word “free”, kek) contributors that wish to write or provide content to the site. So if you are interested, first get a feel for the type of content that is being posted here, and if you think you can add something worthwhile, hit me directly at mistapizzo@gmail.com. Thanks for your support, peace party people.
DJ Pizzo
President
HipHopSite.Com
Mistapizzo@gmail.com
P.S.: Special thanks to all HHS contributors, past and present: Darin Gloe, Jon Bauer, DJ Five, DJ Revise, The Kilowatt Brothers, Big Rod, Andreas Hale, Oliver Wang, Matt Conaway, Christopher Yuscavage, S-Boogie, Adam Rogas, Joseph Patel, Joe Fro, Deekal, Jon Doe, DJ Create, Nick Tywalk, Lalo Hernandez, Ryan Harrison, Troy Johnson, Mike Rodriguez, Stefan Shumacher, Lucas Gaffney, Max Herman, Matt Barone, Sean Clarity, J*Grand, Peter Agoston, OldSoul, D.T. Swinga, Jamin Warren, One Line, Justin Strout, Justin Moore, Marlon Regis, Jason Gloss, Dane Johnson, DJ Prizmatik, Stefan Braidwood, Jesse Hagan, Mike Czech, J. Miller Dean, Ant One, Anthoy DiLodovico, Kye Stefanson, David Ma, Nikhil Yerawadekar, Meddafore, Joe Meeks, Roberto Carvajal, George Hagan, Jack Goodson, J. Butters, T. Becks, Tim Stroh, Nikhil Yerawadekar, Oneline, Terry Malko, Eric Perez, Matt Gomez, Mike Czech, Dane West, Bill Heinzelmen, Mike Divine, Colin Finan, Charles Tremblay, Claudio Cabrera, Dara Cook, Toshi Kondo, Eric Kay, Deekal, Brandon Pitts, Ming Dang, Matthew Daniel, Esam El-Morshedy, Zio, William Ketchum, Matt Harlem, T. Becks, Joseph Mandat, Justin Strauss, K.I.N.E.T.I.K., Fat Tony, DJ Ethx, Demo, Steve Juon, Muwuse Ziegbe, Jesse Hagan, Chris Richburg, Chris Seeger, Adam Klein, Matt Snider, Aaron Newell, Aaron James White, Angus Crawford, Craig Smith, Damien Scott, Dan Gizzi, Jesse Serwer, Jillina Baxter, Joseph Mandat, Paul Rosenberg (LV), and anyone else I forgot. It’s six in the morning, police at my door.
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Facebook comments:
I’m so glad you guys are back. I’ve been waiting not so patiently for a while now wondering what the fuck was going on. Good to have you guys back and now my life can go back to normal again. The last couple of years have been blase without a best and worst list to help me wrap up the year in hip hop. Although I don’t always agree(Where was Bayani?), you have always been my number one spot for news, reviews and commentary. Anyways, great to hear you guys are doing okay and to finally have you back. Here’s to another 15 years of bringing that straight dope to the hip hop scene.
Nice to see the site back up! Pizzo, were you able to save the forum archives to transfer over to a new message board?
Props on the new site man!
where the forums at though?
Ditto, glad to know you are back, especially those wonderful back catalouge album reviews, classic, never forgot that review of Game’s debut album – The documentary, you called it right, when so many sites were shitting on the album. In reference to the abovementioned sites ‘running indie hip hop retail,’ well turntablelab is bsically phasing out their hip hop content, ughh, yeah they selling ‘traditional stuff’ but they also mosrphing into clothing and graff supplies, more currently, not sure what is up with fatbeats, only sandbox is sticking to original format, but based on trends in music,not sure how long they can continue, but will see. Anyway nice to see you back. Have been a long time customer from Jamaica from the late 1990′s.
Man I bought alot of albums from you guys and Giant Peach and couple other Indie sites throughout the years. It sucks that it isn’t that profitable anymore and that Amazon and other sites picked up, but at the same time good to see that hiphop heads are still thirsty for paying for their fix.
On a different note, if you guys are in LV still you should hit up that Ab Rude show on the 5th
Well alright. Welcome back. Let’s hear it for the testosterone.
I’ve been rolling with hip hop site since 95 and was a big fan! Im born and raised in Va so when I got the chance to come to Las Vegas I didn’t go to Belagio, Ceasers Palace, paris or the MGM grand…HELL NO! The first thing I did when I got off the plane was go to the hiphopsite store! That trip for me was almost like a Hip-Hop version of a Pilgrimage to Mecca!
Man, welcome back! I have been following the site (& copping product from you guys) since the late 90s. I miss those free-7-inch-with-purchase deals though!
Looking forward to the new stuff…you guys always tell it like it is.
Can you for the love of god please open another forum? I’m honestly not going to come to this website again if I don’t have that option of discussing things with other heads. News and discussion go hand in hand, and the forum of this site has often been treated like it’s red-headed step-child. I used to love your special promotion deals and all that, but if you want consistent traffic to help with those ads please reopen the forum.
