JAYFORCE

First, I would like to thank Jay Force for being a staple in a never ending effort to support quality Hip Hop, and get it to the masses. With that said, this article being my thoughts of how blogs are f$%king up Hip Hop, this article does not represent the opinions of Jay Force or any Jay Force related entity, but solely of myself……Isreali

Indeed the internet has revolutionized the world in the last 10 years that has forever changed the way we consume information.We need more and we need it faster, and in return our attention span has dwindled to seconds. Social networks and blogs has limited our capacity to focus, to hitting the refresh button every 2 or 3 mins for the newest post or latest tweet. Blogs, Fb, and Twitter is where we go to find the latest news (social, music, entertainment, political etc) in a matter of seconds. The beauty is in being able to on a global level connect people , build relationships,create networks that otherwise would never be avaible to create(or been much harder).However quality journalism and accurate research has been replaced by people with coneections, alot of freinds, and an opinion that their readers find enetraining (in which they cant wait to post a comment on) . Waiting to hit that refresh button to read the latest gossip, or the latest article from the random person who is in search of attention, thrives off attention, or in search of making a name for themselves.

With that said on to the matter of hip hop blogs.In many ways hip hop blogs have helped many artists get shine that did not have to go through the bullshit of the typical label madness. Artists were able to generate buzz, create followings, get their music(mixtapes or albums) and music videos played before an audience that 10 years ago was not available. Artists who garnered alot of attention and in social media , record labels now had to pay attention to. Some of these artists signed deals,and went on to have sucessful careers. Artists and blogers alike now have the ability of becoming household names..without actually leaving the house and interacting actively with the culture(imagine that). These blogs and bloggers have become the coveted “gate keepers” in the Hip Hop community.And as the saying goes”absolute power curupts absolutely”. The combination of bolgs having some sort of unofficial authority and the way we consume information, systematically Hip Hop is being destroyed.

Blogs are not as much concerned with posting quality, be it music, videos, interviews or articles, but blogs gain the most notierity by volume.Co-sings by these blogs that generate massive volume of material, grants those artists some type of general approval as “dope” or someone YOU need to pay attention to. Not the quality of their work. At the same time feeding our new hunger of microwave info, each blog has to keep up with the other,posting things so fast page 1 in the morning is page 3 or 4 material by the evening. This also opens the door for anyone to be a part of once was considered a skilled profession ( be it emceeing or journalism). Now we have things such as “blog rappers” who create material at such a rate in efforts to keep blogs fed with the volume they need to stay relevant, “cus if you aint on the blogs everyday then you aint grinding hard enough”.Now the infunce of makaing music becomes more of staying page 1 material while the quality of work becomes heavily compromised.Are the blogs to blame? I say Yes

I am going to stop here because I dont want to go to the point you are required to read more than you are used to when on a blog( insert sarcastic smirk here).I will however continue this series on why blogs are destroying Hip Hop ,among other things.Hopefully this will be taken as an effort to take more responsibility for our culture(myself included).
-Isrealness