MCs and mp3s

Reading Dayne's post about Weapon X and Ken Hell's use of mp3 technology to promote themselves made me think of the successes I have seen in our local hip-hop scene thanks to the internet and mp3 technology.

I often go to the forums at www.hiphopnz.com, which contain an Audio section in which aspiring MCs and producers can "post up links to your beats/tracks to show off". The vast majority of the musicians who use this section of the forums use the website www.soundclick.com to host their tracks. Soundclick is good because it caters for both the artist and listeners. It's free to sign up, and when you have done so all you have to do is upload your songs to your personal page and then people are able to listen to them.

The Audio section at hiphopnz.com has seen many MCs and producers over the years, and some of the big names in both the underground and mainstream hip-hop communities have had their starting point there. The artists who post their tracks there are usually referred to as "bedroom MCs" due to the fact that they record and produce their tracks from their home computers, and the majority of them don't do live performances. Once they get their music heard around the local hip-hop community via soundclick.com the better MCs may have gathered enough popularity to release a mix-tape, which, as Dayne has said is a promotional tool for hip-hop artists, and has been since before the internet was in widespread use. The internet community helps out again here, since the initial buyers of these mix-tapes are usually those who have heard and enjoyed the artists songs through Soundclick.

Mp3 technology has certainly proven to be a valuable tool for promotion and distribution, and, as Dayne has mentioned, although some of the corporate parties in the music industry want to limit it, this technolgy has been priceless to many of the bedroom MCs and other aspiring musicians.