F.U.B.U. - Black Music, Vol. 1
An Ode To...The Blog Era
The Blog Era, a moment in time, a secret underground where only those in the know were invited to spectate and participate. Studio 54 without the drugs. Magic City without the sex. The Tunnel without the violence. For the Web 2.0 generation, The Blog Era was a dreamscape of overwhelming abundance, the Wild West in digital form. However, like heroes, dreams eventually die.
The first issue of Black Music is an ode to a bygone era, a nostalgic look back at a time when there were thriving subcultures and music was regularly released in its rawest form. Over the course of seven questions and some final thoughts, two writers (Ricky Denham and John Noire) reminisce and take you back to a time you’ve been longing to revisit. Enjoy!
What was your entry point into the blog era?
Ricky:
Around the summer of 2006, my dad had a family computer that my 9-year-old self and my 7-year-old younger brother would log on to. Everytime we searched Internet Explorer, my dad automatically set Yahoo.com as his home page. Sometimes, I would scroll to read the news but then I delved deep into Yahoo Music and then Yahoo Screen, where I could watch music videos whenever I felt like it. I didn’t have to just rely on BET, VH1 or MTV to wait for my favorite music videos like “Back Then” or “Fresh Azimiz” to come on. I wasn’t commenting on anything, I just enjoyed the visuals. Those were the pre-VEVO days. Sometimes, my older cousins would come and visit, and kick me off the computer so they could log onto their MySpace page. I occasionally hovered over them and was thoroughly curious on how they shared their music with their “Top 8”. I just watched them share and comment about their favorite records on the Internet but I was too young to build an account and, honestly, I wasn’t interested in making a page anyway. I was 9 years old and still enjoyed going outside.
John:
It’s October 2007, school is back in session and Kanye West’s Graduation is the soundtrack. However, listening to the album alone wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to know everything about it: from the cover art to the samples behind its creation. I check on Google for the latter and one of the first hits at the time was a post on a blog called 2DopeBoyz. I had previously heard about the site reading co-founder Meka Udoh’s “Slap-Boxing With Jesus” column on HipHopDX but this was the thing that finally got my attention. The rest, as they say, is history.
What were your go-to blog(s) back in the day?
Ricky:
Yahoo! Music (the free version) but then I discovered Okayplayer and I’ve been a follower of Pigeons & Planes since college.
Websites like Genius (formerly Rap Genius) were a great outlet for blog users and actual artists who loved to dissect lyrics from a vast range of music. However, while Genius evolved into a journalist site during the mid-2010s, their content took a dive a couple of years ago. I still enjoy the lyrical explanations from artists who join the show and the online community every now and then but BRING BACK GENIUS NEWS and FOR THE RECORD!
John:
2DopeBoyz for everything, Hip Hop Is Read and Kevin Nottingham for the sample sets and The Smoking Section for the writing
Who were some of your favorite artists during The Blog Era?
Ricky:
Listen, from 2007 to 2009, Soulja Boy was THAT GUY! I used to watch his “SOD Money Gang 500k Freestyles” during that time (if you know, you know). Outside of his “Crank That” era, he was good at cooking hits that still get played at house parties and college homecomings where crowds still go stupid for.
But there was another dude from New Orleans who put hip-hop into another stratosphere. Aside from perhaps his Carter brother, Lil Wayne was UNTOUCHABLE! His mixtape run during that time was completely unmatched, and THEN he puts out a classic project which went multi-platinum despite the previous leaks and downloads, all while manifesting possibly the greatest feature marathon we’ve ever witnessed. That moment was an example of an MC who set his heart and passion for the love of the artform (shoutout to DJ Drama and Don Cannon for the support and putting the work in with Gangsta Grillz as well). It was a legendary period and I don’t know if we’ll ever see this type of dedication in music again.
John:
Big K.R.I.T., Blu, Charles Hamilton, Childish Gambino, Dom Kennedy, Drake, Fashawn, Frank Ocean, Isaiah Rashad, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, KiD CuDi, Pac Div, ScHoolboy Q, SZA, Tinashe and Vince Staples
Which artist did you think would make it big and did?
Ricky:
Soulja Boy revolutionized building a hit by cultivating and engaging with a following on the Internet. He used MySpace and YouTube to drive “Crank That” to Number 1 on Billboard – a song and dance which he continues to benefit from to this day. He took advantage of Internet circulation with his first two albums (souljaboytellem.com and iSouljaBoyTellem) by playing with Internet terminology and building a generation of followers in terms of his sound and self-promotion videos.
Do you know how many “Crank That” alternatives there were back then? Crank Dat Batman? Crank Dat Spiderman? Crank Dat SpongeBob? Man, that was a crazy time. I can’t deny his impact on a generation.
John:
Kendrick Lamar – It’s easy to say that now but, back then, we had seen a number of ‘chosen ones’ that did not make it to the finish line, whether due to personal challenges or major label woes. The ones that did make it, made compromises that they still regret to this day.
Finding out about Kendrick in 2010 was like finding out about Nas in 1992, everybody seemed to be in agreement about the talent but not everyone was sure about how it would translate commercially.
Then Kendrick got co-signed by J. Cole, then he got signed by Dr. Dre, then he got the West Coast torch passed down to him on stage.
Everything seemed to be building up to a major-label debut that the previous generation wrote about in rare five-mic reviews and all we needed to do was spread the word and have faith.
I would be lying if I thought the rapper who sounded like Elmer Fudd would eventually become a Pulitzer Prize winner but I would also be evading the truth if I said that I was not one of those who refused to let hip-hop die on October 22nd, 2012.
Which artist did you think would make it big but didn’t?
