| 02.16.2010 | What’s Up With HipHopSite.Com? (*sticky*) |
| 94 Comments » | DJ Pizzo |
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 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. Related posts: |
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RM 3000. are you still in Switzerland or did you move back to the states?
09 was meh:
i liked the blackrock album and the Raekwon joint
Nice to have y’all back
Great post PIZZO. Thanks for making this website a daily view for me in the late 90’s early 00’s
I bounced; the Swiss adventure concluded successfully and I’m back in Cali now.
09 was awesome. Black Eyed Peas. Gucci Mane. Charles Hamilton. Lady Ga Ga. Cage (album + free EP). Wacka Flocka Flucked a Wookie. Mozart would be jealous.
how could you forget shock value 2 RM? Miley Cyrus and the human tampon from Nickelback feature, the spirit of hip hop is alive and well.
it is good to see HHS and regular members back but its like Doritos without cheese with no forum.
@clarky: I would blame Alzheimer’s, if I was able to recall that I had it.
Wasn’t there a Creed reunion tour too? Music in 2009 = heaven. Stop hating.
Good to see y’all back up and runnin.
Whatup to all the old heads. RM you left Lausanne…I am considering taking a job with UNHCR in Geneva. Don’t know if I am ready to live overseas just yet though. For now chillin in Manhattan Beach.
4 very good albums last year for me:
Diamond District- In the Ruff
Tanya Morgan- Brooklynati
Raekwon- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II
Marco Polo/Torae- Double Barrel
Those first two are exceptional. DOOM album was cool too.
Raekwon – CLII, Mos Def – the Ecstatic, and Twista – Category F5 were my favorite albums that I can remember. Not necessarily the best, just the ones I found myself coming back to.
Listened to a lot of mixtapes last year. At this point the only difference between mixtapes (at least the good ones) and albums is that albums have a bar code, so I don’t know why we’re even making the distinction anymore. These tapes all had mostly original beats, whereas some of the albums (Mos, Rae) had several non-original beats.
Anyway, my favorite mixtapes last year were J Cole – the Warm Up, Freddie Gibbs – Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmusic, and Pill – the Prescription 4180.
@adept: Don’t wait around; jump in head first and go for it. You can always make excuses about not being ready for things, but if you aren’t talking about bringing a child into a world or buying some stuff you can’t afford, you’re just making excuses. Honestly, I wasn’t ready to live overseas either until my plane landed and I cleared immigration; it turns out that I was ready, but there was no way to know until I did it. In retrospect, my 3 years in Lausanne led to a whole lot of personal growth and maturity that I couldn’t see coming.
i thought there were about a dozen really good releases last year!
1. raekwon’s shit – nobody expected him to live half way up to the hype. and some might argue he exceeded it.
2. people under the stairs – old school without being corny. dope beats + quality rhymes = an album that i’ve been spinning constantly for four or five months now…
3. felt 3 – i would have never fucking guessed that my favorite felt would have featured aesop behind the boards pumping what i like to call “electro-beats” (electrobeats ruined the new gift of gab joint ) but slug and murs fucking murdered this album. point blank slug and murs rap their fucking asess off to the point where the length and electrobeats werent enough to scare me off.
4. mf doom – what can i say, on an album where i skip half the tracks, mf doom is a dope enough rapper to make my top 5. gazillion ear, ballskin, rap ambush, absolutely, cellz are why doom is my favorite mc.
5. brother ali – brother ali always comes correct in my opinion
6. del & tame one – short, simple, sweet, i thought del and tame one worked well together.
7. instro albums – i thought that both of the oh no albums were fucking dope and that the wu tang cover joint was dope as fuck too.
8. souls of mischief – souls over prince paul beats. enough said
9. slaughterhouse – 4 mcs spittin ny street shit. i liked it
10. mos def – black on both sides it is not, but this album marked the return of mos def to relevance to me. he started rapping again! at least for the most part.
@RM – How is your cat doing??
I thought last year music was pretty decent and thought Tanya Morgan was outstanding
ohhhhhhhhhh snap. FIRST time im returning to this site in who knows how long.
good times, good times.
