SOHH TOP 25 MOMENTS - EPISODE 1
Founders of SOHH, Felicia Palmer, and Steven Samuel discuss the early beginnings of Online Hip-Hop. (95 - 96)
For more on The SOHH 25th Anniversary Collection, click the link below.
https://bit.ly/3lPp4bS
Launch Date: November 23rd
-------------------------------------
SOCIALS:
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/sohhdotcom
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sohhdotcom
For more on The SOHH 25th Anniversary Collection, click the link below.
https://bit.ly/3lPp4bS
Launch Date: November 23rd
-------------------------------------
SOCIALS:
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/sohhdotcom
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sohhdotcom
Transcript
00:00 [typing]
00:05 [ding]
00:07 Wow. We're going to be talking about our 25 most memorable moments
00:14 here on our 25th anniversary of slhh.com,
00:19 aka so.com, aka Support Online Hip Hop,
00:23 aka everything else people think it is.
00:26 School of hip hop.
00:28 Yeah. All sorts of things.
00:30 Source of hip hop.
00:31 I've heard state of hip hop.
00:33 State of hip hop. Yeah.
00:34 But then, you know, we also know that people just call us so,
00:38 and that's what we call ourselves.
00:39 So yeah, 25 years later, here we are.
00:42 And the idea came about, I forgot.
00:46 Was it the original idea for so?
00:48 No, the idea for doing these 25 moments.
00:50 I mean, we've been--
00:51 Well, we've been doing internet websites since 1995.
00:55 Yeah, yeah.
00:56 Yeah, yeah.
00:58 And it's just like, it just seems so apropos,
01:00 like with so much that we've seen and we've been through,
01:03 you know, we want to just kind of, let's just get to know folks,
01:06 let people get to know us a bit.
01:08 We've kind of been in the back.
01:09 So let's talk.
01:12 What's your name?
01:13 My name is Felicia Palmer, of course, co-founder of slhh.
01:18 And I'm Steven Samuel, CTO of so.com.
01:23 I'm one of the co-founders as well.
01:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:27 So we're not going to argue about who started
01:29 or who actually came up with sohh.
01:31 We're going to start off with 4 Control Music Wire.
01:34 Okay, 4 Control Music Wire, yeah.
01:36 So the way we started off actually was a print publication.
01:40 Yeah, of course.
01:41 And we started with a guy named Kyle out of Brooklyn,
01:44 and he was the designer, and we wanted to make a--
01:48 at the time, the internet was getting popular.
01:52 At that time, I was on an AOL.
01:54 It wasn't-- well, it was getting popular, but more so--
01:58 it really wasn't getting popular.
02:00 That was the problem.
02:01 The problem was that there was the AOL disc, right?
02:03 And people were getting their AOL disc.
02:05 Remember the disc you had 8 hours,
02:07 and you saw one of those joints for like 20 hours?
02:09 You're like, oh, shoot, I got 20 hours of dial-up.
02:13 But really, I think, you know, it just was kind of natural for us.
02:17 You know, when I had met you, you were one of the few people--
02:21 the only people I knew that had a computer in their house.
02:23 Like, nobody had a computer.
02:24 Right.
02:25 And then you had the nerve to have a laptop.
02:27 And that was because your dad, you know,
02:29 had always kind of been into the computer stuff.
02:33 And then just coming up in the Bronx, you know, we just--
02:37 hip-hop was what we knew.
02:39 It was our culture.
02:40 It was our lifestyle.
02:41 It was so-- it was sort of like a chorus.
02:43 Right.
02:44 And at that time, I was also a rapper, you know what I mean?
02:46 That's right.
02:47 Troubleneck Brothers.
02:48 Shout out to the Troubleneck Brothers.
02:49 You know, it was just natural for us to do hip-hop
02:54 as our first venture.
02:56 Right.
02:57 Well, it wasn't really a venture, though.
02:58 No, it wasn't.
02:59 I mean, it was just like, oh, my god,
03:01 look at these kids on AOL.
03:03 They're, like, typing battle raps.
