Hip Hop Blogs

Why Talking About Lunch On Twitter Is Good For Your Career

Everyone knows that even in the entertainment industry, a career minded professional should clear her web profile of all fun and foolery, and focus on broadcasting her personal brand to all of her online followers, right? 

This warning is the first piece of advice about social media you'll read in 21st century career books. And it's dead wrong. My own life and career proves it.

They tell you not to talk about your lunch on Twitter or post cat photos on Facebook. They tell you that as soon as you leave college you must scrub your web footprint clean of all personality, or else you'll be seen as unprofessional.

In a world where large companies and celebrities flock to Twitter to showcase a fake human side, they tell you, an actual human to box your unique voice and adopt a corporate communications strategy when connecting online.

That cynical advice ignores the most powerful aspect of social media for individuals - by being authentic you can win friends around the world. 

If you care about your career, here's a quote you should tat on your arm:

"All things being equal, people will work with people they like. All things not being equal, they still will".

That principle is why I have my current job today.

OH, I THINK THEY LIKE ME

When BET offered me the position of Online Producer for 106 & Park I thought the gig would be exciting, but I hesitated leaving my cool job at About.com. I counter offered, asking for a tax bracket above my current salary, and made the jump when BET came close to the price.

My job qualifications didn't matter as much as the strong recommendation I received from BET.com's Executive Music Editor, Kim Osorio. She told the hiring manager that I would be perfect for the job, and I was on the fast track from there.

But how did that referral happen? I'd never met Kim O in person. We never worked together. We never partied together. We didn't have mutual close friends.

As a fan, I knew Kim as the former E.I.C. of The Source. And she knew me from my blog. That's why she liked me and my work.

At its peak, my blog attracted attention from music industry professionals because of the insidery topics I chose. And since I put my personality on full display in the blog, people went from following my words, to following my life.

Even today I still meet readers who talk to me like we're best friends even though its our first conversation. (If you ever experience this, it's a little more jarring than flattering).

BETTER THAN BETTER

I'm not always better than the candidates I go up against when job searching, but if someone on staff is a fan of my work online, I have a huge boost above anyone else.

Sometimes job interviewers are more fascinated with my side projects than my work history. And the ones who don't know me are treated to pages of search results, showing off almost a decade of my scribblings, when they Google my name. By the time they're finished fishing for dirt on me, they feel like they know me, they feel like they trust me, and because of that, they like me.

So yes, let your personality bloom on LinkedIn. And sure, show your face on Tumblr. Be the easiest person to like in every social media circle you run around, and your career will grow, no matter what the experts say.

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Haven't you heard? 

After a 3 year, Hova-style retirement, I brought back this blog for a week (or two). My agenda? To let you know how this this site and my other projects broke me into the entertainment industry and kept me there, paying a hefty amount of New York taxes each year.

If you work in the same business, come over to the my new spot, Career Green Light. I'm showing people how to do networking with being annoying, and how to do career development without having a ten point plan. 

Thanks for being down. And see you there.

"Detox" Your Career, Like Dr. Dre

 Later this year when if Detox drops, Dr. Dre will sell millions of records, and once again be praised as a hip-hop genius. 

But what exactly is Dre's role on his own album? We know he doesn't write his lyrics, and that's cool. However, we're unclear the hand he has in producing the beats, and for many, that's not cool.

Mahagony, a producer who worked with Dre on the last album revealed this about working with The Doctor:

"It's like a class room in [the booth]. He'll have three writers in there. They'll bring in something, he'll recite it, then he'll say. 'Change this line, change this word,' like he's grading papers."

By Dre's own admission, he does the same with his producers. So, Dr. Dre's new role is as a teacher. He mentors the best music out of his proteges, and understudies like Hi-Tek and Scott Storch have publicly praised him for it, even as they share the production credit on a song.

WHO ARE YOU PRODUCING FOR?

Many people who work in the entertainment business shiver at the thought of someone else ushering their creative work. I feel them on that. Even though I have two generous and wise mentors, I don't hit them on the hip as much as I should. 

Here's what surprises me though. Whenever I suggest to my colleagues that they should play the Dre role and actively school other people, they wrinkle their noses and wonder if they have enough expertise to qualify as someone's Yoda.

That's stupid. If you have 1 year in the game you are qualified to help someone who is 6 months in. And 6 monthers can help the college students.