We will definitely be bringing the forums back, I just don’t know how soon or in what capacity. Ideally I would like to import all of the old forum content over, but I was very unhappy with the crashy software we were using last time around and want to find a better solution that will allow us to do this.
Glad to see you guys back up and running. Long live hiphopsite.com!
Pizzo,
I still miss the store. I understand why you shut it down but that was my first stop once i hit Vegas. Seeing you, Warren, and Five in there was refreshing. You didn’t have a bunch of punk kids running the shop. I rarely download music, I like the physical cd or vinyl in my hand. All in all said I will be on here checking it out and thanks for running a quality business for such a long time!
Welcome back, I look forward to continuing to follow you guys as I have since ’96. Thanks to you I looked like a genius when I put my friends on to Eminem, Kweli, Kanye and all the other artists who broke in the underground before blowing up.
Looking forward to seeing some of those old 12″ reviews, I think I remember Oliver Wang calling Natural Resource hip hop’s “Peter Paul & Mary” after their first 12″ dropped but I can’t remember.
I’ve been a fan of the site since 97 and used to order vinyl from you guys even when fatbeats was down the street. Glad your back.
Welcome back you Fucks. Much love. Get the Forums back please, this was bout the only site where dudes actually new hiphop culture.
I used check the site on the regular for the album reviews and new vinyl releases, I had just started spinning and I hadn’t found anything like HipHopSite on the web at the time (circa ’97). Seemed ahead of it’s time for sure. Good luck w/ the new reincarnation of the site and much respect for the quality work in the past.
Longest Running? wtf
Heh, remember this?
http://www.gossipingbitches.com/articles/hiphopspots-news-on-the-d-12/
The images are dead but the text is still there.
Nothing but respect and love for hiphopsite. How else could we have made the parody? Glad to see you creepin’ on ah come up.
Thanks for the shout. Best of luck with your return P.
Welcome back guys! This was the first site I used for my online Hip Hop fix and easily the best for news and reviews and that was back in 1998.
But yo, you owe us a 2009 Best & Worst List!
hopefully the forum will be back up aswell. good to see a few familiar names from there in the comments above
Welcome back, Pizzo. I’ve always enjoyed working with you and your professional crew. Thanks for fighting the good fight.
Welcome back, boys.
As someone that’s probably near the same age as you, I know that journey through hip hop (and the music biz), doing college radio from 94-96, and selling records for the 10 years after that. You did a great job with the recap, but you and I know that all those experiences can’t be summed up in a couple of paragraphs, and I can appreciate that you feel so much more passion than you can probably write.
I remember being in your store a couple of times, and seeing all the promo 12s on the wall that I remember getting in the mail at radio (WUNH “Mothership Connection”), and I felt a connection to your existence – that I was in NH while you were in LV, fighting the same battles, experience the same epiphanies, loving the same love. I’ve been to LV about 12 times, and one of my lasting memories is walking from your store to the MGM with the new Dee Jay P in my discman.
Anyway, glad to see you back, and welcome back to my bookmarks.
Peace.
KC
Glad to see you guys are back… I was getting sick of hiphopdx.com. Just keep the underground news coming and I can gaurantee at least a few hits a day from me!
Y’all are the reason I discovered the underground. Back in the day I had no other access to that kind of music or info in Puerto Rico. For that I have always been a loyal fan. Glad to see y’all are back.
welcome back and i just have to say that i admire what you guys are doing. i’ve been a follower/customer of this site since my days in college 10 years ago. and i’m sure a big reason why people like me are able to follow you for so long is because you guys are willing to adapt to the times (and yet maintain the same spirit of the site). best of luck.
i just tried to leave a comment and already got an internal server error. still, if some of these old heads that im seeing here come back to the forum, so will i. hhs was and will be the only forum for me. i can’t do hhs. every other forum i ever tried.
i mean i can’t do ughh.
Pizzo sup man? I was reading your words and I could pratically feel the emotion transpiring through them. That was honesty right there, pouring your heart out. That’s Hip Hop! When everything else falls apart just remember your wonderful, heartfelt work reached as far as Angola (Africa, not the state penn). Yeah I remember being 15 yrs old and taking about 10 minutes for each page to load with my first 14.4 kbps modem (it has been a long way from there), and taking teh whole damned night to read the news, reviews and listen to the small ass snippets you made available. You might not remember but you made me a couple of tapes once in exchange of a Heltah Skeltah tape which contained a few unreleased tracks that were supposed to be on Magnum Force. It had that “Rollin’” joint by Saukrates in it, and a whole lot of other classics.
No regrets bro, you have touched people all over the world and the fact that you guys kept it fresh and honest just made a legion of us faithful followers.
A toast for another 15 years of good music
Peace
Just announcing my presence to all the other message board heads. gub, I still bump your shit.
