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An Interview with Ribbon Stage's Jolie M-A

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Now is the perfect time to get hip to kimdollars1, a club-adjacent producer you may have already encountered through her collabs with [Finals fav Tomu DJ](https://www.finals.blog/posts/HALF-MOON-BAE:-A-CONVERSATION-WITH-TOMU-DJ), her own [electronic, ambient, and hip-hop inspired recordings](https://kimdollars1.bandcamp.com/), or her [live band improv jams](https://ganitz.bandcamp.com/). 

Her new, short solo project 3733775 (out today) is an 'allow me to reintroduce myself' moment, where Kim is actively trying to connect with more listeners. On the phone from her new home in Austin, Texas, the former Manhattanite says she's been "focused on conventional electronic music structure lately, trying to make my music more accessible." 

3733775 is, as I like to think of it, one for the DJs. Made from sturdy Ableton beats and emotive KORG Triton piano lines, it holds up on repeat listens, too, with a unique sound that is at once housey, jazzy, and IDMish. Kim told me she was inspired by the broad umbrellas of house music and rap music, and specifically the moody wistfulness of mixtape era French Montana and Queens drill rapper Big Yaya. 

Finals loves a first, and this is Kim's first interview of her whole damn life. It has been edited for content and clarity. 

–  

**We met at [Young World 3](https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/mike-young-world-festival-noname-mavi/), where we were both pretty hyped to see Jay Critch. What did you think of his set?**

I thought it was super cool. One of my main goals was to see if I was taller than him, I always heard that he was really tall. From where I was standing though I could see the top of his head, so I think I’m taller. I think it would have been cool to hear some other throwbacks, although he did play “Smutty,” and “Did It Again,” but it was really cool to see. It was a cool hometown hero moment. Whenever I’m in New York I hear people listening to his music in the street.

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**I loved it, but I must admit I was bummed that he was going over his recorded vocals.** 

Totally. 

**But it was just cool to see him, I’m such a fan.** 

It was inspiring, and such a full circle moment. He’s someone where…OK the Rich Forever thing was such an era, but it’s interesting to think about what other spaces he would have been in if that never happened. That was a time when there was a big underground rap scene in New York. I think Rich Forever set him apart and made him less immersed in what was going on. So seeing him at Young World get to be a part of that was really cool. You know his producer Laron was DJing for him that day, and he’s made music with MIKE, so it made sense in that way. He always seemed like he was caught between worlds. If Jay Critch had never been signed to Rich Forever, would there be these really cool Jay Critch and MIKE records? 

**I like that speculation. So are you not a New Yorker anymore? Where am I reaching you?**

I am, but I moved to Texas last summer. My partner is a farmer and they got a job down here last spring, and I was working in education at the time, so I moved to Texas last summer. It’s been chill, I would say. I’m in Austin, and it’s cool. Right now it’s been hot, and summer vibes in Texas are that everyone does what they need to do and then goes swimming afterwards. Austin is super lush, ton of green space, and that’s cool. I have friends here from NY, some people I know through music, and I work as a waitress in downtown Austin which is very different socially from working as an educator but very fun, for sure. Kind of a mixed bag. Past few months I’ve been feeling more so certainty, confirmation that the move was a good decision. People here are really nice. It’s a big change of pace from New York but I was looking for that, and it’s really cool to be here, on a different tip.  

**I’m glad it’s clicking.** 

I love being in NY when I visit. But having some time, and reflecting more on what’s really inspiring to me, and what my influences are, this is helping me see it in a clearer way. Versus being inundated by the trendy stuff in NY. 

**It sounds like you put it on the line for love.** 

I try to put it on the line for love everyday. 

**I want to talk about 3733775, your EP. Where do the numbers come from?**

Yeah! The numbers are significant to me, past addresses and phone numbers. My projects, I view as being emblematic of different periods of my life. This was my way of grounding the project in a new place, in the past nine months or year or so. A second chance, sort of. It was a way for me to describe the project and where I am right now and how it connects to other points in my life. The numbers are impersonal but very characteristic of how meaning often works in life, in music, or writing, or physical space, something might have a lot of context but if someone else doesn’t have that context it might not be decipherable. But they’ll make it meaningful to themselves. Not immediately identifiable, but you’ll develop your own personal associations. 

**You’ve got a bunch of projects, do you feel like it stands out?**

I feel like it does. In NY, that was me responding to influences and figuring out my sound. With this project my two goals were to make something that was more sonically cohesive, and approach it in a professional way. I’m trying to put it on streaming and stuff. I was trying to hone in on where I see my sound coming from, and how to present that using a downtempo, housey sound. I think it stands out as more cohesive and I’m just confident about it. 