If you know how to shoot with an HD camera, then you are qualified to help anyone else who doesn't know how. There's no certification board who will stamp your credentials and announce that you have arrived. You can be a Dr. Dre to someone at whatever level you're at now.

BECOME A SUPER PRODUCER

Teaching is not charity for someone else's career. It's the fastest way to establish yourself as a Dr. Dre. style super producer, an authority in your work with people who will spread the word about your expertise.

With my own walk in the industry, my employers have been most fascinated with the teaching I did for other people, not just my personal projects or work history.

I taught SOHH about blogging, before we ever exchanged money. I set up mini-seminars at Vibe Magazine and taught the staff how to blog. I created an email list to share everything I know about web publishing so the bloggers in my circle could succeed.

So, when it came time for me to be considered for an editorial job at About.com, a web content startup that was sold to the NY Times, I emphasized my resume of teaching to prove my authority.

It helped that their rap blogger, Henry Adaso was my former employee. I previously hired him as the Houston blogger for SOHH. He smashed it for me there, and carried on his excellence to About.com.

The final result? My new boss, Eric Hanson said I was an easy hire. 

CHANGE THE GAME

There's nothing spectacular about my story. Being competent will get you in the entertainment business, but being an expert will keep you there. And the best way to grow your expertise and be recognized as one is to teach.

That's where social media changes the game. I don't have a protégé, in the traditional sense. I have thousands of potential protégés and they find what I have to offer over Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, or wherever they hang.

I create or share things that are helpful first, and worry about having an audience second. And somehow, the audience comes. And if they learn from me, they'll stick with me. And if they stick with me, they'll talk about me. 

And when that happens, I won't have to prove my expertise to anyone, even Spitler.

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Haven't you heard? 

I retired this blog 3 years ago, but now I'm back with a new project, Shyne style. Before Jamal Barrow releases another mush mouth track, I plan to start a new blog about careering in the entertainment industry, and shut down this one forever.

Like what you read today? Sign up Read the new blog, Career Green Light that just launched!

How To Outlast Vibe Magazine

On my first day back from a relaxing vacation I was laid off from my dream job at Vibe Magazine.

I stumbled out of 205 Lexington Ave in a silent daze, as if someone blew scopolamine in my face and told me to scram. I carried a brown box in my arms with my entire work life crammed in, and went home to watch DVRed episodes of Pardon the Interruption for the rest of the day.

I took being let go hard. I wasn't afraid of being broke, that wasn't it. I was working part time as a consultant for a start up, and I was flush with enough cash to pay my rent three months in advance. Money wasn't the issue.

The sting and the fear I felt came from losing the title that I thought made me special. I was no longer "The Guy from Vibe".

THE JOB HUNT DESERT

I lived in a paradox while unemployed. With more free time in my life since pre-k, I suddenly had "no time" to work on my own projects, those career mixtapes I wrote about yesterday.

What I did have time for was running my traditional job search, something I had never done before while working in entertainment. My resume got tweaked more than a heroin addict. I consumed books and blogs on career management and could regurgitate 12 tips for cover letters if you asked me to. 

I gave my head to a hunter and asked her to please, please find me an employer who's willing to eat me alive. That metaphor is slightly less dramatic than the anxiety I felt at the time. My lucky run in the game is over, I thought. Time to put the social media toys down and get serious about my career.

RETURN OF THE KING

It took me 6 months of moping, and then prayer and reflection to stop trying to fit in with the rest of the industry and return to doing things my way.

I learned that layoffs and turnover are a part of life in the entertainment business. True stability comes from having a strong personal brand (yikes, that word again) that attracts a steady flow of good looks for you career.

And what is the most important ingredient in a strong personal brand? Being unique.

COP LIMITED EDITIONS

What makes people line up at the Nike store? Is it for the weekly shipment of white-on-white Uptowns? No, everybody got those.

People line up for the limited editions. Sneaker heads get excited about being first, and they'll pay triple the price to be one of the only.

With Vibe, I first landed the job as mobile editor because I was a limited edition. My skills were rare. My talent was scarce.

My first boss there, Lynne d. Johnson told me that the managing editor was nervous about hiring me because I blogged something mildly negative about Vibe. However, she pulled the trigger, seeing I was the only candidate back in 2006 (pre-iPhone! pre-Foursquare!) doing any real thinking or work in the mobile space. 

