Indiesent Exposure 2009 Hip-Hop Viewpoint & Wrap Up:
Indie Hip-Hop Music Is Having One Of The Best Times Ever…And Can Continue to Have It That Way If The Cards Are Played Right (And A Regular Old “Best/Worst/Info of 2009 Lists)

What’s up Planet Ill Fam,

Before I get into some of my personal “Best/Worst/Information” 2009 lists for Indiesent Exposure, I got to let something out abut the independent Hip-Hop community’s place right now…

As of the time frame I’m writing this, it’s about 2 weeks before we’re into the official 2nd decade of the 21st century.

Depending on your definition of when Hip-Hop officially began, we’re approximately 35 – 40 years into a musical art form and culture that has traveled from the ‘hood to the corporate boardroom with some dallying around a bit with college folk, the ‘burbs and outsiders worldwide wanting another groove to dance to and a way to use the spoken word for expression.

As one of the many musical great grandchildren of the African Diaspora born from the coupling of what some call American Classical Music (Jazz, Funk, Blues, Soul, Funk, Rock, etc.) and Reggae, Hip-Hop has come a long way from its beginnings.

Some people say this is natural growth and is all good while others say Hip-Hop music is woefully worse for wear; bemoaning that any aspect of business that came into the mix ended up playing a role in completely destroying the art.

Looking back at 2009, I have to say to the latter camp y’all need to get a grip.

Now I can very real about some of the non-positive aspects of Hip-Hop Music, Business and Culture right now:

• There’s always going to be some music artist who gets mainstream attention, money, sales and fame you feel that’s not worth a damn compared to your favorite one.

• The music industry has and will always have some crooked people functioning in it with some degrees of failure and success.

• Some of your favorite music artists are blatant media whores & beyond their talent can have pretty wack ass personalities with the annoying habit of putting out mediocre music once in a minute.

• Quite a few indie and major Hip-Hop music labels have died out, took a beating, or were absorbed into somebody’s super conglomerate in the past decade.

• Hip-Hop “Beef” went from the regular set of bugged out diss songs & skits (some actually standing up to be good music, some just kinda amusing smack talk over a beat, some simply that ol’ B.S.) to the point of McDonald’s type oversaturation where it’s a normal part of official Press Releases and professionally directed YouTube mini-series for an MC to just (try) to get a rep.

• Numerous print and ‘net publications that promoted all that is Hip-Hop for years & seemed like they were gonna be standard bearers forever have come, gone and resurrected themselves. Some of these old school and new school publications are crooked as hell and might as well be used for backup toilet paper.

• More Hip-Hop oriented TV channels have entered the far end of your cable TV or satellite system, but most of them are owned by someone else who isn’t hyped for your “positive” or “average person” imagery whether you’re pulling out money or not and will tell the audience who to like via the big boss. Your local commercial Hip-Hop radio station also pretty much functions that way was well and promotes such a lack of blatant diversity your ears can go numb & you know hooks of music joints you find corny through osmosis.

• The Internet has caused mad extra bootlegging of Hip-Hop Music and therefore is one of many reasons that’s some music artists are selling less than in the past (even though bootlegging has existed since sheet music).

• “Old School” Hip-Hop Music on a lot of your mainstream media outlets has an extremely weird boundary, usually ranging from 1992 – 2005. :-S

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time to sit down the “Hip-Hop Is Dead” contingent that will rattle off any or all of those reasons to justify a nihilist attitude and politely tell them it’s time to get the hell over all of that and man/woman up.

Do some scenarios suck with Hip-Hop Music currently? Yes indeed, but that’s just how it is.

The promotion of a fantasy revisionist history of Hip-Hop where past eras were all sprinkles and rainbows with super lyrical MCs that always at least went Gold & got on the Billboard Charts off of love the first month and engaged in cheerful ciphers with B-Boys breaking behind them during a sunny summer’s day with absolutely no wack music ever befalling peoples ears before 2000 is some ridiculous bullshit and causes damage just like any of the reasons listed above.

Hip-Hop Music and Culture isn’t dead or terminally ill right now – it’s doing pretty damned good. The situation overall with it isn’t really much worse than in it was the past and in fact on a few levels, it has gotten even BETTER.

The real problem with latter 20th/early 21st century Hip-Hop isn’t that good amounts of quality music doesn’t exist anymore, it’s the lack of complete lack of diversity in the types of Hip-Hop culture getting exposed or promoted overall through the mainstream media. The battle to maintain dope Hip-Hop – Old School or New School – is now getting it to many people as possible who actually want to CARE about it and support monetarily and otherwise.