**I hear it rooted in house, and I hear jazz and IDM melodically and in terms of arrangement. Are those influences?**

I am not a jazz pianist, I’m an amateur piano player but I love jazz piano. My primary influences would be jazz pianists like Patrice Rushen, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, his improv videos…I had a friend growing up whose mom was a piano teacher, and his mom was Taiwanese and my mom is Korean so they were friends on like a “Asian mom” tip, and she would come through and teach me piano lessons once a week. So I learned scales, stuff like that, but never super rigorous. I admire classically trained musicians but I have enough proficiency in baseline music theory. My dad played guitar, so I got some experience with stringed instruments. The whole jazz improv paradigm is something I’m inspired by but dont have those skills. Although I am always trying to get better. IDM, I’m not super familiar with outside classic stuff like Aphex Twin, Warp stuff, but jazz has been a huge influence on me. 

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**Maybe you’re not jazz, but jazzy?**

Totally. 

**What about the role of improv on the project. Are any of the melodies improvised?**

My process is that I do play out all the melodies, they aren’t just written in the DAW. The project was almost 100% composed in Ableton. But there are some piano lines off the keyboard. I build tracks in Ableton, and I have a KORG Triton, an 88-key, fully weighted keyboard. I might sit at my piano and see what comes to me, play for a half hour, and hour, longer. For the most part I just go into Ableton and see what comes out. 

**I hear those melody, keyboard lines like Future’s DS2 album cover. Ink being dropped into water.** 

Word?

**I imagine the melody unfurling, noodling around while the drum programming remains more sturdy.** 

That is the way that I record to a certain extent. And I’ll keep imperfections if it works in the context of the sound. 

**Your music goes between genres fluidly, incorporates a lot. Do you feel like you need a genre? Or a brand?**

I don’t think I feel much external pressure to do so. Reflecting on where the sound comes from, I’ve come to a better understanding of what I’m trying to express through my music. My music has a lot of different genres, but my music is interested in melody, texture, rhythms that come from house music and hip-hop. I view house music as an umbrella term. Shorthand that implies a lot of other influences. Sonically I’m feeling more singular recently. 

**What do you think about your future with non electronic music? Still interested in jamming?**

Yeah after this project I want to revisit ambient. I’ve been thinking about a mixtape series. I’ve been having more regular practice with being at the piano. In NY, I picked up the guitar and had a lot of fun, and have been thinking about buying one. I like live instrumentation. I’m always trying to be a better piano player, and having opportunities to do so with friends is cool. I’ve been more focused on conventional electronic music structure lately, trying to make my music more accessible. But now I’m gonna zoom out again, and let myself go down that path. 

**What did you mean when you said you wanted the project to be “professional”?**

I wanted to release an electronic project with a more conventional structure versus freeform, so I wanted to present it in a professional way. I want to get it out through official streaming, but I also want to release things casually. My main goal with music is just to keep working on it and make things that I’m proud of. The professionalism thing is finding things for others to relate to, and about accessibility more than anything else. 

**Did something about your upbringing contribute to this attitude about music, where you’re not really trying to make money off it?**

I think so. I grew up on the Upper West Side, and on the one hand, it was very inspiring, exposed me to cool music and cultural stuff. As did the internet. At the same time, there was also this music scene and kids making music when I was in high school who were classically trained, Jazz at Lincoln Center for Youth, and I’ve always been interested and passionate but that was more like outside my life. I never viewed myself as a capital M musician, like the people who go to LaGuardia High School. And seeing all the weird NY scene stuff, put me off pursuing music as a career. I’ve been trying to grapple with that, maybe insecurity that I have, maybe impostor syndrome. And seeing how it informs my music, and also not get too attached to it. I’ve tried to keep music as something I’m passionate about, and not my livelihood. But at the same time, I’m recognizing that I have the power to present my music in a way that people can easily get into. Growing up in NY, I’ve seen so many paths I don’t want to go down. 

**Like what?**

Doing the whole, and no shade, but the whole Brooklyn DJ thing. I mean I’ve been trying to learn to DJ lately, trying to expand my craft. But the whole scene stuff. I’ve always been wary of that. I was never going to try to participate, I had my own life, and own friends, and was doing me. I was never upset about it, but I never identified with it. People can feel very opportunistic in NY, but so does so much in NY, so I don’t think it’s a music problem specifically. Hence why having some space has been good. 

**I’m not anti- the hipster axis of music in Bushwick, but I also have my stuff already, my people, my family, and I’m not trying to be a factor in a scene.** 

Exactly.