Ricky:
All the people who I thought would make it big from the Internet did. The people who I didn’t think would make it…just didn’t. I knew the people who were riding off the ringtone bandwagon weren’t gonna be the main topic of discussion outside of nostalgia.
John:
Big K.R.I.T. – If there was any justice in the world then this generation’s Big 3 (R.I.P.) would have been the musical equivalent of Mount Rushmore.
More so than any other rapper at the time, Big K.R.I.T.’s harrowing journey throughout the music industry was emblematic of everything wrong about the business during the early-to-mid-2010s: from its residual regional bias to its never-ending propensity towards promoting songs without substance.
For a lot of his fans, Big K.R.I.T. was primed to take over the mantle that T.I. made claimable after the commercial high of Paper Trail. K.R.I.T. had the lyrics, the production and easily navigated the artistic tightrope between creating soul-stirring masterpieces and thumping club bangers.
The struggles Big K.R.I.T. faced befell several of his colleagues during The Blog Era and is part of the reason why Kendrick Lamar’s ascent still feels so incredulous a decade later. Let’s just hope that K.R.I.T.’s discography (his mixtapes especially) is treated with the same respect and reverence as his forbearers: Scarface, OutKast and UGK.
Why do you think The Blog Era ended?
Ricky:
I don’t think The Blog Era has necessarily ended. I think the movement expanded and rebranded but its commercial appeal is now on shaky grounds. Some sites and notable bloggers just transitioned over to social media websites like YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.
For example, I actually discovered Okayplayer off of their Twitter page in the mid-2010s. I didn’t know they were an actual website (and a pioneering music blog) that was active in the early 2000s. I sometimes wish I was my current age (27) back then because I know I would’ve been an active user probably blasting all the Soulquarian albums when they were first released and talking about how amazing and refreshing those records sounded.
John:
The Blog Era ended because of two things: greed and technology.
Instead of promoting and developing talent from a thriving mixtape scene, the record labels frequently chased short-term wins and failed to sustain an ecosystem that would have served them better in the long run. The advent of streaming technology only made it easier for them to cave in to their natural vices. Why clog up your hard drive when you can easily access millions of songs on SoundCloud and Spotify? Why deal with online tastemakers when automated playlists and algorithms can do the same thing?
The end of The Blog Era was always inevitable, we just didn’t know it at the time.
What do you miss most about The Blog Era?
Ricky:
I mainly miss the quality of content and the thorough appreciation and critical thinking surrounding that content, especially from ‘backpack’ rappers like Foreign Exchange, Lupe Fiasco, Mos Def and Kanye. That search for content has now moved over to places like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and SoundCloud, where numerous core bloggers have migrated right over to those spaces. Different websites, different feel, different time. The current aesthetics don’t appeal to me in the same way but that’s not such a bad thing.
John:
What I miss most about The Blog Era is the sense of community. It was seeing over a hundred comments (good or bad) on mixtapes that were noteworthy. It was having spirited debates on who was the best / hottest rapper alive. It was DatPiff’s servers crashing on a regular basis. It was dealing with expiring links on MediaFire and zShare. It was the element of surprise: whether in the form of eight mixtapes being posted on eight different websites over the course of eight weeks or your favorite rappers collaborating together for the first time. It was being profoundly impacted by a project and seeing online that somebody else felt the same way. It was coming home from school or work every day and knowing that you had an avenue to temporarily escape reality. That’s what I miss.
Some final thoughts on…The Blog Era
Ricky:
The Blog Era absolutely deserves a space in music history because it created relationships with people virtually and artists have built a following and success because of the Internet.
For example, North Carolina’s own Little Brother wouldn’t have had the success that they had if it wasn’t for the community assembled by Okayplayer and there were some brilliant bloggers who became legitimate journalists (such as Brandon ‘Jinx’ Jenkins, Andre Gee, Ivie Ani and Mankaprr Conteh) because they started writing some excellent essays, analyses, anecdotes and nuanced criticisms on these types of platforms. Also, there was the added benefit of sharing content virtually faster than ever before while this digital form was still in its adolescent years which established genuine support for these artists as well.
However, we have to be aware of the quality of content that we consume on the Internet. Some artists are just looking for a bag by formulating simple and basic songs for the sake of a hit, not for the sake of the art itself.
Same with these so-called ‘journalists’ who share misinformation based off what ‘hiphoplover84’ troll may have said which, itself, is based off what somebody else said without any confirmed solid sources – all for the sake of clickbait, and exploiting Black culture from a misogynist perspective for the gains of likes and viewership. Folks need to be careful with that. Mind your business and enjoy good music. If it’s bad music, then just shut up and move on (unless it’s an artist you love and your feedback can be considered as constructive criticism). Not all music is ‘trash’ just cuz YOU took the time to not like it.
But blogging remains a decent base to hear undiscovered gems and possibly build friendships online based on musical taste and virtual frequency alignment.
In 2021, I befriended Marguerite de Bourgoing, a French filmmaker who covered a new generation of hip-hop artists and their rise to success with the help of The Blog Era. Check out her 2014 documentary for more information.
John:
When I was growing up as a hip-hop fan, I often wondered what it would have been like to be a teenager in the ‘90s, to have witnessed the lyrical luxuries of Biggie, Jay-Z and Nas in real time. Being a part of The Blog Era gave me that experience.
While many of the artists I championed back then didn’t end up becoming the mainstream superstars I imagined, they made classic music that I still cherish to this day and, for me, that’s more than enough.
Hopefully, the next generation will get to have a similar encounter, whatever that might be.
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Very nostalgic read…GOSH WHAT A TIME!
The Tunnel without the violence wow that analogy in the first line was Church