03:05 And they're battle rapping on--
03:07 on these chat rooms.
03:08 Right.
03:09 And, like, the idea-- which I will probably
03:11 take credit for, as usual.
03:13 But I think that if we were to kind of encapsulate
03:15 what we want to talk about, I think that the key is for people
03:18 to get, like, how early this was.
03:22 Because, you know, my-- one of my earliest memories--
03:25 and I always share this with people--
03:26 is when we would go to people-- and this was over the course
03:30 of several years of kind of grinding in this space.
03:33 And we can talk a little bit about what that was like.
03:35 But, you know, we would go to record labels.
03:38 And, you know, we would, like, listen, you know,
03:41 there's this thing called the-- you know, the internet.
03:44 And we want to help promote your artists on the internet.
03:46 And we can, like-- you can, like, promote it.
03:48 And you can tell the people about it through the internet.
03:51 And I think the most-- the craziest thing is,
03:54 I remember a conversation with one record exec.
03:57 And he just looked at us, and he was like,
03:59 well, what's the internet?
04:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:04 Right.
04:10 Like, at that time, nobody even had email addresses.
04:13 Right, there was no email addresses.
04:14 There was no internet.
04:15 The record labels had not even--
04:17 there was not even mp3.com in the context of, like,
04:20 the record labels getting into this big fight.
04:22 There was no Napster.
04:23 It was just-- just AOL and some kids chatting in a chat room.
04:28 And us being from the Bronx, and you, former rapper,
04:31 and me just kind of, like, loving the culture and saying,
04:34 you know, let's just create something.
04:35 So that was-- I think that that was probably--
04:38 if that was a telling moment, it was just, like,
04:41 what's the internet?
04:42 Like, no one even knew what it was.
04:44 Right.
04:45 I think, um, at that point, Relativity,
04:50 I think they were the first-- they were the first ones
04:52 to cut us a check.
04:53 That was Sony, right?
04:54 Sony Relativity?
04:55 Yeah.
04:56 Could have been, yeah.
04:57 Yeah, yeah.
04:58 And then EMI.
04:59 EMI.
05:00 I can't remember the guy's name, but he hooked us up
05:02 with Heather B. And we did a--
05:04 we did a, quote, unquote, "cyber chat."
05:06 That was when "cyber" was a word.
05:08 Cyber.
05:09 Yeah.
05:10 Heather-- he gave--
05:11 we did a chat with Heather B. on AOL.
05:15 Yeah, because that's all there was.
05:16 It was AOL.
05:17 And we met her in Brooklyn, and we did--
05:20 and she came to this place called the Cocoa Bar.
05:23 And it was an internet cafe.
05:24 So back in the day, if you remember,
05:26 it was an internet cafe so that you
05:28 can get high-speed internet.
05:29 Yeah, there was no internet.
05:30 People ain't having internet in they homes.
05:32 Online.
05:33 AOL.
05:34 So we fast-forwarded into the whole thing, whatever.
05:36 And then we did the Cocoa Bar chat with--
05:38 Heather B. And then we also--
05:39 you know, some of the other artists back then.
05:42 We had worked with Keith Murray.
05:44 Yeah.
05:45 Theola.
05:46 Shout out to Theola.
05:48 And she took it serious.
05:49 You know, a few people did take it serious.
05:51 Yeah, I mean, look, bottom line is, you know,
05:53 we were way ahead of our time.
05:54 I mean, it was a lot of work, you know,
05:56 and just trying to legitimize the space.
05:58 And then it became, OK, well, we--
06:00 you know, this whole thing about the digital divide.
06:03 You know, before it was really a concept.
06:05 It was sort of like we knew that the Black people we
06:08 were meeting and that we were talking to had no idea.
06:11 You know, and we felt, you know what?
06:13 If there's one thing we can get the Black people we know,
06:17 get them interested into the internet, it would be hip hop.
06:20 So it really became this kind of how do we
06:22 translate hip hop for these people?
06:24 And that was where the print magazine came from
06:26 that you mentioned earlier.