**I’m curious to hear about your high school listening life. And early, formative, living in NY musical experiences.** 

When I was forming my identity around music, in middle school, I was getting into the new indie stuff, DFA stuff, LCD Soundsystem was a big influence for me. This Is Happening came out when I was going into 8th grade. Growing up my dad listened to De La Soul and Beastie Boys and put me onto that. In high school, I was still into indie rock, but also rap, Chief Keef, Dipset, Cam is my favorite rapper. There was a whole like, Mishka scene, Das Racist, that world was inspiring to me. Le1f was really inspiring to me, they grew up in Hell’s Kitchen. They have a lyric on their album Dark York “I’m from West Manhattan / where it’s always happenin.” Looking back it’s like, Oh, that was a Wesleyan/Oberlin postcollegiate music scene. It’s identifiable. But that music scene, for the first few years of high school, was something I was into for sure. Later into high school I was super into Young Thug, Future, Migos, Peewee Longway, Gucci Mane. I thought Young Thug was the most innovative rapper ever. And was also getting into like Prince, Chaka Khan, so it was diverse. But I was really into rap. New York and Atlanta. There was certain NY stuff I never got into, because it was too serious, like real hip-hop. I was like, that’s cool, but I’m listening to Future. And those real hip-hop people would be like, Future is trash. They were trying to get me into like, Nas, and Immortal Technique. Serious rap. My taste was never super aligned with that. I’m not even being a hater, some of that stuff is cool, too. But the Real. Capital R. That was never really my thing. People would be like, We can’t even understand what Young Thug is saying. I would be like, Well, it speaks to me. But I always say Cam is my favorite rapper because his thing is about being really flamboyant, and kind of being a bitch, and just being from Manhattan. That ostentatiousness stood out to me. 

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**And when did you start making music?**

I started making music when I started realizing I was trans. I had a friend with an Ableton crack, and that was really cool to me. I thought if I could learn how to use Ableton, that would make the whole trans thing more discernible or decipherable to people somehow. I came out as trans five years ago, and I’m 25 now. 

**Do you think in some sense you’ve been trying to convey who you are through your music?**

I think so. When I was first coming out, and how that can be vulnerable and scary part of anyone’s life, I thought it would make sense that, Oh, you also make music, so it makes sense that you’re, like, eccentric. I think because of that I always viewed music as a way to figure out my relationship to influences, and communicate elements of my own life. 

**So in a way when we’re listening to your music, we’re hearing you do a little introspection.** 

Definitely. And even though it’s my music, I don’t think it sounds a lot like Juelz Santana or anything. But I’ve been seeing press about hip-house lately, and I think that’s really cool, and I think I view house music and rap and electronic music as more coextensive or mirror images of each other. I used to make beats, moreso. And I’m not a vocalist. But I’ve been trying to let in more of the rap music I was listening to growing up, if not the sonics, then the mood. I’m a huge French Montana fan, so maybe the emotional tenor of that stuff I want to come through. And even the Dipset stuff, it’s very classic New York get money get fly stuff, but also the pain and cruelty of New York City and just trying to make it in this world. I similarly try to have an element in my music that’s celebratory and also reflective, or true to what we endured along the way. 

**If I have to take some of the mood from French Montana, then I can see there’s something from like “Sanctuary” in your music.** 

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Totally. 

**Drunken wistfulness.** 

Exactly wistfulness is the word for it. The New York rap I listen to now, I feel like is more so the stuff that has that wistful mood. You ever listen to Big Yaya?

**He’s from Queens right, with Shawny Binladen?**

Yeah, he’s probably my favorite rapper out of New York, really carrying that mood, where it’s really celebratory but also very painful. Definitely when I was living in New York that stuff really spoke to me. That got me through my last few years in New York, listening to mixtape French and Big Yaya and like, also Chaka Khan. 

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**I know you don’t want to be a hipster DJ, but if you could put together a set that involves all that music, I want to be at that club.** 

Totally, I am trying right now. I’m trying to put together a more serious DJ set, and I’m putting together a trip to New York in fall. Recently I’ve been getting back into Ron Browz, Dame Grease production style. I think house and rap, they come from similar places, maybe not socially in terms of positionality, but in terms of what they want to express, and using all the same technology. All the samples coming from old soul and disco. Same goals, but different stuff. "Pop Champagne," the toms on that are really inspiring to me. I see that as related to house music, in New York, in different ways. 

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The kimdollars1 Interview

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L.A. rapper and producer ZAYALLCAPS’ BALLING OUT OF SPITE is one of my albums of the year, a compact set of delicate/triumphant jams built on Graduation-esque synth textures, and deeply felt rapping and singing. It is a student becoming the master type album, the sound of a major Kanye and Pi’erre Bourne fan finding his voice and doing his own thing. 

Talking to him, I learned that BALLING OUT OF SPITE marked the start of a new era for ZAY, artistically and mentally. In 2019-2020 he experienced psychosis, three hospitalizations, and eventually went home to Sacramento for emotional dysregulation treatment. In 2021 he made the album, trying to re-enter life in L.A. Now I can hear the pressure of the period stamped into the songs. And it makes me respect the album all the more. 

