It's about time that Hip Hop artists formed their own self-governed community that offers true ownership, quality content and engagement which also creates an opportunity for artists to earn and get organic sponsorship for their events takes away the control that big companies.
When I recently came across a post on SkateHive I was really impressed and could relate to the dilemma that lead to the developments in decentralizing the skateboarding community. After reading it I was motivated to write this post.
I wanted to talk about some of the problems that I've had with the way the Hip Hip culture and Breaking in particular have been morphed and how decentralization can solve this problem.
The Problem- Corporates and Mass Media Running The Show
The Events
Most events especially the bigger gigs are usually the ones organized by companies like Red Bull, etc. right? My problem personally is that they've turned cultures like Breaking into staged events and its more like a sport nowadays. The flava or the essence of Hip Hip has gotten adulterated. Also what happens when their return on investment stagnates or diminishes, they drop you like a hot potato and move onto another culture or sport that they can monetize better.
Some may say there's more money in it now for us and we get more exposure, get to travel ... etc. That's all great. I want that too obviously. However I think the best events are organized by artists themselves. You can still get corporate buy-in but lets steer the ship. Let's not let big companies determine the fate of Hip Hop based on their annual sales figures.
What Mass Media Publishes
Mainstream media in their efforts to feature our culture in the news of course exploits us and corporates shape and form the message that is seen by the masses.
But it never started out that way . MC's wouldn't rap about themselves they were talking about the DJ. Hyping him up, making him look good. They would always call the DJ's name on the mic first followed by theirs'. Think about it even the names of some famous hip-hop duos were Eric B & Rakim and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.
The battle aspect was more competitive rather than derogatory. Musical rivalry has led to violence and death of some of the biggest in the Hip Hop scene. A lot of rappers portray a version of who they aren't. That's because of what they see on T.V. and on the top selling records.
Social Media
Social Media has been great in helping us artists with exposure and networking. But the way traditional social media works with their algorithms the reach you get is not always from an audience you would have preferred.
Either its restricted by region, or the quality of your audience is not that you would have liked seeing you post even if Instagram matched your profile with their look-alike targeting mechanisms. Well their algorithms keep changing and having a million followers is useless now because all your followers don't see your post unless you run a paid campaign.
Social media companies also own your data and they monetize it by selling it to data management companies. So guess what, we are the product!
Career As An Artist
They say beggars can't be choosers. To pay rent and food bills sometimes we don't really have choice in the picking the quality of paid gigs do we? I once did a music video where the director wanted Bboys. Only to find out that the scene called for a fight between aliens, mafia (whom they called rowdies) and breakers! They had us doing our dance moves while they fake-attacked us and almost ended up injuring one of my friends in the process who was doing headspins! I mean it was fun and we got paid straight cash on the day but I didn't see myself doing this kind of stuff in the long run and that video wouldn't be one that I would brag about for sure!
(L-R Heera who almost got knocked down doing head spins, Me with the sword, Wasim and Bunny)
Now I'm not saying that you have to stop doing all corporate funded gigs but wouldn't it be nice to either have a passive income or for those who create quality content to earn a living or at least have the right platform for it?
The Solution- Hive
Blockchain Technology offers a great solution to this problem. Hive with its ecosystem of decentralized apps for blogging, gaming, NFT's, E-commerce, Video etc. can open up a lot of avenues for Hip Hop artists to thrive. Lets look at some of the solutions to the problems that I listed above.
Solving The Problem of Inter-Platform Engagement
The aspects I like about Hive being a more user friendly of Web3 applications is the capability of unilateral publishing which solves the problem of having to cross promote on different social platforms, migrating followers as well similar to when artists try to get their Twitter followers on Instagram and so on isn't required.
Better Value Engagement
Because Hive doesn't work with algorithms like Instagram & Facebook do, engaging with Hive communities is how content is discovered by your intended viewers. When someone upvotes content it is more valuable than someone who liked an Instagram video that showed up on their feed based on an algorithm. The person liking the content on Instagram may not have anything in common with the one who posted it.
Career Opportunity & Passive Income
One the financial side there's different levels of opportunity for artists with the rewards that are native to Web3 applications like Hive. They can earn a passive income, partake in DeFi by Staking HBD for 20% APR and content creators can potentially earn a living being on Hive. When artists post their content they don't need a separate platform like Patreon for tips, rewards or subscriptions.
Hive also opens up opportunities in the NFT world, gaming and there are platforms that can complement artists' skills and their content.
Hive Communities
The great part is that there is already a number of communities on Hive that Hip Hop artists can subscribe to like MindForceGathering , Beatzchain , StreetArt ...etc.
Furthermore with the possibility of the rollout of a SPK mobile app in the future it would make it easier for artists to upload content from their phones. This would be key in expanding the community and is the only limitation I see currently.
Mind Force Gathering
Mind Force Gathering (MFG) as the name suggests is a collective of like minded individuals who are into the various elements of Hip Hop or are Hip Hop enthusiasts. It was onboarded to Hive by @yangyanje on the 28th of March 2022 who created it more than a decade ago. I met him in 2008 or 2009 through Hip Hop when he was in India and I recall him showing me a bunch of videos at his place that he produced for MFG.
As a part of MFG which is now global I'm excited to start creating Hip Hip content more consistently and onboard people whom I know who can add value to the community and who create awesome content.
A Great Example: Skate Hive- Decentralizing The Skate community
Skatehive has 800+ subscribers and what their community did is a good example of the potential scalability that Hive has. This can be seen from their platform https://www.skatehype.com/ which is integrated into Hive and offers skaters the option to onboard to Hive from the skatehype.com frontend. This allows them to engage in their native format while gaining the additional value that Hive brings.
I can see how this capability of onboarding to Hive will work well for communities out there who already have established platforms making it non-disruptive for their members.
In this video below @howweroll from Skate Hive talks a bit about the community's journey. His explanation on the similar issues I experienced are well explained.
Skatehive is launching their own token to reward users in their community called stoken.
Stoken is the upcoming stoke token, created through the tokenization of stoke! This is done through our extremely unique model, called Proof of Stoke(PoB), and Proof of Stoked(PoS). Each time someone shares content on the Stoken platform, people can vote how stoked that content got them. This in turn rewards the creator with Stoken, and shares some rewards to those who shared the stoke with others. The more Stoked they are, meaning they have staked Stoken, the more Stoken your vote is worth.
Wouldn't it be great to also have Hip Hop community tokens that can be used for rewards and community events!!!
I see see communities like Mind Force Gathering doing great things for artists with the power of Hive. If you liked this post please upvote and re-blog. Feel free to share your thoughts on this article and any ideas are welcomed.
Delegate to the Mind Force Gathering @mind.force and support more than hundred artist on the hive blockchain.
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