And you know what? If THAT’S the worst issue Hip-Hop has right now in 2009, then really, things are just fine.

It’s prime time to stop crying about what’s happened in the past and get to working on making things work out better for Hip-Hop on the biz, music and media ends for the future.

By now it should be obvious most “major” labels aren’t going to play “Captain Save A Talented MC”. Rappers dropping off demos to a label is now a passe concept along one or two publications making anyone a star. The days of constant 1st week multi-platinum numbers of a mainstream Hip-Hop is pretty much shot to hell for a minute due to the economy.

AND…THAT’S…JUST…GREAT.

Why?

With the public being burned out from the knowledge and methods of the MAINSTREAM music industry’s tactics of shoving music down folks throats by Methods Of Mass Fuckery more people want to know…

“WHERE IN THE HELL IS SOME GOOD MUSIC I ACTUALLY CAN LIKE & HOW CAN I SUPPORT IT?”

There’s more of a hungry audience on the hunt for new and diverse types of music than ever before because of the mainstream music industry dropping the ball on what they’re supposed to do in the first place – promote great artists for different audiences to listen to and spend money on.

The second the Hip-Hop A&R rep became more an regional area SoundScan Excel Spreadsheet reader instead of the person who hunted for new music from all over the planet or took time to craft a music artist’s long term career, the Old School Music System started to collapse.

Luckily during this time, the huge technological & social advancement of the Internet becoming a normal part of life though people’s computers, mp3 players or telephones created totally new options for music to expand it’s reach to essentially anywhere, to anyone and at anytime in a relatively cheap, quick and efficient way.

This fundamental shift is one of the great gifts ever given to all aspects of the Independent Music Community.

The playing field has gone from a huge mountain to climb to even get a demo a listen or for getting people to check out your viewpoint of Hip-Hop to at least become a slightly more manageable hill for music lovers to negotiate a successful career and outlet of expression.

Audiences who want to connect to dope music don’t really have to be around the corner anymore and are just a few clicks away through sites like MySpace, BandCamp, FaceBook, Twitter, Imeem, ReverbNation, CD Baby, YouTube and more.

An indie music artist or outlet can hit up that audience and give major record labels and distributors the finger by promoting themselves at pretty much however they like with promotional singles & mixtapes or any other product via tons of ‘net companies and the right applications.

With some dope audio software, an e-mail address, file sharing programs and a solid work ethic, new forms of musical collaborations can occur as long as there are like minds in the mix.

Music artists in general can find out a LOT about trying to avoid Music Industry Rule #4080 traps and getting their business straight now for FREE or pretty inexpensively via the internet, hitting up the library or copping a squat at their local bookstore to read tons of articles and books.

What about current subpar TV, Radio and written media outlets that don’t play or acknowledge dope Old School Hip-Hop artists (a lot of which are now back to either being Indie Music Artists again or having to function like one to get any worthy promotion for their projects) or any innovative New School heads?

Well, there’s probably either a website, blog, podcast, internet radio station, conference call, newsletter or online video outlet to avoid all that. Old School Hip-Hop as a whole is literally being kept ALIVE through it’s accessibility through the internet from these sort of outlets.

And the great thing is if there isn’t such an outlet yet, fans OR a music artist can make create their own such sites with the numerous free services out there for self-expression and upgrade GoDaddy.com style later on if one chooses.

The Old School mentality that made truly great Hip-Hop  and is still keeping it alive has made a comeback that can revolutionize a positive artistic creativity and business model – you got to do for self (D.I.Y. game proper) to come up, work hard as hell, stand out with fantastic musical product not just to get people to pay attention, but to stick around as a long time fan.

Basically, you got to earn your way homey – no shortcuts. Even some of your Top 40 Hip-Hop MCs didn’t just emerge from a record crate pre-packed for consumption – quite a few of them have been in the music business for years before getting to that point and had to climb as up as an indie to get to their current status (from Lil’ Wayne, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, UGK, the list can go on for days).

An music artist really has no choice BUT to build from the ground up to earn the respect of fans so they can give up their hard earned cash & word of mouth.

Studio magic can’t save a trash music artist forever if their live show blows and as well as being unable able to connect with an audience. That Hip-Hop publication that’s a hot corny mess & doesn’t appeal to enough people can say “adios” to revenue dollars while people move on to the next one.