06:27 So we did two issues of that, and that was,
06:29 like, costing us a brick.
06:30 What was it, like $500?
06:32 Yeah, it wasn't even that many.
06:33 Like 100 copies for $500.
06:36 That was not a good business strategy.
06:38 But we weren't doing it for business.
06:40 We just weren't really doing it--
06:41 But we were trying to do advertising and such.
06:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:44 But when you really look back, I mean,
06:46 the source had that lane on lock.
06:48 Yeah.
06:49 You know, it was like--
06:50 I mean, you had a few other magazines in that space,
06:53 but it was like, boy, we--
06:54 you started from scratch.
06:56 Well, it just really made more sense
06:58 after a while because of the cost of creating a magazine
07:01 and then also just the fact that we're
07:03 talking about the internet, so we should just
07:05 be on the internet.
07:06 And it became a question--
07:08 it became not translating the people we knew to the internet,
07:11 but really helping to build the internet community,
07:14 the hip hop community on the internet.
07:16 So, like, who else is out there?
07:18 So that's kind of where the support
07:20 on online hip hop came from.
07:21 Right.
07:22 And at that time, there were only a handful of websites--
07:25 I mean, really a handful.
07:26 --that you could go to.
07:27 Shout out to Davie D's Hip Hop Corner.
07:29 Fresh Finesse.
07:30 Shout out to Fresh Finesse.
07:32 On Internet Ghetto Blaster.
07:34 Internet Ghetto Blaster.
07:36 There was-- there was--
07:37 I mean, yeah, it was-- it was-- it was a few.
07:40 Yeah, just-- but it really was a handful.
07:42 You know, Internet Crew Universal, ICU.
07:46 ICU, but they weren't--
07:47 when they-- no, I don't think they were, like,
07:49 in their early, early, early period.
07:50 Oh, yeah.
07:51 Uh-huh.
07:52 They were early.
07:53 They were, like--
07:54 Well, they were early, but we're talking about right now
07:55 about '95, '96, '97.
07:56 So they had a little presence.
07:57 OK.
07:58 OK, so ICU, so yeah.
07:59 Yeah, chances are, Davari.
08:01 Yeah, so it was really, OK, how do we get this community?
08:03 OK, how do we get this community together?
08:05 And we had seen this--
08:07 the free speech online.
08:09 It was a big issue with internet censorship.
08:11 That was the issue of the day.
08:13 Right.
08:14 And it was sort of like, how do we keep the internet
08:16 for free speech?
08:17 And there was this-- they had a blue ribbon campaign.
08:19 And if you-- if you believed in free speech online,
08:21 you stick this blue ribbon on your website.
08:23 So we kind of came up with the idea that, you know,
08:27 why don't we do something like, you know,
08:29 bring the hip hop community together.
08:31 Like, let's ask them to put this logo, you know,
08:35 Support Online Hip Hop on the bottom of their websites.
08:37 And there weren't that many websites.
08:39 I think, you know, like we said, there were a handful.
08:41 But over the course of time--
08:44 If you remember that-- so the logo was the binary MC--
08:48 Yeah.
08:49 --with the zeros and the ones.
08:50 And it said Support Online Hip Hop in a circle.
08:52 Yes.
08:53 And I think-- I mean, I would pay money if somebody could
08:57 find me the rotating circle.
08:59 Oh my god.
09:00 It was like a world.
09:02 It was the-- it was the animated GIF.
09:04 The animated GIF.
09:05 We had the animated GIF.
09:06 I would pay money for that.
09:07 Somebody's got it.
09:08 I know it.
09:09 Oh my god.
09:10 So what we did was we set up a search engine on our own.
09:13 Because we-- well, at that time, there was no Google.
09:15 It was Yahoo.
09:16 Right.
09:17 But the problem was that, what, Yahoo wasn't indexed.
09:19 They weren't.
09:20 They weren't.
09:21 They-- they-- first of all, they didn't--
09:22 they didn't believe-- they-- the whole idea that Black people--
09:25 first of all, Black people in hip hop are synonymous in the sense
09:28 that people think, at that time, it was-- it was a Black culture.
