DJ Akademiks rode his core base of cultural outsiders to become a cultural voice. His platform is a reflection of what suburban teenagers and corporations think of Black culture.
1 - why did hip hop gatekeepers fall to the wayside? Was it a natural outgrowth of the internet or was that already happening around the massive popularity of rap?
2 - which folx (currently/formerly) properly cover black art on the ground level?
The gatekeepers fell to the wayside a loooooooooooooong time ago. Like late 80s, some purists would say even earlier. As soon as mainstream audiences figured out what kind of black person they wanted to entertain them, the grousing of intellectuals and artists and activists just became flies in the background.
But in the last 20 years, very few music outlets actually gained footholds after social media cannibalized the net so you get things like Pitchfork becoming the be-all-end-all for a lot of genres of music. There was SOHH and AllHiphop and XXL and etc but they were niche and had more pull pre-smart phone. Post-smart phone it was all blogspot oriented with Nahright and the New Music Cartel and stuff that existed in a grey area between label-tolerated piracy and promotional arms.
It's currently a by-product of a late capitalist internet where everything is peak content all the time or else no one gets broken off via actual pay or "access". If you ever go to the news section of DatPiff.com, it's almost never about music. Real conversations happen on blogs and small outlets and in real life now, and major outlets just peddle beef and ignorance and suffering - which is what they have always done but it's especially sad given how disconnected people are - rappers included - from the context of what they put out in the world.
Sorry for the long response to that first question
Holy sh#t. This is spot on, thank u.
A couple questions, I guess:
1 - why did hip hop gatekeepers fall to the wayside? Was it a natural outgrowth of the internet or was that already happening around the massive popularity of rap?
2 - which folx (currently/formerly) properly cover black art on the ground level?
The gatekeepers fell to the wayside a loooooooooooooong time ago. Like late 80s, some purists would say even earlier. As soon as mainstream audiences figured out what kind of black person they wanted to entertain them, the grousing of intellectuals and artists and activists just became flies in the background.
But in the last 20 years, very few music outlets actually gained footholds after social media cannibalized the net so you get things like Pitchfork becoming the be-all-end-all for a lot of genres of music. There was SOHH and AllHiphop and XXL and etc but they were niche and had more pull pre-smart phone. Post-smart phone it was all blogspot oriented with Nahright and the New Music Cartel and stuff that existed in a grey area between label-tolerated piracy and promotional arms.
It's currently a by-product of a late capitalist internet where everything is peak content all the time or else no one gets broken off via actual pay or "access". If you ever go to the news section of DatPiff.com, it's almost never about music. Real conversations happen on blogs and small outlets and in real life now, and major outlets just peddle beef and ignorance and suffering - which is what they have always done but it's especially sad given how disconnected people are - rappers included - from the context of what they put out in the world.
Sorry for the long response to that first question