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Silicon Follies
Chapter 22
Bigger is better: Barry announces the death of the Nerd Maverick
By Thomas Scoville
[05/29/99]

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By Scott Rosenberg
[05/28/99]

Dr. Laura targets the new Sodom: Libraries
In her crusade for filtered Net access, the talk-radio moralist goes after sex educators, the American Library Association and porn.
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[05/27/99]

The Web's new tribal warfare
Machine-gun lovers and vegetarians clash online -- and at the end of the rumble, a site lies in ruins.
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[05/26/99]

Silicon Follies
Silicon Follies
Chapter 21: Stalking the wild Fry's salesperson
By Thomas Scoville
[05/26/99]

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And Chuck D has made good on his word. Not only has Public Enemy posted previously unreleased songs in the MP3 format -- and publicly battled its former record label, Def Jam, for the right to do so -- but on May 18, it became the first mainstream group to release an album online. (A full month before its release in stores, "There's A Poison Goin On" could be purchased as a CD or an MP3 download from the fledgling online label Atomic Pop.) And Chuck D himself is helping start an online radio station.

Is it a coincidence that one of the first big-name musicians to truly embrace the Web is a rapper? Not if you believe online hip-hop evangelists, who expect digital music distribution to empower the underground hip-hop scene, which many feel has been alternately commodified, overlooked, whitewashed and steered mainstream by the big guns of the recording industry. On the Web, hip hop -- a youth culture built around the streets and urban lifestyles -- is flourishing unchecked, and all kinds of hip-hop artists are finding a chance to flaunt their stuff without kissing up to the recording industry and its boardroom notions of hot stuff.

"The buyers of radio and television keep hip hop and rap from dominating those surfaces and only let a few [musicians] rise to the top. This is much more democratic in the world of the Net," says Chuck D. "There is a changing of the guard as to how people will get their music." It makes sense that hip hop would be at the forefront of digital distribution, since "hip hop and rap music has always run parallel with technology," he adds.

While Chuck D may be the most visible rap musician to release music online, he's certainly not the only one. Much of the No Limit Records catalogue is available on MP3.com and Ice T will release the first single off his upcoming album on the site. Soon, the eccentric rapper Kool Keith will release an entire album in the MP3 format on emusic.com. And the Beastie Boys have not only released several songs in MP3, but their record label, Grand Royal, produces an entire Shoutcast station online.

But these top-selling artists are just the most prominent examples of the burgeoning online hip-hop scene; independent artists and fans -- long-time devotees of technologies like samplers, sequencers and mixers -- have also discovered the synergy between hip-hop culture and the Web.

"Hip hop has grown up outside the traditional mainstream of pop music," says Al Teller, CEO of Atomic Pop and former head of MCA Entertainment and CBS Records. "A lot of it never gets on radio; a lot of the music becomes popular by word of mouth and the promotion is done by street teens. It's been on the outer perimeters of mainstream marketing in the music business, and because of that there's been that rebellious adventurous 'push out the boundaries of the system' attitude in that community for years now. The artists do it on a musical level, and now they are doing it on a business level online too."

Next page | Where does hip hop really live -- in the ghetto or online?