09:31 We all know hip hop is world culture now.
09:34 But it was sort of like, well, there's no--
09:36 We got to have--
09:37 Finish your joke.
09:38 Yeah.
09:39 It's funny how we discount Black people in technology.
09:44 Because we're-- we-- we are-- we are what makes--
09:47 we-- we make things cool.
09:49 Yeah, of course.
09:50 You know what I'm saying?
09:51 So even though we're not on computers--
09:53 We were not on computers.
09:54 We were not on-- even though we didn't have computers
09:57 in our households, right, there was really no reason for us
10:01 to have computers in our household.
10:02 Right.
10:03 Because if you're not doing-- like, at the time--
10:05 Nobody had computers in their household.
10:07 Computers were not a thing, period.
10:08 But guess what people did have?
10:09 They had Nintendos.
10:10 Yeah.
10:11 They had PlayStation.
10:12 Yeah.
10:13 They had early Xboxes.
10:14 They had all that stuff.
10:15 They had Dreamcast.
10:16 Whatever was out, they had it.
10:17 Right.
10:18 So it's not like--
10:19 We didn't have the money for it, or we didn't-- you know,
10:21 it just really hadn't-- that's what we were creating, though.
10:23 That's what-- that's what I think we were creating,
10:25 that demand, because it really was, well,
10:27 what's on the internet for me?
10:28 Right.
10:29 You know, and that's what we were like, listen, like, hip hop.
10:31 Hip hop's on the internet.
10:32 Like, you could go and you could, like, battle at that time.
10:34 The big thing was you could battle other people.
10:36 I don't know.
10:37 What else was there to do?
10:38 I mean, we talked about people had fan sites.
10:40 People had fan sites.
10:41 Shout out to hieroglyphics.com.
10:43 That was the first fan site that I saw become official.
10:48 Well, yeah.
10:49 What was that, Yamin?
10:50 Stinky.
10:51 Stinky Yamin.
10:52 Yeah.
10:53 He created a site for the hieroglyphics out of--
10:55 out of his love for the group.
10:57 And then they came across it.
10:58 And now, you know, I don't know what happened or transpired,
11:01 but--
11:02 It's still up, right?
11:03 Hieroglyphics.com.
11:04 Yeah, but Stinky's not there anymore.
11:05 OK.
11:06 You know, I mean, he left years ago.
11:07 But yeah, I mean, so it really wasn't a lot, you know,
11:10 for-- for the-- you know, for people to want
11:12 to be on the internet at that time.
11:14 And it made sense.
11:15 But that was what we were creating.
11:16 So we did the support online hip hop.
11:18 And support online hip hop was a search engine.
11:20 It was our version of Yahoo search.
11:22 And how did you get in support online hip hop?
11:24 The same way you got in Yahoo back then.
11:25 You actually had to submit your site.
11:27 Right, but you also had to put the logo on your site.
11:29 So--
11:30 Right.
11:31 We would go through.
11:32 And once we saw that you had the-- the support on hip hop
11:34 logo on your site--
11:35 We would index you.
11:36 --then we would index you.
11:37 Yeah.
11:38 And we would put you on the, like, you know, fan site,
11:41 or, you know, whatever category you had.
11:43 I wish we could find that original site, man.
11:45 That's crazy.
11:46 That was Pearl.
11:47 We were-- we were rocking on the Pearl script.
11:49 Yeah, that was-- you-- you-- you-- you programmed that yourself.
11:52 Nah, I think I-- I might have purchased that.
11:54 Really?
11:55 Yeah.
11:56 Oh, OK.
11:57 Pearl was-- Pearl was not my thing.
11:58 Yeah, yeah.
11:59 So-- so we-- we had that.
12:00 And then we started to get people.
12:02 How do you think that it wound up that we were able to build that momentum?
12:06 Like, it was really a lot of, like-- because, I mean, you're talking about
12:08 people all over the world, all over the country.
12:11 We had not met these people in person.
12:13 Right.
12:14 You know, how were we making that connection?