Good to have y’all back. I’ve definately missed y’all. too many wack sites out that dont report on everything. That was one of the main thing I loved about y’all. You didn’t just repord what every other site was reporting. Plus the interviews y’all did with people were straight. Not the everyday questions. I will miss getting music from y’all though. My CD collection owes a lot to you. Whenever I couldn’t find an album somewhere I came to y’all and If I ordered enuff stuff, y’all would hook me up with a T-shirt or some extra hard to find mixes. Good looks y’all. My ears owe you a lot. OneThreeMusic/bandcamp.com
@ pbs – shiit – we working on a new album now called “how do this happen?” right now. more of an underground sound with more soul samples and all …
@ hippo – sheesh man … you must like EVERYTHING. ha … but i definitely wasn’t liking that slaughterhouse like i hoped i would. the oh no instrumental shit and the tanya morgan i heard and was feeling though.
and j-syxx is right – someone should make a new forum. and if someone did make a new forum, they’d probably need a better way to round us all up than this thread – so i’ll go ahead and start the trend of leaving an e-mail address to make the process easier …
kosherbeets@aol.com
zebzuniga@yahoo.com
@RM 3000
Yeah dawg I feel what you are saying. I guess the only thing I can say is that I am at a point in my life, 27, where I want to meet a girl I wanna be with aka marry and if I go over to Switzerland where I know absolutely no one, other than my dad stepmom and 8 year old sister, things will be tougher. Et je parle francais mais pas tres bon. Knamean? And that UNHCR job isn’t necessarily guaranteed, I think I made it sound that way, but I do know if I go over there my pops can hook shit up cuz he’s Mr. big time over there.
Okay, enough of that, back to hip hop. A couple albums I neglected to mention from last year was:
Blame One- Days Chasing Days. I think the site was still up when this dropped and a few people mentioned it. I really like this album.
I also liked Mos Def- The Ecstatic, although it kinda went all over the place at times with that reverb sound. No real complaints though, good album. That Madlib beat on “Auditorium” is fire!
Skyzoo- The Salvation. Really not an amazing album, but there are three songs that I absolutely love. The Opener, Shooter’s Soundtrack(ill beat) and Penmanship(Black Milk fire).
Souls of Mischief- Montezuma’s Revenge is dope, that made my top 10.
The Buckshot/KRS One- Survival Skills album was boring as hell imo. And people NEED to check out that Diamond District- In the Ruff album. Spectacular.
So far this year Strong Arm Steady- In Search of Stoney Jackson is the BOMB. Love that album, Madlib produced that real dope. Other than that there isn’t anything I have been checking for, just buying old albums and expanding my collection. Poor Righteous Teachers- New World Order, DJ Muggs Soul Assassins Chapter 1, Akir- Legacy, Rubberoom- Architechnology, Blue Sky Black Death Holocaust instrumentals, Show & AG- Full Scale, and Ge-ology Plays Ge-ology are just a handful of albums that I have got recently. Word.
If people wanna holler at me I am over at ughh and philaflava. Screen name aeokq. Peace.
Oh and mthwadams@yahoo.com
hey j’etais a la recherchche des cours de musique depuis quelques temps et j’ai trouv
hey guys, long time. not really keeping up with hip-hop. still haven’t listened to Felt 3!!!!! Thought Rae’s album was boring, Freeway/Jake One was average–the only recent album i’ve heard. i bought maybe a handful of rap cd’s last year, way down from my yearly average of 20-25. I liked that Kid Cudi record, at least musically anyway. probably the most inventive pop/rap crossover album since ‘The Cool’. Rhymes are grade school though.
last Mos was dope too. way better than I, or anyone, could have expected really. He isn’t rhyming on the same level as he was on his debut, but who cares. he still doing it better than most right now. and the beats were mostly hot.
quote RM “whole lot of personal growth and maturity that I couldn’t see coming”
so no more poop jokes?
easydubble@gmail.com
not sure why ya’ll are posting your emails… don’t expect anyone to hit you up except for spam ads
Oh and there were TONS of dope albums from 2009. too many to list here.
personal growth and poop jokes are orthogonal. I can assure you that nothing has grown more personally than the size of my belly in the last 8 months, and that all the pooping in the world ain’t gonna help. It’s time…………… to exercise.
