Born In '88

Jay Electronica’s fan engagement tactics are very unorthodox and completely worth it.

My first direct message was from Jay Electronica in 2008, days after Christmas. I had just joined twitter and made the premature decision to follow every rapper on the network and Jay followed me back. Soon after, he sent a direct message—no words, just this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kGPhpvqtOc&feature=related

It was a YouTube link to a music video of “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins—I’ll leave delving into the implications of this message for my readers.

Later that year, I was unfollowed. But I wasn’t alone.  It was “The Great Unfollowing of 2009.” Jay Electronica unfollowed nearly all of his fans, truncating his follower list to less than 200.  A year later, high off the heels of announcing his signing to Roc Nation, he followed everyone back—sort of.

In the small hours of Nov. 15, Jay Electronica announced he would follow back anyone who hit him up. And they did. Jay Elect was the proud recipient of over 1500 mentions just an hour after the announcement. He has since followed about 1600 fans, a Dave Chappelle impersonator, Joe Budden, and me.

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On Jan. 11, Facebook crashed, or at least according to Kanye West. Around midnight, West tweeted a screen shot of an error page suggesting the famed social network had exceeded it’s bandwidth following the release of “H.A.M.”

Rap veterans Kanye West and Jay-Z had released the first track off of their forthcoming album, Watch the Throne, on Facebook but to lukewarm reviews and even more lackluster buzz.

Kanye West x Jay-Z - HAM by uristocrat

Days before the release, West and Jay-Z announced on their Facebook fan pages that “H.A.M.” would be a midnight release via a page dedicated to their joint album.

And soon after, the blogosphere was pregnant with anticipation of the duet single from the rap titans.

Facebook users rushed the Root Music powered “BandPage” for the first taste of Watch the Throne and in the hours following the release, the album page had garnered over 32k fans and hundreds of comments. “H.A.M.” was all the digital hip-hop community could talk about in the small hours of Jan. 11 but the question still remains:

Why Facebook?

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             Should artists keep their political views out of the public eye?

Hell hath no fury like a follower scorned. After a flurry of anti-Bush tweets from Chicago bred emcee, Lupe Fiasco, fan Robert Nalette (@detroitrobbie) unfollowed him.

In response, Lupe Fiasco retweeted the announcement and soon after, the post was nowhere to be found. Nalette deleted it.

Fiasco didn’t have to respond to Nalette’s attack, he knew several of his 250k+ followers would. And they did. Nalette was the recipient of over 100 opposing mentions that ranged from polite disagreements to racial insults. The twitter bullying presumably became too much for Nalette and he activated the private setting on his account.

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Meet Dom Kennedy, a west coast rapper gigging nationally with considerable buzz. Although unsigned, his recent mixtape, From the Westside With Love, received favorable reviews, including some press from XXL, and just about anything with his name on it makes it’s way into the new music cartel’s RSS feeds.  A video for “The 4 Heartbeats” Ft. Overdoz off of FWWL was released on Oct. 1. It’s a guerilla style production on a L.A. beach that chronicles the search for the perfect video girl and Dom Kennedy wants nothing to do with it.

The artist took to twitter today announcing to his followers that if they are true fans, they won’t support the video. The seemingly “official” video is what Kennedy describes as an unapproved project produced by an “at-risk” student, Ezekiel Phillips, and was never supposed to make it onto the web.

Dom Kennedy is angry, and perhaps rightfully so, the video isn’t of professional quality and Kennedy claims to have been working on an official video with a similar angle but will likely have to scrap it due to Phillips’ release. Managing your brand is essential in any business but for an emerging artist, a hiccup like this can mean a side-eye from influential blogs and missed opportunity from listeners first discovering your music.

So what is an artist to do?

Issue a statement.

“The 4 Heartbeats…, I can’t call it a video, currently in circulation is a amateur video shot by a student who gave me his word that the footage he pieced together would be used for his student portfolio. At this point in my career when I have worked very hard to maintain quality and integrity of the highest standards in my work you could understand why I would not want a video of this poor taste to be seen by the world.