The following has been edited for content and clarity. 

--

**So you’ve been in the game 13 years and you’re from Sacramento.** 

Yes sir, a little 13 years and a little outside Sacramento. Lived in Natomas, South Sac, Davis. And I lived in Arizona for three years. How’s it going man?

**Good I was just jamming your shit.** 

What’s sticking for you?

**All of it, including the interludes. But I think ALL LUV and PRO CLUBZ are the hits.** 

Thank you, that’s so fire. MINE is my favorite but I think ALL LUV is the one people are gonna like the most. 

**I like WANNABE a lot.** 

Thank you. 

**Let’s talk about it. How would you describe the textures of this album, productionwise?**

Here’s what it is. I made Kwamzay, which was me getting my skills up with my sample skills, and then this was me trying to do my weird synth shit. It kinda feels like Zapp & Roger, kinda feels like Pi’erre Bourne, like Graduation, warm but digital. It doesn’t feel cold. Pi’erre 5 came out that summer. I was bumping that and DISCO by MIKE all the time. 

**Are you a keyboard player?**

I know theory, and I know enough to make good beats, but I need discipline and to practice more. I want to be able to get a chord sheet and easily practice with a band. I’ll learn piano shit to make better beats, then get distracted. 

**How are you able to do such good hooks? Is it because you can sing?**

Whoa, that’s sick. I’m gonna accept that compliment. I felt like hooks were one of my weaknesses, so I try not to think of it as a hook. I’m already rapping, here’s a part in the verse that’s just gonna be a hook. I tried to make it feel as natural as possible. 

**What about singing? What’s your history with singing?**

I was 16-17 and snapchatting my homegirl in high school, and I was being funny and sang a Chris Brown thing real quick, and she was like, Why can you kinda sing? And that gassed me up to try it. I made a few songs that were good ideas, but bad. I had a car in high school and practiced all the time in my car. I generally won’t show anyone a thing until I’m good at it, lowkey. I’m getting out of that now. I get the beauty of the process. But singing’s a vulnerable thing. I want to take singing lessons. 

**I love the singing on WANNABE.** 

That’s the second take of WANNABE, the first take wasn’t as breathy. I did a more breathy take. 

**Nice, breathy take.** 

Had to get that Britney Spears. 

**Also you say, “I aspire to Be like Common but I’m not trying to be like Common.” Love that.**

That’s my dude Brandon, aka Kwame Adu, my best friend and bandmate in Kwamzay, he has an unreleased song and he said “I wanna Be like Common but I’m not trying to be like Common” and I was like Bro, I’m just gonna take that. It's a silly punchline, like how Common just wants to Be, like the album Be. 

**Does this album represent a certain time in your life?**

Super. 100%. The emotions, the way I’m processing it, it’s all different now. But it’s a step forward. My prior EP was called I’m Slowly Getting Better, and there was a somewhat optimistic tone. And this one is like I’m more locked in, OK I’m just gonna go and do it, make this happen. But I don’t know how but I’ma do it. Anyway, things are different now. Like on PRO CLUBZ I’m talking about FL Studio, but I use Ableton now. And on the album I talk about grabba, but I don’t smoke anything anymore. 

**What will success with this album look like?**

Well I did it, I finally made an album. And I wanted to do that since I was 16. Had a lot of great friends around me to make it happen. As far as releasing it, I think having a larger resume of what I do, hopefully get an opening slot on somebody’s tour. Even if it’s a leg of a California tour, a few shows. I want to separate myself from everyone, and that I care a lot, I care so much about every little detail. And people knowing that I’m legit. 

**"I would just love to get high, but I gotta keep that money in mind." On MULTIPLY. Love how honest that is.** 

I was in the midst of my biggest stoner phase, and it was getting weird. And I was wasting money, and not going outside, and staying inside smoking weed to get my money’s worth. 

**And then compare that with SPREE, where you’re swiping your credit card and getting likes on the Gram.** 

That was about having a manic episode. Where everything is euphoria. It’s a spree, but in a fucked up way. I don’t care, I don’t have any concept of impulse control. 

**A lot of the album sounds up, but the thematics are down. It’s a cool juxtaposition.** 

I’m glad it’s apparent. My favorite way to put it is I enjoy art that depicts life. Heavy, dark themes, in an otherwise chill piece of art. That’s more realistic and more fun to make. My favorite TV shows are King of the Hill and Curb Your Enthusiasm, where it’s life as life. 

