NO LABELS. NO PLATFORMS.

There, I said it. We got the talking part out of the way.

Now what does this look like when applied?

Am I crazy? Is this a knee-jerk reaction from some guy that’s just had enough of trying to fit into whatever cookie-cutter bullshit is hot this week?

Possibly, but let me explain-

I was born in 1980. Let’s get that out of the way off top so you know what tone to read this diatribe in.

I was barely a walking, talking human by the time of Regan’s inauguration. This ushered in the era of preppy excess on one side of the spectrum and the crack epidemic on the other. Rarely did these worlds coincide but they definitely coexisted. Suburban kids were watching the ‘Corys’ (Haim & Feldman) hoping to be the coolest kid on their block with the freshest vehicle, courtesy of mom & dad, that would surely get them the girl. The rest of us were bringing paper food stamps to school to hit the corner store during class break. And the cats we looked up too weren’t named Cory and they definitely weren’t daytime TV or even USA Up All Night material.

And the music? I can’t explain how fresh it was. You had to be there. I’m not gonna gas you up like some of these cats and attempt to explain it well enough that you ‘get it’. You have to understand that back then, a million things that are now firmly planted and rooted in our culture hadn’t happened yet-

No Biggie. No Tupac.

Nothing even remotely resembling an Eminem.

No Rock Steady Crew. No Kid Capri. No Def Comedy Jam.

No Outkast. No DJ Screw. No Three Six Mafia.

No Dipset. No Rhymesayers. No WuTang. No NWA.

None of it.

Imagine for a second that all you want to do is be Bruce Lee. Or save up enough money for a skateboard or some other semblance of identity or individuality. Then you walk by the park and see some young cat, not too much older than you, moving like a fucking robot. Better than a robot. And these big ass house speakers were drug to the park in the back of someone’s Suzuki so that the dude in the neighborhood with the dopest record and break beat collection could come down and spin and receive accolades for doing so. Over time, those accolades started to reach way past the block in which they originated. Enter The DJ-

House party flyers were probably the first tangible collectable item that was Hip Hop related. After that it was the MixTape. In the beginning, no two MixTapes were the same. You may get a dubbed tape from your boy or snatch a copy from the bootleg tables on the corner if they had their business together like that. But, for the most part, these were put together by the end user of the product itself: The Consumer. Some business savvy DJs of that time realized quick that the biggest money having mufukas they knew in real life were the drug dealers in the neighborhood. They would pay certain DJs to customize a MixTape for them that featured the bangers of that week/month/year but also the DJ shouting out the dealer that paid for the tape. Fixated on notoriety, it wouldn’t take long for money motivated individuals to position themselves beside the artists, producers and DJs of the time and, in the absence of a label, become boutique indie labels in their own right. These illicit proceeds would do more to perpetuate Hip Hop in its infancy than any corporate dollar. But these influxes would call enough attention to the culture that before we knew it, everyone from McDonald’s to the Chicago Bears would look to this new phenomenon to stay relevant.

Fast forward to the 90’s and Hip Hop was fully infused and rejuvenated with the hustler spirit. Artists like Too Short and E-40 proved that real money could be made in Hip Hop with the farm-to-table approach. It made an artist say, ‘If I create a product that is custom-fitted to my consumer, who better than I to deliver that product?’. Cutting out the middle man, artists themselves paid for and oversaw the production process, organized album art and duplication and released the product directly the streets. Selling albums literally out of the trunks of their cars as well as fostering relationships with independent record store owners who also benefited from blocking the labels out. They themselves knowing full well what it means to be force-fed label-curated top tens and other pop bullshit.

Vinyl record collections, cassette tape collections, books full of Compact Disks and in some cases DVDs with music-related documentary content. These things slowly grew as we aged and found ourselves. Even to look around at all of the items we had procured gave us a sense of who we were. The room that housed our music was like a glimpse into our soul. A snapshot with a million words and stories and moments behind it.

Now we have our phone. That’s it.

See how the words just dropped all lonely out of the paragraph like that?

It’s a sad state of affairs.

But there is hope

Billboard (Really? After all that, his source is fucking Billboard?) has reported that the sales of vinyl records has increased for 17 straight years. 43.46 million vinyl albums were sold in 2022. That’s 43% of all album sales the year over. Social media and streaming services are slowly but surely losing their grip and once again being relegated to novelty convenience applications. The curtain has been pulled back to reveal that Jay-Z’s famous line ‘Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t’ has not aged well. Saweetie has been kind enough to serve as case-in-point. The ‘rapper’ who, at the time of this writing, has an Instagram following of 12.9 million was recently roasted in the press when she dropped an EP that only sold 2,000 copies.

What In The Actual F*ck?