The video itself was not directed by the person you see give themselves credit for it but rather the footage was collected without my knowledge from the real director and then pieced together basically to what you see now. No money was paid… no final edit was approved… and no permission to exploit the talent of myself and others was given to release the video.”

Contact YouTube, but don’t expect any help getting it off the internet.

Kennedy said he first tried to get the video taken down from YouTube but they responded “we can’t keep him from re-posting it.” He also hit up video site, World Star Hip Hop but the owner said he was paid “$1000 to have the video posted on our site within 24 hours.”

When all else fails, talk about it on twitter.

But wait, did Dom really think it wasn’t going to leak?

Something about the situation appeared fishy.  Dom Kennedy allowed an “at-risk” student to film him performing a single off his latest mixtape strictly for a student portfolio but the student plays him for some e-stardom? After some light digging, it doesn’t appear to be that simple.

Did Dom unknowingly let somebody jeopardize his brand? Sure; By an “at-risk” student hoping for an “A” on their class project? Not quite.

Ezekiel Phillips is a student completing his final year at Morehouse and he says on facebook that he’s vying for a spot at NYU’s esteemed film school upon graduation. In a 2008 inaugural address at Morehouse, the new president described Phillips as “a freshman who negotiated the dangerous streets of South Central Los Angeles and survived a few regrettable decisions.”

While a 22 year-old student with graduation from one of the top HBCU’s at his grasp, no longer qualifies as “at-risk,” one can empathize with Dom Kennedy’s naiveté.

But here’s the first red flag.

A year ago, Phillips released a video for Overdoz’s “Creamie Says,” marked “official” and directed by none other than, himself. It’s likely that Overdoz—he provided vocals for “The 4 Heartbeats”—put Dom Kennedy and the student in touch so Phillip’s previous work should’ve tipped him off.

The second flag is the agreement for the video to be for Phillips’ portfolio. What aspiring filmmaker doesn’t put their work on YouTube? For many students, YouTube and Vimeo is their portfolio and often professors require student work be published to the web.

And the third flag, well, it’s early October and the school year has just begun. Morehouse is in Atlanta so the student probably shot the video during the summer while home in L.A., its unlikely a professor would have assigned a school project prior to the start of the fall semester. But I digress.

A school portfolio that isn’t on the internet isn’t much of a portfolio at all.

If you give someone access to your image on video, assume it is going to make it to the internet and see to it you get approval prior to release. In this case, Kennedy was quick to trust without considering the consequences of a good deed going horribly wrong. Had the video not made it to WSHH it seems as though the only thing Phillips did wrong was not make it clear that it was an unofficial student production, and if Kennedy’s statement is true, note that significant portions of the video were directed and shot by someone else. The latter is an inexcusable offense.

But at the end of the day, did anyone even see the video?

The video was uploaded to Oct. 1 and “as of press time” it has received 600 views and a handful of “great job” comments on Facebook.

On Oct. 3 the video made it’s way to WSHH and has received over 1200 views, not bad but, not great either. Kennedy said that WSHH was reportedly paid $1k to publish the video to their site within 24 hours. This doesn’t sound like the strategy of someone who is trying to get some internet fame, or at least isn’t a smart one. I’ve gotten some video and editorial interviews picked up by the new music cartel on emerging artists without spending a dime or having a particular contact. If it’s quality content, the blogs will cover it.

While a Friday release also isn’t a smart move for someone with viral aspirations, it still gives top tier blogs who have been following Dom Kennedy some time to post over the weekend. Since Friday, the music sites I follow have posted over 450 items, many on unsigned hype but none on Dom Kennedy’s video “scandal.”  It’s still too early to tell but perhaps Dom is right:

You can’t have a name like Kennedy and not anticipate a little drama.

-@SincerelyJane

An unofficial case study.