And apparently, I’m gonna be a daddy; pity the spawn!
^ damn rm’ … you got a little one on the way? how far along is she?
and you know machiventa – anyone here is capable of making a forum … thus, the need for the emails.
@gub: 4 months… gender will be known in a week or two
@me1: Oh Heavenly Father — aka my cat — has achieved unprecedented levels of cute, furry insanity. He’s a raging fanatic who showers me with love and affection for approximately 2 minutes per day. I work hard for those 2 minutes, but its all fair in the end.
In 2 years, my little toddler is gonna terrorize the furball to no end. This will bring balance back to the world.
Kudos from one braniac to another. :)
If anyone actually makes a forum it shouldn’t be too hard to get the word out on here. Since people have been talking about doing that since the first time the HHS forum crashed years ago and noone’s done it, I’m guessing none of us know how or wants to invest the time.
Last time I posted my e-mail address in a public forum I got all types of Viagra/Nigerian investment scam type shit in my inbox. How bout whoever’s actually gonna do it post their shit and the rest of us will get at you?
Oh and congrats RM…maybe once you have this kid you’ll stop talking about that damn cat.
Skiddam Adept, youre in my old stompin grounds, I went to Mira Costa High School. Manhattan Beach is the ISH. You lucky SOB.
Congrats RM, my Son will be one in a couple weeks.
Alright, I guess I gotta pickup diamond district, whats up with Fashawn. and what yall think about that blaq poet, that shit is grimy, love it.
What PBS said is what I was getting at gub.
WOW…THE SITE IS BACK….BUT NO FORUM….SHAME COS I WOULDA LIKED TO CATCH UP WITH SOME OF YA’LL…I BEEN WORKING ON ALABAMA 3′S NEW LP AND LAST NIGHT I DID MY 1ST LIVE GIG WITH 3 SICK MC’S….400 PEOPLE IN A WAREHOUSE GOING NUTS TO MY TUNES…CRAZY…
LOVE TO YOU ALL!!
check my LP here
http://blocsonic.com/releases/show/the-overcast-project
http://formula.bandcamp.com/
http://www.myspace.com/unknownartistproductions
for fucks sake someone make a board! i need some informative hip-hop conversation.
The boards are coming guys…Going to try to tackle it this week.
Speaking of which, any of you guys interested in helping out with the day to day blogging? Right now I’m doing a lot of it by myself, but I think if we had a few heads tackling this together we could really do some damage (and thus give me the time to tackle other issues, like the boards).
Nice one Keef, just downloaded yer album and looking forward to listening to it
WOOOO HOOOO……GREAT WORK PIZZO.
BOARDS SOOON COME.
thanks me1…
hope you like it
just so yall know isayu had a huge part to play in this record
http://twitter.com/darealvastaire
Great to have you back!!!! I remember reading your site in college and after college ended on the old PC at home with windows 95 and 98. I was collecting rap albums heavily at that time so I checked your release dates a lot. The News on the DL and album reviews were excellent as well –I agree with nearly every review you’ve put out. Your contributors have definitely done their homework. I remember reading about Eminem before he got signed to the majors, Ozomatli, and other groups before they really got big. You called it on all of them, no doubt. I did subscribe to The Source at the time, but it was starting to go downhill with commercialization and favoritism, so I, as did many others started to rely on your site for unbiased, candid reviews and information. So I agree 100% with your sentiments above. May HHS emerge from the ashes and rise again!!!! @@@@@!!!!!!!!!!!!
nice! glad to have you back! looking forward to the forum returning…
FOOOOOOOORRRUUUUUUUUMMMMMM!!!!!!
Glad to see you guys are still at it. To be honest, I’m diggin the new format/ site. Looking forward to reading all the new reviews and posts.
c.blak
@@@@@
Glad to have you guys back. @@@@@