It that doesn’t prove to you that it doesn’t matter, you’re a lost cause and my advice to you would be to never step foot in the entertainment industry. However, if you too are bothered by this correlation (or lack there of), please read on.

We have now come full circle. Movements that preach the need to cleanse the artistic mind of the preoccupation with social media are quickly gaining popularity. Reverting back to the era when guerrilla marketing was King. The concept of a street team blanketing a city with your stickers, posters and flyers and all of the supporters and connections made while doing so is making its way back into the fold. Word of mouth advertising will never be replaced, though social media has brought us close. That may be the why the current pendulum swing is so dramatic. People are simply sick and tired of scrolling to find the meaning of life. The fact that the term ’social media cleanse’ is a thing (and has been for some time) denotes that it is dangerously pervasive. With the recent popularity and ease-of-use offered by AI, one’s first instinct would be to say to themselves, ‘Wait, that means anyone can do it’. With the all-too obvious downside being: Anyone can do it. The day Canva dropped their Magic Write AI option for document edits, i ran across at least 30 videos in which the quintessential content creator was explaining to me how this would be a game-changer in a way we could never fathom and that now, more than ever, I need to start taking my content making seriously by letting computers do all the work for me. The same work they are doing for everyone else. Except, somehow it’s supposed to be different and unique. But that’s the part they leave out. How can I be unique and on some never-before-seen shit if I’m doing precisely what everyone else is doing? Another heartbreaker for the AI buffs? Google has already put in place AI detecting technology that will automatically initiate their own form of shadow-ban on all of your SEO if they find or suspect that AI has been used to create it. But don’t fret. When you wake up tomorrow, there will a million other content creators dropping videos instructing you on how to skirt AI detection software. Do you see where I’m going with this? Is your motivation to create a commodity that is appreciated by your core audience? Or have your career goals transitioned from that to a computer hacker that minors in internet marketing?

More than ever, people crave connection with an artist, regardless of the media. Audio, video or conceptual, they want YOU.

Many artists are adjusting their focus back to website presentation. With the ease in which an artist can create their own e-commerce website through companies like Squarespace, complete with comment sections, like counts and whatever bell or whistle is commonly used to satiate the viewer.

Point is, we can do it too. We can do it better.

An artist can release a project to their own site and utilize the ‘Proud To Pay’ option where the consumer can pay as much or as little as they’d like for the download. Merchandise or other gated content can be sold right along with it. You can literally build your support system 1 fan at a time. That connection will also endear much longer than the ones garnered my viral Tik Tok or Instagram Reels. That being said, we aren’t idiots. Social Media should still receive updates from those whose main focus is there website community. The website is headquarters. There should always be more content, options, action and opportunity on your website than what is offered on social. Social should be utilized for the sole purpose of drawing traffic to YOUR PLATFORM. Say it: I Am The Platform.

I’m not telling you to delete your Instagram, FaceBook or Tik Tok.

But you should delete them from your phone.

Tim Ferris wrote The 4-Hour Work Week in 2007. In it, he laid a strategy for being less busy and more productive. Interestingly enough, this book was written the year the first iPhone dropped. But already our society was looking for anything to get them away from the rat race. The desire to always be available. A slave to what was then your BlackBerry. The need to check and reply to emails within minutes of reception. MySpace was the only social media platform to speak of at the time and even then, folks took it too far. The book spoke about setting time aside weekly to check and reply to emails. Another to check and respond to social media. The bulk remaining for actual work and whatever interaction that work required. You can set aside as little as one day a week to share all the clips of your content, respond to comments and DM’s and interact with folks you regularly interact with. What you’ll find in doing so is that your hyper focus on social media was for naught. And no one missed you while you were gone. And all that time you used to spend scrolling can be spent creating content for your website and making your community as inviting and comfortable as possible. Through email and text lists, the integrations on your own website can forward content directly to everyone who gives a fuck immediately. Stop posting content to social media FIRST hoping that whatever platform you’re on is in a good enough mood to show it to 4% of the people who actually follow you in hopes of seeing it. Ask yourself what your goal is. Do you want 1 million supporters for a year? Or 10,000 for 20 years? If you can get those 10k to spend $10 a year, you’ll never work again. Are you listening?

This entire essay was designed using no AI. It was however concocted to persuade you. Just like everything else you’ll listen to or read today. The difference? I implore you to stop listening to the noise. Even if I myself become a distraction to you, It warms my heart to know you’ll never listen again. Go. Be the most amplified version of yourself and don’t stop until you’ve pissed a lot of people off. Only then will you have created anything worth fussing over in the first place. When that happens, the world outside of that computer in your pocket will open up in ways that will make you want to leave it there. Do not waste another second looking to the next man for direction or inspiration. Get YOU out first. Fortunately, I’m not going to push you towards any apps or sites that will simplify your process. That alone will simplify your process. You’re welcome.

Kream Soda