12:15 I mean, you got to remember a lot of stuff.
12:17 I think it just snowballed.
12:19 It just snowballed.
12:20 It was-- and that was the whole idea.
12:21 It was the viral element.
12:22 It was viral before it was viral because it was sort of like, you know,
12:25 people would see this icon, this Support Online Hip Hop logo,
12:29 and they would click on it, and it would direct them to our site,
12:34 the directory, the search engine.
12:36 And then they would say, well, I've got a site,
12:39 and put it on and submit their site.
12:41 So it just really grew.
12:42 And, you know, we kind of brought the hip hop community--
12:47 the online hip hop community together.
12:49 Right.
12:50 With that.
12:51 I think we might have had radio.
12:53 If you had a site that was dealing with music or radio,
12:56 it was a capacity we would index you, and people would just come.
13:00 Yeah.
13:01 And after that, we started the forums.
13:03 Yeah, then we created the forums.
13:05 Right, right, right.
13:06 And that was probably around '95-- no, '96, about '96.
13:11 And I remember where we transferred from the forums to news.
13:16 So that was done when Tupac Shakur was shot.
13:21 And I remember being up that night and seeing it, and I made a post.
13:29 Seeing what, though?
13:30 Seeing that he had gotten shot.
13:31 Seeing where?
13:32 On the news.
13:33 Oh, on the news.
13:34 On the news.
13:35 And then, yeah, I think you had said something,
13:37 like you heard Angie Martinez on the radio talking about it, too.
13:40 That was Biggie.
13:41 Oh, that was Biggie.
13:42 OK.
13:43 Wrong arrow, wrong arrow.
13:44 Go ahead.
13:45 So Tupac, you saw it on the news.
13:46 Right.
13:47 Tupac saw it on the news, and there was really no outlets for people
13:51 to go and talk about it.
13:53 I mean, now you go to Instagram, you go to Twitter.
13:55 But back then, where do you go?
13:57 Right.
13:58 So I did, like--
13:59 I wouldn't say a story, but I just said, you know, Tupac Shakur was shot.
14:03 Posted that to the forums.
14:04 V Bulletin.
14:05 Nope.
14:06 It wasn't even V Bulletin then?
14:07 No, it was Ultimate Bulletin Board.
14:09 Oh, UVB!
14:10 Yes.
14:11 Oh, UVB.
14:12 I don't know.
14:13 If you know, you know.
14:14 If you don't know--
14:15 Ultimate Bulletin Board.
14:16 Yeah.
14:17 And from there, a lot of people started to reply.
14:21 Yeah, yeah.
14:22 And that was-- that's what built the forum.
14:24 That was the beginning of the forum, and that was, you know--
14:26 But that also was the beginning of the news.
14:28 [MUSIC PLAYING]
14:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
14:35 Because then this guy, Q from Colorado, calls me up.
14:42 Well, he doesn't call me.
14:43 He friends me.
14:44 He friends you?
14:45 There's no friending.
14:46 No, in Ultimate Bulletin Board.
14:47 Oh, and you got to help people out, because you're talking about social media now.
14:51 You need to talk about friends.
14:52 This is before social media.
14:53 As Nas says, no idea is original.
14:56 You know what I'm saying?
14:57 Right, right, right, right.
14:58 So we were doing DMs--
14:59 Nas ain't the first person to say that.
15:02 Still holding on, huh?
15:04 I don't have no problem with Nas no more.
15:06 But anyway, we'll talk about that later.
15:08 He told-- he's like, you know, I think you guys should do daily hip hop news.
15:14 And I'm like, um, I don't think there's enough news to do every day.
15:19 Well, there wasn't, because, you know, you think about now, where people are posting
15:22 stuff up about their lives.
15:24 It was like, the only way you got news about rappers was you waited for the source.
15:28 You know, to come out.
15:31 You waited for them to be on the radio.
15:33 Right, and that news was-- so when you got the source, you have to keep in mind, that
15:37 news is three months old.
15:38 That's right.
15:39 It took about three months to publish a magazine.
15:42 That's right.
