as I was working on my Hip-Hop & the internet documentary : the influence of MySpace can never be understated.
Until this day, nearly 15 years after the social media platform’s demise, what you hear on the radio has been shaped by it. Artists would meet on that platform and connect, based on shared music tastes. Fans would gravitate towards them, knowing they were helping to build an indie scene away from the mainstream. There would be no Nicki Minaj or Drake as we know them, some of your favorite collaborations might have never happened (when I interviewed HitBoy in 2011, the beatmaker behind “N****s in Paris, he revealed how his trajectory changed thanks to MySpace) and its influence is still visible today (we see you Instagram). And of course… the Internet, the group who famously named themselves that way because of how all the Odd Future members met on MySpace : Odd Future the same who spearheaded the DIY digital revolution and were a catalyst for many artists to follow (like Billie Eilish and Finneas).
Even the name was far superior to what we have now (MySpace is The Place…), Tom was far cooler than what the Zuck will ever be, and the ability its customers had to customize the site was pretty unique too. But more importantly, it catered first and foremost to the artist in each one of us, in other words some of the best one has to offer today. Looking back, more than social media, MySpace anticipated this big wave of content creation we have been riding since. It fell off when it tried to do everything, everywhere, all at once, moving away from its DNA (don’t do that!). Its influence still needs to be studied properly, in the meantime we can only mourn when social media was at its finest but rejoice for the many careers it instigated. RIP indeed *.
* Rest in Peace also to the lovely Roslynn Cobarrubias, featured in this clip, who passed away in 2023 and was instrumental in bringing Hip-Hop to the fold and make MySpace the iconic platform as we know it.
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