We all know that Cee-lo’s “F*ck You” is a low budget viral sensation, but how did it get there? An item’s rise to Internet fame can take a number of routes, and in the case of “F*ck You,” it didn’t necessarily start or flourish on YouTube.*

“F*ck You” was uploaded on Aug. 19 and to date, the official release of the video on Cee-lo’s YouTube account has received over 2.4 mil views and there are about a dozen unofficial versions with considerable page rank including a remix featuring 50 Cent that together have received over 579k views.

While YouTube’s metrics aren’t always the most accurate or detailed, their analytics reveal some landmarks in the timeline.

Who needs the new music cartel when you have twitter?

The new music cartel—an allegiance of the top hip-hop/urban blogs on the web—is usually the go-to tool for launching a piece of hip-hop related news, music, or video but in the case of “F*ck You,” two twitter handles proved to be more useful.**

On Aug. 20, the video garnered over 35k views from referrals from stand-up comedian @joerogan (Klout: 77 | “Celebrity”) and “actor/writer” @simonpegg  (Klout: 80 | “Persona”) —the first referral from YouTube got 26K.

A referral from YouTube’s music channel isn’t as helpful as you’d think.

After the video received referrals from Facebook (49k, and a second time 69k) and social bookmarking website Reddit (45k), “F*ck You” was picked up by YouTube’s music channel (50k) and then made the YouTube homepage (80k).

Outside referrals: 2; YouTube: 0

Real Facebook users don’t click links.

Facebook is the definition of over sharing. It links all the popular social networks and web tools and publishes their content on an already over populated feed of photos, comments and videos. So when Facebook users start posting links to a hilarious Cee-lo video, few even see it, let alone take the time to click on it. Thus enters the video embed.

YouTube videos can be easily embedded on Facebook and the first video embed got over 255K views, almost the equivalent of the 300k+ views gained from all the referrals combined. And they say Facebook won’t last.

If you build it, they will come.

All of the said events occurred on Aug. 20 and only marked the original referrals for the official release. The seeds were planted, and with time, the rest of the Internet caught on—additional digital marketing push from the Cee-lo camp would have been immaterial. As expected, the anti-gold digger anthem was the most popular with males aged 25-55—sorry kids, this grown folk business.

*An official music video for the song off of the upcoming LP, The Ladykiller, is scheduled for release later this week.

**The analytics for the remix video from 50 Cent’s YouTube account are no longer available but landmarks included referrals from Thisis50.com and members of the NMC.

Editor’s Note: Sometimes lyrics do sell. Cee-lo didn’t need a big budget crew make this viral video happen, just a designer (or really even a savvy intern) to input the lyrics into After Effects, sync the timeline and export the video to YouTube. Motion typography has long been a trend on YouTube and where creativity is concerned, Cee-lo’s video doesn’t hold a candle. The same animation was used for each composition and there were no additional effects unlike Jay-Z’s “Brooklyn” or personal favorite, Pulp Fiction video. The frank lyrics did the trick.

-@KD

An unofficial case study.

Fans, bloggers and journalists alike waited in anticipation of the self-proclaimed, and rightfully so, face of the #DMV to drop his mixtape, More About Nothing at noon Aug. 3. Considering the distribution and sales issues Wale experienced with the release of his album Attention Deficit, as he notes on the mixtape, he had a lot to prove. We shared his video teasers, downloaded his track leaks and used his hashtag profusely but on the day of the release, the tape was met with many delays and a few missed opportunities. Below is my top five:

1. It was late. When the clock struck 12, the tape was nowhere to be found. I can only imagine the amount of page views Rap Radar garnered as fans burned a hole through the refresh button.

• Quick Fix: Use Wordpress’ handy scheduling capabilities to have a completed post on Wale’s mixtape in queue. Test your link; work out the kinks in advance. While Rap Radar is not officially quantified by Quantcast, NahRight, a similar and more popular blog, is and despite its popularity, a majority of its visitors are categorized as “passers by.” You can expect a Wale and/or Rap Radar stan to hit refresh for 10 minutes, a casual listener or passer by, not so much.

