Just Blaze spoke to Soul Culture about the pros and cons of blog culture. He speaks from the side of the label, as well as the blog, both of which have very different interests and at times work against each other. Other times they work in concert. Adding to the mix are various artists with different takes. This may come as a surprise to some people, but I’m very much in favor of changing the current blog culture. I miss the days of waiting to hear music for the first time after actually buying the album. I miss the days of true “album cuts”, those that couldn’t be heard otherwise. I miss the days of hearing high quality music, not low quality mp3s. As a kid I was inspired by articles in Rolling Stone and other magazines, many of which have ceased to exist or become irrelevant. I never imagined a career posting music before it came out, and chasing down leaks. And that’s why we strive to create our own content, our own videos, photos, our closed session songs, and all that. I’ve talked to a lot of artists, and this very topic actually came up multiple times over the last 48 hours with Outasight. I think a change could be brewing and I want to be a part of that charge.
I definitely see the huge upside of blogs, and am a fan of them as well. But my main problem is that they’re all becoming the same, and unless the content comes from one of the top blogs, it’s all just copying and pasting. It’s boring, it’s not creative, and there’s no more paying dues. Anybody that has 8 hours to sit in front of a computer screen can just keep refreshing nahright, 2dopeboyz, rubyhornet, the smoking section, xclusiveszone, fakeshoredrive, illroots etc. and preseto-chango, I’m a f**king journalist. Yeah right!
What happened to the days of fighting for your press credentials and access? I don’t want to get on a grumpy old man rant, cause I’m not even an old man. I’m just someone who started doing this stuff in high school spending hours tracking down contact info for various artists, studying the music and participating in the culture. I was one of those snot nose kids for a long time, but I’m not anymore, and I feel there still needs to be some system of due paying, some checks and balances. But enough from me. Hear what Just Blaze has to say below.