I am really happy to see HHS is up and running again. I have been an avid HHS reader since 1999 (wow 10 years, it doesn’t seem that long). I remember ordering albums like Speakerboxx/Love Below, Food & Liquor, and Streets Disciple and getting the free T-Shirt! Not to mention the autographed poster of Prodigy and Alchemist when I ordered Amerikaz Nightmare. Y’all were the shit with the free-bees!
Keep doing your thang. I always enjoy the record reviews even though I may not agree all the time. And I look foward every year to the HHS Best and Worst Lists.
Thanks for always keep it 1-0-0!!! – Adam
pizzo you definitely just made it seem like it would take another year at the least to get some forums up …
we may as well just use this thread.
You guys were my source of hiphop. Best hiphop shop of all time. I remember the promo shit and T-shirts were always something to look forward to. It’s been a long time, I told y’all 9th Wonder was a bitch ass flash in the pan. Hah! Peace gents, long live hiphopsite.
Been missing yall meng. Got my first StonesThrow wax from yall. Back when MED was Medaphoar. Welcome back to 2010 Pizzo!
I have been a loyal customer and fan of your site since 2006.I so happy you guy’s are back I will be bookmarking your site again.I can’t wait for the end of the year shit you guy’s do it the best
thx 4 sticking w/ your priciplez & convictionz. there r 2 many people selling out 4 the pursuit of the $. & its refreshing 2 hear some1 still haz integrity. i’ve bought stuff & supported u guyz since day 1 cuz i liked a site that didn’t cater 2 the big labelz, cuz all they push iz crap 2 the massez. i felt the site’z amthem was “turn off the radio by dead prez” cuz that summed up what the site waz about(pluz that song waz dope & wouldn’t b played on commercial radio, ironically). keep your head up stay strong!!! one.
ya’ll should ship out the cd’s like before. Underground hiphop stores is very hard to find these days. Keep it like the the ol’ school, the music and the shiping off cd’s and etc. Good luck and keep it movin’
Thanks for laying it all out there and being down through the years. You have been an invaluable outlet to hip-hop heads throughout time. It was tough to see you (and of course the industry) struggle over the last half decade. Seeing the site change, the competition grow, etc. Glad to see you are “back” (still here, never left!) and hope for the best. I’ll be watching/reading. One.
有中文页面吗
the forum really needs to go back up
Glad to see y’all back. I remember when I bought a Dilla instrumental CD from y’all. Those were the days!! Sad to see that y’all not selling music. BUT, if record labels are going to try to make y’all sell something that’s not feasible or credible to the market that y’all wanted to reach, screw it. Y’all fought a good fight, this industry is having a sh—y moment right now. Glad to see that y’all still giving up the good reviews and news on hip-hop. Keep it up, and maybe if I have time I may want to do a review. PEACE
Hell yes! I used to buy from you guys religiously every single week, and when you went away it was like a punch to the gut. Whether you’re still sellin’ shit or not, I’m here for the long haul.
Welcome back !!!
Welcome back. What’s up to the forum posters, good to see dudes are still breathing.
Pizzo, you need to bring back the forum in some capacity. As evidenced by the bulk of the people commenting here, those are the people who consistently checked for your site. Let’s be serious – in the past decade, dozens of websites have popped up that cover hip hop, indie and otherwise, more frequently, more thoroughly, and overall better than HHS has lately. Nahright etc. was updating their shit 20x a day while ya’ll were still on some once a week at best shit like it was still 1998. The only things that kept HHS unique were (1) the store, and (2) the eclectic and knowledgeable cast of posters on the forums. You’ve eliminated the store, for understandable reasons, but there’s no reason not to bring back the forums asap. There’s plenty functional message boards on the web, it can’t be that hard to find a glitch-free host. Just saying.
Now that HHS is basically a blog, I’m hoping for more regular updates, more thorough analysis, basically something to set it apart from the pack. Cause while it’s cool that you’re going back to your original concept, that concept isn’t too original in 2010. I’m not saying this to be an asshole…just wanna see this place carve out a niche and thrive.
HHS-
Coming from someone who has been with you since 1996 with 14.4k modem connection (anyone remember the cypher divine website as an aside?) I’m glad to see you guys still around!
HHS has been one of the best resources for GOOD/REAL hiphop over the years and I hope your new content-driven focus will keep you around for the next 15 years.
Props to the CMS crew.
… pbs in the building ladies and gents …
what’s up gub. i still play your shit too, got anything new?
If he doesn’t listen, someone should start a new forum for HHS refugees. I agree with what was said earlier, every other hip hop forum like ughh is filled with chronic masturbators who don’t even take underground hip hop seriously. HHS was the only place I’ve ever seen where discussion was actually some what balanced, completely focused on the music, and not fucked up by suburban closet cases trying to prove their masculinity over the internet.
What J-Syxx said.
well said PBS
Like Gub said earlier we should just use this thread as the forum
Anyone care to share their best album of 2009?