2. The link broke. Wale made an agreement to release the mixtape via Elliott Wilson’s (former EIC of XXL) music blog, Rap Radar—presumably it had something to do with Wale’s scheduled performance at the Highline Ballroom yesterday, an event sponsored by the site. RR published a post on the mixtape with a link for download about 10 minutes past the hour but to Wilson’s chargin, the link was broken. It’s likely that the bandwidth of the mediafire download link was exceeded from too many fans and blogs trying to access it at once.

• Quick Fix: Bandcamp. Bloggers were going to repurpose the download link on zshare and mediafire anyway, might as well capture as many emails and zip codes from the early downloaders of the mixtape while you can. Bandcamp is made for indie music distribution and it’s likely that an arrangement could have been made to allow for extra bandwidth at the time of the release. Additionally, download analytics are more accurate and organized than those available from say a zshare. Alternatively, DatPiff and other digital mixtape distributors could suffice. Rap Radar could debut the link, and they could track the stats.

3. The link broke, again. But one link doesn’t stop the show. When mediafire and zshare proved unsuccessful, blog HipHop N More saved the day and provided an alternative link via lime linx. An hour after the advertised release, the mixtape was finally available but that didn’t stop everyone from taking to twitter confused and frustrated over the delays. Alternatively, it was those same tweets that helped fuel Rap Radar’s rise to trending topic fame. Our loss became RR’s gain.

• Quick Fix: Multiple links. This wasn’t the first mixtape to ever be distributed online. Most provide multiple links during the debut in anticipation of server overloads. If Wale or Rap Radar provided the alternate links, other blogs like Hip Hop N More wouldn’t have to and tracking the amount of downloads would be easier.

4. Rap Radar has no active twitter account. Naturally twitter users referenced RR via @RapRadar mentions, to date the account has been suspended. The official twitter account for Rap Radar appears to be @_RapRadar, it boasts over 550 followers and the account’s last tweet is dated Jan 22. Wilson has opted for tweeting Rap Radar updates via his personal account @ElliottWilson—think 17,000+ followers. On the blog his twitter feed has prime placement in the sidebar but the twitter handle or link to his twitter profile is nowhere in sight.

• Quick Fix: Step your twitter game up. An active RR twitter account at the time of Wale’s More About Nothing release could have meant a lot of followers come trending topic time and more unique visitors RR’s way long after #MoreAboutNothing’s hype as new posts hit the website. From the looks of the tweets mentioning @RapRadar or simply “RapRadar” many were unaware that RR author “YN” is actually @ElliottWIlson.

5. Rap Radar was robbed (or, Rap Radar is too real for social media). Despite Rap Radar’s highly sought after content and use of Wordpress as a content management system, there are no sharing buttons. While some music news blogs have opted out of including social bookmarking websites like Digg and Stumble Upon, most bloggers include the more popular facebook share/like and retweet buttons.

• Quick Fix: Use Wordpress plugins to install sharing capabilities. While RR can’t stop blogs and news sites from reposting the mixtape download link, they can stop readers from tweeting/facebook sharing direct links to the download as opposed to Rap Radar’s original post. In fact, sharing buttons could help Rap Radar hit trending topic status more often as it allows for more control to the keywords and hashtags that appear with the tweet/facebook update.

Due to the issues described, its hard to tell the real number of downloads Wale received, the limelinx link suggests he got at least 100,000. While web ads have yet to eclipse print or traditional ad revenue, there’s still money to be made online. The hip-hop generation has bred many digital early adopters in regards to twitter, Ustream, etc but when it comes to monetizing content or maximizing reach, we fall short.

One thing wrong with this post? I went out-of-town shortly after Wale’s mixtape release and must now pull a #latepass on this post. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

-@KD (proper twitter on the way @BornIn88)