15:43 You know?
15:44 That's right.
15:45 So Q's whole thing was that he felt-- he strongly believed that there was news to cover every
15:48 day in hip hop.
15:49 Right, which is crazy, because it's like, how do we even get information about what
15:53 was happening?
15:54 And again, our only sources of media were-- of course, we did have television, but hip
15:58 hop didn't have a television presence.
16:01 We had, um, you know, we had the radio, which was probably, you know, local, and you had
16:06 to keep up.
16:07 Yeah, and then of course, the magazines.
16:09 So the idea that somehow-- and then it was like, what-- I remember thinking, you know,
16:13 what is so interesting about rappers' lives, or rappers in general?
16:18 It wasn't even about rappers' lives, because we didn't have-- like, right now, they give
16:21 you so much exposure to their lives, and really, you only heard about your favorite artists
16:25 when they were putting out a record.
16:27 Right.
16:28 You know?
16:29 So what was so interesting about them that we would actually have something to talk about?
16:33 Right.
16:34 But Q said that he could send me an article every single day.
16:39 Mm-hmm.
16:40 So before I looked into finding a way to publish news every day, I just said, yo, why don't
16:46 you just email me the story?
16:48 And he did it for about two weeks straight.
16:50 And that's when I realized, maybe he's on to something.
16:53 Maybe, yeah.
16:54 So at that time, it was like the forums, and then we had, like, what, maybe two stories?
16:58 Yeah, two stories a day.
17:00 Right, right, right.
17:01 And nobody else.
17:02 I mean, we essentially were-- there was no other hip-hop news.
17:05 That was it.
17:06 It was-- that was really how it was created, in terms of hip-hop daily news.
17:10 I mean, again, if you think about the other media, that's blowing my mind right now, because,
17:15 like, if you think about the other media, there was no daily-- OK, it was radio.
17:19 Right.
17:20 But even radio was behind, to some degree.
17:22 Right.
17:23 You know, there was no central place, like, AP, Reuters wasn't around.
17:27 No, no, people-- well, they were around, but they weren't covering hip-hop.
17:30 Right.
17:31 Nobody was covering hip-hop.
17:32 It was like-- it was very, very specific.
17:34 It was like, you only covered hip-hop if you were the source.
17:36 You did not hear about hip-hop artists in People or in any of the other magazines that
17:41 were out there, newspapers.
17:42 Nobody covered it.
17:43 Shout-outs to the source.
17:44 Right.
17:45 Because that's what we had, you know.
17:46 Right.
17:47 And then I remember in the forums, at some point-- I think it was the summertime-- we
17:59 had decided-- the members in the forum decided to meet offline.
18:04 They wanted to meet, you know, in a-- Now, what year are we at right now?
18:08 Because I know we started around '94, '95.
18:10 This is still '96.
18:11 This is right after Pac was killed or whatever.
18:15 Or maybe it might be even spring of '97.
18:19 But at the end of the day, there were some rappers in the forum that wanted to meet and
18:24 do some ciphers and stuff like that.
18:26 All right, that's cool.
18:27 Let's go meet.
18:28 You know, we've never seen most of these people face-to-face.
18:30 Yeah.
18:31 So we meet in Washington Square Park.
18:33 In New York.
18:34 In New York.
18:35 And I remember them flagging me, you know, waving me, like, yo, we over here.
18:40 I'm like, all right.
18:41 I walk over, and he's like, yo, you Steve Brussaux.
18:44 [MUSIC PLAYING]
18:46 And I think that's when So was officially born, because I had never called it So.
19:01 I've always called it Support Online Hip Hop.
19:03 Right, right.
19:04 Or SOHH.
19:05 SOHH.
19:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:07 So everybody that I meet--
19:08 Was I there?
19:09 Yeah, you were there.
19:10 I don't remember at all.
19:11 A lot of them remember.
19:12 Thank you.
19:13 All of this is also Steven helping me to jog my memory.
19:17 He's the memory keeper of the unit.
19:20 OK.
19:21 So I can't remember the guy's name.