**ALL LUV really went off live when I saw you last month at the Virgil, next to PRO CLUBZ it was your hardest jam. I love the chop on that beat on ALL LUV. And another great chorus. Such a yearning song. Could you talk about that song a little bit? And that’s totally self produced right?**

ALL LUV is my ode to Pi’erre. Plus a sample in there. I heard “Late Night” by 454 and was like, Oh that’s a Brent Faiyaz sample, so I was like Bet, I’m gonna sample Bryson Tiller. And turn it up. On the lyric tip I wanted to say some real shit. Have a real song. The first lyric on the verse, “This year a n—a done changed up / that shit switched my brain up.” I’m not talking about a relationship, I’m talking about having a psychotic breakdown and was in the psych ward.

**You do talk about mental health a lot. How’s your mental health these days?**

It’s pretty good, and music plays a huge part. I don’t have to run from it. It’s a part of me, just something I have.  

**And ALL LUV  goes into MINE, which is so lovey. Another great beat. Very sung, vocally. This is R&B.**  

That’s me on my PARTYNEXTDOOR shit. It’s a pre-breakup song, which is sadder than a breakup song. 

**It’s an inkling.** 

Yeah. I’m pleading with myself damn near. When I wrote it, I really believed it, and thought I could save the relationship. I couldn’t, but it’s fine.

**And then of course there’s PRO CLUBZ which is a song about a shirt that isn’t really about a shirt. It’s about how your friends hate on you and it hurts.** 

Deadass. I ran out of concepts and was like, I’m gonna diary-entry this one. That period, I fell out with a few people. There ended up being a few more after that. It was a weird period. I had just come back from staying with my parents, experiencing psychosis, and moved back to LA and expected to have my same friend group and everything cool. But I was like alone all the time, and I’m getting older, shit is getting weird, people crossed some boundaries, and I felt bad about “letting” that happen, and I was so, so, so, so, sad making this album. 

**It’s like you used the music to will yourself out of it.** 

Yeah. Balling out of spite. 

**So that means, like balling out of spite for how much time you spent feeling bad?**

Yes. It’s about fuck yall, Im flexing, but also yeah, pissed that Im’ a shell of myself. I was like, we’re gonna do this. 

**Any advice you have for people who are going to the hospital and feeling like they’re losing their mind?**

Be patient with yourself, and count all the smallest victories. If you get enough of those, you’ll get some momentum going, and you won’t even notice you’re way better until you’re way better. 

**What else do you want to say about the project?**

Every song on the album has a triple flow and 808s, it’s a rap-ass album even though it’s not. 

**It’s a rap album. Just very melodic.** 

Another fun tidbit: I’m making this, not even thinking I want to put myself out there, and the plan was to mix the vocals low, almost inaudible. I was inspired by MIKE and 454. Older MIKE you can’t really hear what he’s saying. 454, on some of the older shit I don’t know what he’s saying either. But Kwame and my pops were like, we need to hear that shit clearer, you’re barring out. Super important to note, my dad is partially deaf. So on a functional level he needed the vocals turned up. And anyway I took ownership of the importance of the stuff I was saying, and decided to be more present on the album. 

**Your parents are supportive?**

Hugely. My dad used to rap when I was younger, him and my mom were both huge hip-hop heads. They’re both from L.A. but never had a “fuck the East Coast” thing. My dad always knew about production even though he didn’t produce. I thought that was cool. Going to buy records off Craigslist with my dad when I was 12. My mom’s born on Tupac’s birthday, loves Pac, Murs, Hieroglyphics…
 
**On a closing note, I notice that you are loved by blogs. How do you feel about that?**

It’s all I ever wanted, to be a blog darling. This blog post is my Grammy. This is it! 




The ZAYALLCAPS Interview

The Rob Cave Jr. Interview

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As a music fan who spent his 20s reading rap blogs in the late 2000s and early 2010s — and who wrote on them, too, and still does, in his 40s — I was EXTRA excited about ItsTheReal’s The Blog Era podcast. The 10th and final episode drops next week, and the whole season is well worth peeping for anyone interested in rap history.  

As a narrative effort, I have to say the show is very lucid, followable storytelling from ItsTheReal’s Rosenthal brothers (Jeff and Eric, the podcast’s hosts and narrators) and their crack team of editors (which includes some personal friends like Timmhotep Aku and Brandon Callender). The season flows, characters are brought to life, and a messy and confusing period of music/internet history is related with clarity. 