And why was I so interested in mobile? It was my own drive to have my blog read far and wide, from computers to mobile phones, that made understanding mobile a necessity. 

My work on the edges of media is what made me valuable to Vibe in the first place. But backwards me - those personal projects are what I let lapse when my career stalled.

TRIPLE THREATS HAVE ALL THE FUN

So, how do you craft a rare personal brand for yourself? Dilbert creator Scott Adams has the best advice I've read on creating a unique edge for yourself so you'll always attract new opportunities in your career.

Scott writes that to become one of a kind you should learn 3 useful skills and become the top 25% in each. It's a clever way to make yourself a true limited edition.

At Vibe, I had 3 skills that made me valuable:

1. I can write
2. I know Black music
3. I know web marketing

No, my pen game wasn't as sharp as my co-worker's, Shanel Odum. And no way did I know my music like my cubemate, Mariel Concepción. However, neither of them could rock an Ominiture report like me. It's not something they teach you in a journalism class.

When my second boss, John Demarchi planned a search arbitrage move to boost Vibe.com's traffic, the eyes of our super creative staff, from Danyel Smith on down glazed over. #NoShots on Danyel and John. They were just speaking different languages. As for me, I was bilingual :)

John's idea was a strategy I experimented with on my own blog. He was surprised when he pitched the idea to me, and I was able to finish his sentences. My reward for this one of a kind mix of skills? John gave bumped my salary from 35K a year to 45K and placed me over Shanel and Mariel.

Unique is better than better.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA TRAP

I have too many friends who are in the situation I found myself after Vibe, including the entire staff of the magazine, which folded last year. They are un- or underemployed, and wondering if they should tuck their talent between their legs and go to the local municipal for a job.

They're flocking to social media, not realizing that its 2010 - having your own Youtube channel won't make you special anymore. A tricked out LinkedIn profile won't bling your career. 

If you're bland and lame, and like everyone else, social media is just another opportunity for people to ignore you. But if you're unique and remarkable, and have a mix of skills that place you in your own category, the word about you will spread, not matter what you do.

Speak on it Jerry Garcia: 

"You do not merely want to be considered the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones that do what you do."

Go and be great. Just don't do it like me.

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Haven't you heard? 

I retired this blog 3 years ago, but now I'm back with a new project, Eminem style. Before Marshall changes his album name again, I plan to start a new blog about careering in the entertainment industry, and shut down this one forever.

Like what you read today? Read the new blog, Career Green Light that just launched!

Everybody Got A Deal, I Did It Without One

 "Do you know why we hired you?"

Steven Samuel, the co-founder of SOHH.com asked me this question a few months after giving me my first job in the media industry.

He told me I was the only person they ever brought to the team that didn't present a resume. Or references. Or a college degree.

To make things even more remarkable, the job was created specifically for me. And SOHH approached your boy about working with them, not the other way around.

It was the first time I landed a gig without looking for it, but not the last. By my count, not including freelancing and consulting, I've been offered 5 jobs this same way. I've taken 2 of them.

My friends in the business who are more used to the "spray your resume and pray" method of finding work think I'm practicing chaos magic when I explain how I land my best jobs. But it's not chaotic, and it's better than magic.

MIXTAPES VS DEMOS

50 Cent stabbed demo tapes in the neck. Lil Wayne finished the job with a gassed rag over the face.

New rappers who want to break into the game, and old heads who want to stay there must now release mixtape albums to create or keep a connection with fans. Just like 50 and Weezy do.

In the same way, I attracted the attention of SOHH, not through a demo tape (resume, cover letter, portfolio, references) but through my mixtape (my living and active web presence).

Steven told me that I was hired because I was out there with my blog killing it on the daily, while others just talked about it.

My blog gave me the advantage of social proof, and it helped SOHH make a decision about recruiting me. 

I didn't have to prove I was hot. Every crazy reader comment, every blogger link, every mention in the mainstream media broadcast my swag for me.

REFERRALS 2.0

If you've worked in entertainment for a length of time you know that your best opportunities have come through friends recommending you for positions. Depending on the strength of the thumbs up, and whose thumb it was, you may have experienced the "no resume" fast lane that I have.