Indie musicians have more ways now than ever to develop a rabid niche audience that digs their individual musical foundation and to expand from there. Along with great support team that wants to promote the hell out of a person and do business on the up and up, next thing you know there’s an empowered Hip-Hop artist who doesn’t have to pimp themselves out to the latest trend to get a crappy major label/distributor contract in hopes of riches.

Hell, if it’s done right, the major label will have to come to the artist a bit proper to do good business – if the music artist even needs to go through that mode of operation by then. At the end of the day, if that helps out business (and what music artist really doesn’t want to make money doing what they love?), it’s all good.

While talent alone may not get every dope Hip-Hop MC, creative producer, or writer millions of dollars immediately, getting acknowledgment for the art itself and possibly making a decent living is in people’s hands more now than ever.

Does the advent of the Internet that mean there’s more competition out there than ever? Yup.

For every good to great Hip-Hop artist, there are there a whole lot of terrible MC McGoogle’s, Producer MF Fruity Loops and Sir Bleh Blogger’s who thinks a copping a webpage and posting some mp3s make them a star and that they’ve paid dues? Indeedy.

But that’s where the wonder of Musical Natural Selection kicks in the best way possible. EVERYTHING now is in more in the fan’s hands than ever on what to support and what to kick to the eCurb.

Major label backing and marketing isn’t a guarantee for big sales anymore, so there’s way more of a chance that the ambitious and hard working music artist who maintain creative control to make the best music they can while getting money & props.

Hell, there are fantastic indie Hip-Hop artists out right now who don’t or didn’t have ANY albums out for most of 2009, but with their singles, shows, mixtapes, publishing and other means, are making better livings than quite a few of your Viacom rotation music nation folk DOING THEM.

Right now we’re truly an Independent’s Day & Era in Hip-Hop. Smart biz along with creativity and personality can stick out more than ever.

It’s the extremely important responsibility for the independent Hip-Hop Community to keep things alive & vibrant now as in the beginning of the art form and culture not just for posterity’s sake but hell, just to be able to eat.

If you don’t like how things are going, say so and act on it – being quiet and complacent does absolutely nothing but make things worse.

Think what’s on the airwaves is out is a mess – create, promote or spread the word about the music you like. You really like an artist – PURCHASE their music legitimately, pre- or post-bootleg and have others do the same.

Feel business of the music industry sucks – either do the opposite or find a new way to rock business others are scared of doing. Wow, ya feel that media outlet kisses too much ass – time to create, promote or work with one to bring a little balance back into the equation. Feel that there’s more than one historical viewpoint on what Hip-Hop is the people needs to be exposed to – put it out.

The true love, respect and foundation for all forms of Hip-Hop music and culture comes directly from it’s creators and supporters from all over the world, regional boundaries be damned.

If we just sit on our asses and let mainstream’s outlet define what’s legit Hip-Hop culture in any form (ex. Jay-Z’s only legit now because he was on Oprah this year after an over 20+ year career since Jaz-O days…REALLY?) or show all of the facets of it’s history in any balanced way, no one can legitimately say they killed not kill Hip-Hop.

The people in the mirror will be the one’s guilty of that.

The second the ball’s dropped by us family, it’s all over. The environment, technology and creative hunger is right now is truly in the Hip-Hop Generation’s court – let’s keep it rolling with others on the team and continue the groove and culture movements. 🙂

Now that we got that out there, let’s get into Indiesent Exposure’s Indie Hip-Hop Lists of 2009 – Best, Worst and Everything In Between…

Hope you enjoy them and feel free to add on to anything post up here, since there’s not real way I can cover an indie Hip-Hop scene that literally grows and releases music everyday…

Have a great New Year 2010!

Indiesent Exposure’s 100 Indie Hip-Hop Artists Whose Music You Should Have In Your mp3 Player, CD Deck & Or Hard Drive ASAP of 2009 (in alphabetical order):