However, I also had some criticisms (East Coast bias, a lot of my favorite (and therefore important!) artists and bloggers left out, among other things), and I wanted to know what the Rosenthals thought. So I reached out to ItsTheReal to see if we could have a convo instead of me just asking questions into the thin air, as I sometimes like to do. Thanks to the guys for being game "go there," and now please enjoy this blogging about blogging. This interview was conducted on zoom and has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

—

**The Blog Era is on the OTHERtone network, which I believe is owned by Pharrell Williams. Did you have to pitch Pharrell directly? How did that partnership happen?**

Eric: No. Jeff and I started this project in 2020 on our own as a way of doing something different. Our whole career up to that point was doing something we loved, something we were passionate about, and we didn’t want to be the last guys in the room, we didn’t want to overstay our welcome. And we had been doing a weekly podcast for the prior five years and with the pandemic, that model was not sustainable, we weren’t going to invite people over to our apartment to share the same air with COVID. We decided to do something different, something narrative, and what we thought would take two months took three years. Around year two we understood the scope, and went looking for partners. We sat down in LA with our friend Scott Vener, having some bagels for breakfast, and we told him what we were up to. And he said it sounded like a good fit for his podcast company. He and Pharrell are partners in the company. OTHERTone has been hands off when they needed to be hands off, and hands on when they needed to be hands on, and as artists we can’t ask for better partners. 

**Now that you can reflect, what inspires you to this day about the blog era?**

Eric: I’m inspired by…through this whole process, in three years of living within 2007 to 2012, I’ve been renewed by an independent spirit, and the ethos we’ve had in our career, but hear it on an hourly basis, which is let’s subvert the gatekeepers, let’s do something we’re passionate about. 

Jeff: I too am moved by the independence of it all. Setting our own schedule. The amount of time spent working reminds me of that time, and living through that, and connecting with people, and having that fuck-it spirit. It reminds me of where I was 15 years ago.  

Eric: That’s artists, commenters who had day jobs but gave more to the comments section of a website than their job, and those who cheered them on who weren’t artists, who weren’t commenters, who found likeminded people on the internet. 

**What is a gatekeeper? Were the blogs in your podcast gatekeepers? Does rap need gatekeepers?**

Jeff: Tough question. We’re living in a time now when everybody is sort of a gatekeeper. Nobody is a gatekeeper. Nobody trusts another’s taste as much as they trust their own. And idk if that’s good or bad. What is a gatekeeper? It’s something you go to to get posted. And idk if that’s a thing anymore. Maybe RapCaviar? Do we need gatekeepers? I don’t know if you can put the genie back in the bottle. How do we bring back the blog era, the answer is we don’t. How can you bring back the 1960s? I don’t think we can go back in time. But we have to do a good job building a community...
 
Eric: The bloggers didn’t start out as gatekeepers, but they became gatekeepers. They were who artists went to to get their cosign to be relevant and get legitimacy. Eskay, Lowkey, Mecca, Shake, Hof, Miss Info, for sure got to a place of status that you could argue Elliott Wilson had when he was at XXL, or the producers at 106 & Park had at their peak, or Ebro when he was programming director at Hot 97. And DJ Drama, and all the mixtape DJs. But the gatekeepers were the bloggers eventually. 

Jeff: Sometimes people fight and claw their way to be a gatekeeper and it’s all about power, but sometimes it’s foisted upon them. People just start listening to you. There’s a duality in the blog era, old gatekeepers who climbed the ladder, and bloggers who didn’t initially think audiences were out there, and they just built. So many bloggers we didn’t talk about on the podcast were in fact influential. And artists. We don’t mention Lil B and Chief Keef, but those people who are not really appealing to the bloggers we focus on, there’s a reason those guys pop off as well. 

**Any attempt to write history opens itself to a million “why didn’t you include ______” complaints, and it’s hard or impossible to be 100% comprehensive. But were there any blogs or music figures that you wish you included, or perhaps could be featured in a second season of the pod?** 

Eric: We just looked at this season, 10 episodes, a compelling, full story, and we reached out to a lot of people. Elliott Wilson did not respond. Noz turned us down. A number of artists and commenters, we wish could have been part of this. That’s not to say the story lines would have changed that much. For us, and we’re thrilled with what we got, it was super important to include someone like Henry Adaso who a lot of people don’t know. We talk about the TheRapUp.net right there with The Smoking Section and Fake Shore Drive. Wale didn’t want to do the podcast, but that doesn’t mean we couldn't get a well rounded story about his life from people who were around him. 

**I naively came to the pod expecting to hear about all my favorite shit and forgot, oh yeah the blog era was huge and diverse, and I experienced it through my positionality and with my own biases. So on one hand I was looking for Thizzler, Worldstar, Lil B, A$AP Yams, Prodigy, Raider Klan, Odd Future, Combat Jack, So Many Shrimp, Cocaine Blunts, Victory Light…. But on the other hand what you made is factual and truthful, and I feel your experience of history is perfectly valid. When you’re the first person to put down history, it’s like the beginning, there’s more histories to come.** 

Jeff: I think that we never set out to validate anybody’s taste. A lot of people you just mentioned were hugely important to me, but in trying to craft a story that was tight, it wouldn’t have worked. You need a Mickey Factz, who I might not have listened to at that time, but was influential in ways that other artists just weren’t Having Main Attrakionz in there wouldn’t have been compelling, just within this whole thing. But that being said the conversation is bigger than the podcast, and exists on twitter. A lot of people you named, and people you didn’t name, that conversation includes them. We wanted people to discover stories of the bloggers first, and the artists had to be bigger, because you need compelling arcs, and things that feed into one another. I could go on and on, but it’s this thing of a tightly contained 10 episodes, and rest assured that the conversation will be much bigger than the podcast. 