That's what I call "Career Referral 1.0." It's where you rely on your network to keep you in the game. Build a bigger network and you'll never see the unemployment line, the thought goes.

Y'see, I'm too laid back to be a power networker, and too cool to frequent industry parties. Thank Rakim that I stumbled on Referral 2.0, which doesn't rely on me keeping a huge Roledex or staying current in the scene.

Here are two tips if you want to do the same:

#1. COLLECT PROJECTS, NOT FOLLOWERS

A friend on Twitter, who works as a production assistant on a television show asked me to "@" her so she could score more followers.

Kids at home, can you guess why this is a waste of her time?

If you want to advance your career using social media, you first need to stop obsessing over followers (and friends, and pageviews, and subscribers). Instead, learn how to build buzz worthy projects online, and let the cool kids spread the word for you.

Bald genius Seth Godin did the math on it and found that creating something that spreads is better than having lots of social media connections.

Other than this blog, I always had other mini-projects going that added shine to my name. If you focus on creating things online that touch the ear of the right people, you don't have to worry about playing the collect-a-follower game.

The obvious question is, who are the "right people"?

#2. PLAY INSIDE BASEBALL

Jay Smooth once told me that he avoids some of the insular hip-hop blogger conversations because his audience doesn't care about it. And Will Smith doesn't have to cuss in his raps to sell records.

Me? I embraced blogging about bloggers blogging because my audience wasn't the web wide world. Instead, I served only The 17. 

And my goal was to make The 17 turn to 18, and then 19, and more guest writers for my blog. Inside baseball style blogging attracts other bloggers. And it attracts people in your industry, especially the ones who are open to new ideas.

If you're a costume designer for movies, forget about starting projects that appeal to general film fans. Do stuff that will get the attention of people who make movies.

Instead of a bland movie critic blog, do ultra-meta reviews that focus only on the costumes. Interview the costume designers from new flicks and post it up as podcasts. Or, instead of blogging at all, partner with a techy friend and build something cool that will solve a problem only other costume designers have.

If you focus on being amazing to the small group of people who can make a difference in your career, word about you will multiply and leads to paid projects will drop in your lap. This is the way social proof works.

LET'S HUG IT OUT

Some of the most brilliant and creative people I know are terrible self-promoters. I've seen some of them let their career in the entertainment industry lapse and stall because they reject the Ari Gold method of getting your name out there, by any obnoxious means necessary. 

There's another way. I've been living the other way. I let my social proof do the talking and I focus on doing incredible work for my current employer and for myself.

If you're as allergic to networking as I am, I hope you embrace doing cool projects that get the attention of insiders, so your career in this biz can fly.

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Haven't you heard? 

I retired this blog 3 years ago, but now I'm back with a new project, Dr. Dre style. Before Andre releases a single from Detox I plan to start a new blog about careering in the entertainment industry, and shut down this one forever.

Like what you read today? Read the new blog, Career Green Light that just launched!

Blueprint Vol Zero: The Original Rap Blogger

I have a confession to make. I know this blog has been retired for three years, but I have to toe-dip in this pool for just a sec to let all of you know what's real.

When the 1,193 of you subscribed to Hip Hop Blogs years ago, you thought the purpose of this site was to share cool links and advance interesting discussions about this hip-hop culture of ours. Not so. 

This site was designed from the start to serve only The 17. Let me explain.

The Real Story 

I started blogging about rap music back in 2003. This is before Facebook was invented. This is before web video was easy with YouTube, and way before Twitter. 

According to my Googling at that time, no one in the universe was blogging about hip-hop. So, I jumped in and did it first. Later I found that two guys beat me to the self-publishing punch by less than a season. However, one guy is M.I.A. and the other is too modest to contradict my Original Rap Blogger status. So, for now, he is I and I am him.

I started on Blogger and moved to Typepad. I spilled all of my reckless, uninformed thoughts out through the digital ether, and my little audience clicked with me and grew beyond what I could have imagined.

However, I wasn't attention greedy. Every time a new hip-hop blogger sprouted wings, I was there to give him encouragement to be fly. I pushed people to turn on RSS feeds back no one knew what it was used for. I pulled people into the community conversation, knowing that our cross-links would rise all of our boats in the web content waters.