A-Alikes
Agallah
AmDex
Ashy L Bowz
B.o.B.
Beatnick & K-Salaam
Blakroc
Blitz The Ambassador
Bobby Creekwater
BrokN.Englsh
Brother Ali
Camp Lo
Chaundon
Che Grand
Chip-Fu
Cymarshall Law
Dead Prez
Diamond District
Diz Gibran
DJ Logic
DJ Mick Boogie’s (multiple mixtape series)
DJ Rob A
Dominique Larue
Donny Goines
Dudley Perkins
Dukes of Daville
Dynas
El MichelsAffair
Elucid
Elzhi
Enoch 7th Prophet
Fly Gypsy
Freeway
Funkghost
Gods’illa
Hevewae
Jasiri X
JAY ARE (John Robinson & J. Rawls)
Jay Electronica
Johnny Polygon
Jus Mic
Kam Moye aka Supastition
Kid Koala
Kingpen Slim
K’Naan
Kosha Dillz
KRS-ONE & Buckshot
L.E.G.A.C.Y.
Large Professor
M. Beezy
M.O.P.
Madam Madon
MAGr
Masta Ace And Ed O.G. are Arts & Entertainment
MF DOOM
Mickey Factz
Mikkey Halsted
Mistah F.A.B.
Mos Def
Mr. Lif
Mulatto Patriot
N.A.S.A.
Nappy Roots
Neako
Never So Deep Records Family (DJ Bless, Jim Snooka, Young Vadah, etc.)
Nicolay & Kay
Nikki Lynette
Nneka
NYOIL
Pac Div
Phil Ade
Q-Tip
Quite Nyce
R.A.V.A.G.E. feat. MeccaGodzilla
R.E.U.B.
Ra The MC
Raekwon
Rakim
Rass Kass
Reflection Eternal
Rosetta Stoned
Scratch
Senor Kaos
Serius Jones
Sha Stimuli
Skyzoo
Slaughterhouse
Southeast Slim
St. Joe Louis
Strong Arm Steady
Superstar Quamallah
Tanya Morgan
Team N.A.N.
Thad Reid
The Co-op
The Paxtons
Tone Trump
Wax Tailor
Whitefolkz
Wordsmith

5 Random Outlets That Pump Better Hip-Hop Than Your Mainstream TV Or Radio Station:

• Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim (free compilations, the Williams Street Record label, music during the commercial bumps, goes on & on)
• Amazon.com (the free mp3 giveaways they do each week are a BEAST)
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (just from The Roots being the House Band alone, much less the music lineup that runs through there weekly)
• Slacker Radio
• Pandora

2009’s 25 Great Hip-Hop Music Related Websites (Besides PlanetIll.com, of course) That You Should Always Be Checking For Dope Writing, Music Content, Information And Balance Away From The Norm:

• Philaflava’s The T.R.O.Y. Blog
• Poisonous Paragraphs
• The Mad Bloggers
• Ron Mexico City
• Bryon Crawford
• Combat Jack with Today’s Mathematics
• Hip-Hop Is Read
• Tha Feedback
• The Nappy Diatribe aka The Daily Throatchop
• Ill Doctrine
• Word On The Streets Magazine
• Nah Right
• Wax Poetics
• 2DopeBoyz.com
• Ill Roots
• DC Mumbo Sauce
• Rock The Dub
• Blunt Rapps
• Writer’s Block Media
• FLWRPT
• The Smoking Section
• Wake Your Daughter Up
• Making The Mogul
• BloggerHouse
• DJ D-Nice Journal

Your Favorite Hip-Hop Artist Should Be On At Least 4 of These Free Sites To Professionally Promote Themselves:

• BandCamp
• Twitter
• FaceBook
• Vimeo
• MySpace
• LinkedIn
• iMeem
• YouTube
• Blogger
• WordPress
• Tumblr

2009’s Helping Out Indie Hip-Hop Artists Get That $ By Taking Care of Business 101 Website List:

• ASCAP
• BMI
• SESAC
• SoundExchange
• Mediaguide
• Audible Hype
• The Rap Coalition
• RadioWave Monitor
• KnowTheMusicBiz.com
• The New Rockstar Philosophy

5 Really Annoying Ways People Try To Promote Themselves In 2009:

• Not using BCC: to blind copy people you’re sending your material to via e-mail.
• Having 95% of your Twitter page being re-tweets (RTs) of people giving an artist compliments or “Listen to my joint yo!” messages w/ links after NOT introducing yourself.
• Everyone getting a U-Stream channel – all music artists are just not that damned interesting and having a webcam doesn’t make you a “television personality” (trust, I’ve gotten e-mails that say that).
• Bragging about things you don’t have, sleep you don’t take or coming soon stuff too damned much – we get it you work hard, now show me the music.
• Not even checking to see if you’re reaching out to the right audience for your music – sending street Hip-Hop to a neo-soul site then pitching a fit when it’s not posted is kinda slow style.

Catch up on the ALL of the articles & FREE music downloads from Planet Ill’s Indiesent Expsoure series here at anytime – click here!

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