**Because of how you told stories on The Blog Era, you made me care about some stuff I was so-so on or even actually disliked. You kept my interest through episodes, and I even got emotionally invested. In what ways did you grow as storytellers through making the pod?**

Jeff: Hugely. I think that for five years we did A Waste of Time which was our podcast, having different artists come over and tell their life story over and hour and a half. I think Eric, who has gone to film school, and is a much better judge of bigger picture than I am, this allowed him to use those muscles that he already had. For me it’s my first foray. It’s been an easy process in some ways, but also incredible difficult, agreeing on something and tearing it all down, a crash course. 

Eric: We wanted to bring context to a lot of stories that people may have been settled on. If you thought about Charles Hamilton before this podcast, you might have felt a certain way, but we wanted to present him in a brand new way. By putting his journey right next to Kid Cudi’s. And being truthful all these years later. Someone like Mickey Factz, a lot of people haven’t maybe listened to him or thought about him in a while, but we wanted to give his story arc time because he went much higher, went much farther, and fell for different reasons than people remember. Even the bloggers, a lot of people were anonymous and were just names before this came out. We’re learning who people were. Understanding on a human level. Both of us grew immensely from a caring perspective as storytellers. 

**You said that Nahright was the sun of your rap blog universe. What drew you to Nahright?**

Jeff: As a story, or as a reader from back then?

**As a reader.** 

Jeff: NahRight shaped my taste, to some degree, but I was also extremely informed by Noz, David Drake, The Fader. Those were the people I was getting my taste from. But NahRight was hugely important for being the top blog. Artists wanted to kiss the ring. It was the place you could find everything, but I didn’t necessarily listen to everything. And he was important to ItsTheReal, as far as posting us. I loved his and Nation’s and Dre’s commentary, little that it was. But it’s a mix of it being important to my career, the conversation at large, and finding things I wouldn’t normally have listened to.

Eric: It’s impossible for me to convey this any other way. NahRight was who everyone who was a blogger aspired to be, and if you were an artist you aspired to be on that site. If you go into the wayback machine, you see everyone wanted their links to be on NahRight bc you got the most traffic. The most people went there. If you were Fake Shore Drive, Nigel D from Real Talk NY, if you were 2DopeBoyz, you wanted the approval of Eskay. If you were Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller, you wanted to be on Nahright. If you were us, who had something to say, without any disrespect to any of the smaller blogs…if you were the Kid Mero posting in ALL CAPS and you get a link back from NahRight, your traffic spiked. It’s impossible to say what Eskay built wasn’t super influenctial. And for that reason we saw him as a sun of our universe. 

Jeff: I did love his blog, even thought Eskay and I didn’t agree on the same things. 

Eric: We are talking about a small subset, of a small corner of the internet.  

You mention the wayback machine. How many blogs are still findable, in the podcast?

Eric: 2DopeBoyz still operates and are one of a very few. 

Jeff: I would say very low amounts are still findable. Even baseline, their archives exist on archive dot org. But to enjoy them is impossible. Titles of posts, photos, suggesting a song was once there. Trying to watch videos on there, every single one I can’t watch. All the zshare links, hulkshare, all the shares, it’s all gone. 

**There are still people blogging in 2023. What should they do, to make durable content that could stick around? NahRight was relatively utilitarian and ephemeral, bc as you say all the links are dead. Are Q&As a format that ages better? Should bloggers today find and hyperlink mp3s? Embed video and audio? Write criticism?** 

Jeff: It’s less about format. Technology will always render the past very hard to get to. Big Tech. I was looking through Google press releases last night. There used to be Groups on Google. And all that shit got shut down. And all these academics are trying to get a hold of it. In a digital age, we’re reliant on Google and Apple, that’s the cross to bear. What I would suggest is it’s less about the format and all about the passion. Think about it as an artistic and creative decision. 

Eric: Whatever it is, should be very personalized. That’s to me what makes the blog era special. There were zillions of blogs. It was free software to start a website. All the blogs formed an ecology of different lengths of pieces and different perspectives. The people running it are the sources of value. 

Jeff: I found David Drake’s first writing on the internet, part of a group blog I don’t remember the name of. People would write long things and it was not good. People had to grow into their voices. But NahRight works because there is no real depth to it. The voice is the voice. A lot of Noz stuff doesn’t work for me now that did back then. Certain things age better not because of the format, but because people figure out their voices. 