19:24 But at the end of the day, we just decided to call it So.
19:30 Yeah.
19:31 You know?
19:32 I mean, it was better than people calling it Soho.
19:34 It's been called Soho.
19:35 It's been called School of Hard Knots, which was actually a clothing brand.
19:39 And actually, it had the graffiti, SOHK.
19:42 Yeah, it had a graffiti logo.
19:43 They might have had that, yeah.
19:44 Yeah, they did.
19:45 Right.
19:46 So people were always getting us confused, or whatever.
19:47 Our site, compared to other sites, it just had its own look.
19:56 Well, we were also, at that time, we were the center of the community.
20:00 Because that was-- with the search engine, it was really the place where everybody would
20:05 check in.
20:06 And it was-- you actually reminded me earlier about the Microsoft conversation, like the
20:12 impact of that.
20:13 That's a whole other chapter.
20:14 That was '95.
20:15 That was '95.
20:16 That was '95.
20:17 After we had done--
20:18 That's so crazy.
20:19 So after we had done the Green Ribbon campaign--
20:22 Yep.
20:23 Where we-- again, just to remind everybody, that was the-- put the Support Online Hip
20:27 Hop logo on your site to show your support.
20:29 And then we indexed you in the search engine.
20:32 Right.
20:33 And he was fascinated by how many websites-- at that time, they were looking for a hip
20:39 hop website to align themselves with.
20:41 Well, African-American--
20:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:43 They were trying to tap into African-American culture.
20:45 Because again, the narrative around the internet was that there was a digital divide.
20:49 Black people were not getting on the internet.
20:51 So the whole kind of movement towards companies looking to capture their audience, Microsoft
20:57 was, at that time, the top-- there was no Google.
21:00 Right.
21:01 There was Microsoft, and there was AOL, and maybe a couple-- I don't even remember who
21:05 else-- but Netscape.
21:07 Netscape was a browser.
21:09 Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
21:10 Like, all of the key companies, that's what was there.
21:12 There was these-- so if Microsoft reached out to us, it was like, oh, shoot.
21:17 Right.
21:18 That was big.
21:19 Right.
21:20 And he had wanted to do what?
21:21 He wanted us to run it.
21:23 He wanted us to run some kind of-- I guess their Urban or their Blackline or whatever.
21:28 Yeah, yeah.
21:29 And I mean, I think this was just an idea in his head.
21:33 Yeah.
21:34 Well, it finally-- it did evolve into MSBT.
21:37 Right.
21:38 That's where the deal between Microsoft and BT came from.
21:41 That same conversation that he had with us, he ultimately, I guess, had with BT.
21:46 And that's where that deal came from.
21:48 Right.
21:49 But it was funny, though, because he was very impressed with how we were able to get on
21:54 everybody's site.
21:55 Because he was looking for-- what he was saying was he was going from site to site
21:59 to try to figure out who they should partner with.
22:01 Right, right, right.
22:02 But he kept seeing the logo.
22:03 Yeah.
22:04 And then he finally decided to click the logo, and he got to Search Online Hip Hop.
22:07 Yeah.
22:08 And he was like, oh, I should just meet with these guys.
22:10 Right.
22:11 You know?
22:12 SOHH, Search Online Hip Hop.
22:13 That was the first-- we forgot to say that.
22:15 And I just kept--
22:16 So it was Support Online Hip Hop, and then it was Search Online Hip Hop.
22:18 Yeah, it was both.
22:19 The whole idea was it was both.
22:21 And that was why it was so-- like, SOHH was so apropos.
22:24 Now, let's talk about-- if I am-- were you looking on like that?
22:30 What you looking like that for?
22:32 What are we about to talk about?
22:34 What you think we about to talk about?
22:36 Who came up with the name?
22:37 Well, a little bit.
22:38 I mean, I just wanted to acknowledge that, you know, the idea of, like, doing, oh, my
22:44 god, a search engine plus the green ribbon, you know, the free speech online, the icon.
22:53 I think that was my idea.
22:54 I'm pretty sure that's totally, like, something that I would think of.