I created an email group that was only built for rap blogger links and shared every new web publishing trick I learned. I helped as much as I could with whoever I could. I wasn't the most popular, the Michael Jackson of the game. Or the Will Smith of the circle. I was the Quincy Jones.

Despite years of evangelizing I saw that the funniest, most insightful, most inspiring voices in the music culture I loved were still not blogging. For them the tech and time it took to build a blog was too much. Bootleg forums were their only outlet (remember again, this was before the social media glut that's out there now. You kids have it so good).

This is where the need for the group site, Hip Hop Blogs came from. I wanted to create a platform and invite all the smart people I could find to speak their truth here. Sorry, 1,193 subscribers. I was using you as a springboard for them.

And jump they did.

There are 17 guest bloggers here.

Eskay started here, blogging about mixtapes. He created his own blog called Nahright and he is kind of a big deal.

Michael Miraflor started here. He spun out and created his own blog and email list about hip-hop advertising. For years he's been sharing his knowledge and using his connections to help small timers become big timers.

But the gang of 17 were all volunteers. When SOHH allowed me to try out the Hip Hop Blogs concept on their bigger site, I was able to cut checks for Ron Mexico, Fresh of Crunk and Disorderly, Angela of Concrete Loop, Eskay, and others. It was the first time any of these talented people were flipped coin for their words. Each of them moved on and became certified entrepreneurs, confident that there was value to their work. They're the real Young Money.

My Magic Career

A funny thing happened while I was out helping others. My own career in the entertainment industry took off. 

It began with my appearance as a pundit on cable TV and New York radio. It steamrolled with offers for consulting, a book deal, and inquiries from major brands wanting to advertise with me. I was invited to exclusive events, met cool people, and promosexuals sent me a ton of swag to wear, listen to, and read.

Before Hip Hop Blogs I had no intentions of working for the media companies I grew up admiring, like BET, Vibe, and Def Jam. Just the opposite. As a passionate fan, I blogged about those companies with intense love and intense criticism.

My friends who were already in the game warned me that swag exhibitions like my public feud with XXL Magazine's EIC would sink my career before it started. Instead, the same dude who dissed me in his magazine's editorial section three months in a row offered me a job the next year. 

I broke the entertainment industry rules every which way, yet it has paid off. I've never worked the coffee pot as an intern. I never finished college. I've never used a business card. I don't "network". And I don't go to industry parties. What gives?

The Scientifical Explanation

Whenever a co-worker hears about my unconventional career path I'm always asked the same question - "How can I use social media to help with my own career?"

They want to know how to jump over gatekeepers and get the attention of decision makers. They want to know how to connect with interesting people and collaborate on projects. They want to know how to sharpen and communicate their "personal brand" (not my favorite word in the world, but it's the one I hear used in my circle.)

I used to shrug off the question and mumble something about being lucky, but recently I've been more thoughtful. How can I reverse engineer what has helped me? What advice would I give my old self with the knowledge and experience I have today?

I've learned there's a science to what has happened with me. Here's the formula - generosity triggers reciprocation. Humans are hardwired to give back to people who give first.

The industry began to know me, like me, and trust me because of how much I gave to others. How else do you explain me being hired as an editor for four media companies (and counting) when I have a blog full of typos? :)

So What?

But who the heck cares about my success, other than Ms. Warren and Mrs. Warren? That's not what I have you here for.

I'm starting a new blog that will help you. That is, it will help if you are asking the question, "How can I use social media to help with my own career?". And that's only if you work in the film, music, or television industry, like me (everyone else is on their own. The stuff I suggest might get you fired if you're not working in a creative field).

Here's how I'm kicking off the new blog. I'm re-retiring Hip Hop Blogs this week. Before I do, I'll post the stories of all the gigs I snagged in the industry, and trace how my web presence made the difference. 

At the end of all that, if the stories inspire you to take control and do your career your own way, I'll give you the link to my new blog. Since I have a sharing disease, I plan to obsessively help everyone I can do everything they want using social media. In that way the new blog will be like the old one, just with a different topic.

If you don't like this at all, avert your browser's eyes and go back to downloading Wale freestyles on You Heard That New, and Twitter-hating on Justin Bieber for no good reason (let that kid be great). If you do like, stick around. This will be fun.

 

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Update:

 

Sign up read the new blog, Career Green Light that just launched!