Eric: Byron Crawford’s archives don’t age well but all these people we respect and went on to do things in their own voice, were gathered in his comments section. Because of his singular and unique voice. 

**That’s where blogging is coolest to me, is in voice. People writing like they talk. Or people who don’t get a chance to lead conversations finally leading them. As problematic as Bryon Crawford is he was also occasionally hilarious and trenchant. But I like to give writers a shot on my blog who have a way with words, but maybe aren’t part of “the media.”**

Jeff: There’s this idea that NahRight was backpacky shit, that it was all rappers who were lyrical. But it’s also Max B, Gucci, French…

**It was a little East Coasty but it wasn’t blind to what was going on in Atlanta or other cities. But I do feel like this whole conversation is missing the west coast.** 

Jeff: There definitely is regional bias on our part, but we did include Dom Kennedy. But there’s lots more people like Pac Div, Overdoz, The Pack, who don’t get mentioned in the pod but are driving forces. It’s a blind spot but it’s represented through all these people’s stories regardless. 

Eric: You could do a full series on DubCNN. A full series on Lupe Fiasco. Artists like Kidz in the Hall. Artists like B.o.B., Skyzoo, Gucci, Lil B…they all deserve their flowers. Their time. For us, it was 10 and a half hours we’re putting into the world. If we gave everyone equal time it would be a very long, overwhelming podcast. 

Jeff: It would sound like reading a phone book. But the story of those guys, who were signed to labels, and went through hell, is represented by Mickey Factz. 

Eric: And it’s been hugely important to us to continue the conversation on twitter, ig, or tiktok. If Jeff puts up an appreciation post for a rapper it sparks conversation that goes for days or weeks at a time. It’s an extension of the podcast. 

**How do you think about the blog era in relation to the mixtape era? What’s that Venn diagram like?**

Jeff: I think there’s a lot of crossover. I think there’s no hard boundary on any of these things. Gucci was putting out mixtapes, but they were also DVDs, but also blog era, but also on WorldStar. It doesn’t end when DJ Drama gets raided. 

Eric: The physical mixtapes do have an end there. But the idea of mixtapes switched. From park jams, to recording off the radio, to actual CD of street albums, to a body of work on DatPiff. Mixtapes evolved and moved. But the physical mixtape era ended in earnest when Drama and Cannon were pinched by the Georgia State government with the RIAA, there is this moment with Hof and his website OnSmash which had been doing similar things as DJ Drama but online, when the U.S. government in coordination with the RIAA comes down on that site. Bookends. 

**If I could push back, mixtapes did keep existing, Nicki, Meek, French, all put out CDRs.** 

Jeff: There are certain things about the early ‘60s where the ‘50s were still carrying over into those years. It’s the same with the blog era. People say the blog era is still going on. And yes, people are blogging, but those voices have moved onto twitter. 

Eric: You bring up an important point which is the medium has continued, but you can still put boundaries on the time. Vinyl was the dominant way to distribute music for a period of time, and it didn’t stop completely on one date. There were websites before The Blog Era. There’s no concrete date, no zero A.D. And no date when everything ended for every blog. Meka and Shake still run a website. 

Jeff: Nirvana hits big in 1991, and people say it ended hair metal. But there were hair metal hits until 1993. 

**Nah, I remember Nirvana being on the radio at the same time as Def Leppard’s “Two Steps Behind.” OK lastly, what artists are you most excited about in rap? Current or not current. I’m personally really passionate about New York right now, especially producers like Evilgiane, who did that new Kendrick/Keem song, and Cash Cobain, made a great album last year mixing sample drill with Jersey club. And of course Ice Spice. Are there any new acts you’re excited about, or is there any old stuff you’ve been loving lately?** 

Jeff: Who am I listening to? My music discovery is based on going out. And as consequence of the pandemic, and this project, and getting older, I haven’t been going out. So I’ve been listening to a lot of older stuff. The ‘90s, weird pockets of the ‘70s, Egyptian disco, things I never dug deep on. All because of streaming platforms like Tidal. 

Eric: For me, Currensy. Admittedly over the last three years our heads and hearts have been in 2007-2012, but Currensy. What makes him very exciting to me, is he’s never been more popular than he is in 2023. He’s not Drake, Wiz, nor should he be. He’s himself. Puts out great music. Works with producers for full projects, which not a lot of people are doing, Harry Fraud, Jermaine Dupri…I value him and his art so much. He keeps growing. I would also like to mention our partner in this Steve Carless, who was our first friend in his business, who has managed Nipsey Hussle, Beyonce, has a label at Warner called Defiant. He works with all the NY kids now. Has a great understanding of who they are, what they represent, what they’re about, and it’s awesome to see the support that label has and how they’re moving the culture. 


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