22:58 You saying it was your idea?
23:03 I'm not saying that it was not my idea.
23:07 And I'm not saying it was your idea.
23:09 But you know what?
23:10 If you want to say it's your idea--
23:12 Oh, you trying to be nice in front of people?
23:14 No.
23:15 I'm just saying, you want to say it's your idea--
23:16 I think, you know, what we always do is you'll say something, or, you know, and it'll kind
23:21 of pop an idea, a thought in my head, and it will stop going back and forth.
23:25 So I guess there is really no one person who came up with that idea.
23:29 Listen, let me tell you--
23:30 But I kind of feel like it would have been me that would have been like, oh, you know,
23:33 look at them.
23:34 They're doing this with free speech online.
23:35 You came up with support online hip hop as we were walking from Essence to the PATH train
23:41 station on 6th Avenue.
23:43 We started 25 years ago, something that we are meeting people now that remember us either
23:54 from their high school years, their college years.
23:57 Yeah.
23:58 It's so many generations.
23:59 Like, it's at least two generations.
24:02 We've had children during this time.
24:05 Yep.
24:06 We've lost parents during this time.
24:08 Yeah.
24:09 We've had a black president during this time.
24:12 Yep.
24:13 We had the dot-com bust, the dot-com boom.
24:16 We had the great recession.
24:18 Right.
24:19 You know, we had Biggie and Pac's death.
24:21 Right.
24:22 You know, we've--
24:23 And guess what?
24:24 Now we got COVID.
24:25 Yeah.
24:26 And we still here.
24:28 Lord Jesus.
24:29 So what we're going to talk about-- let's just tell everybody what we're doing.
24:32 So in the next few episodes, we're going to be talking about the top 25 moments in the
24:39 last 25 years.
24:40 Right.
24:41 And we're going to bring in a couple of folks that we have met along the way to talk about
24:45 some of the biggest stories that we were a part of, that we broke, or that we covered.
24:53 Some real crazy behind-the-scenes stuff of the stuff that we dealt with in the music
24:59 industry, and people telling us to take stuff down, and people threatening to come and see
25:05 us.
25:06 You know, I ain't going to say no names.
25:09 We don't want no smokes about being lovely, loving in 2020.
25:13 You're too old for smoke.
25:14 I ain't too old for nothing.
25:15 Bring the smoke.
25:16 I'm still from the Bronx.
25:17 You know what I'm saying?
25:18 You know what I'm saying?
25:19 It don't even matter.
25:20 I'm just saying I got kids now.
25:22 I ain't got time for a lot.
25:23 You know what I'm saying?
25:24 So we ain't going to call nobody names.
25:26 But you will get a sense of who these people are, because we'll give enough hints for you
25:30 to guess.
25:31 So yeah, 25 moments.
25:32 So we got some guests coming up.
25:34 And yeah.
25:37 Are we giving away any prizes?
25:39 We're not giving away any prizes.
25:41 I don't know.
25:42 We'll have to see.
25:43 We should.
25:44 You know what?
25:45 When we come back the next time, I want us to have a prize.
25:47 At the end of the day, right, they should like and subscribe.
25:51 Make sure that you click that bell.
25:53 And that's what we need them to do for right now.
25:56 That's what I need you to do for right now.
25:58 Like and subscribe.
25:59 Like and subscribe.
26:00 OK, and then they might be a prize later.
26:01 They will probably be a prize later.
26:02 You're going to come up with a prize?
26:03 I'm going to come up with a prize.
26:04 OK.
26:05 You heard it from Stephen@so.com.
26:07 That's his email.
26:08 So if there is no prize, you can just email him.
26:10 That's Stephen with a D.
26:12 Why would you do that?
26:14 It's Stephen's holiday, so I have to do it.
26:17 Thank you.
26:19 Moving right along.
26:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:24 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:30 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:36 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:43 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:53 (upbeat music)
26:55 (upbeat music)
26:58 (upbeat music)
27:00 (upbeat music)
27:03 (keyboard typing)
27:23 (typewriter clacking)
27:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]