Wasup people? We know that their are more than 7 of you now…at least 8. Welcome back to#PodcastWednesdaywith us, more people you feel like you know now thanks to the internet.
We still dont have a name, but this week we have the trifecta – Spit x Golden x Blair
Sponsor: GoToMyPC allows easy to access your computer via you iPhone Try it Free for 30 Days! Click GoToMyPC to begin
On August 18, popular D.C. rapperWaledropped a brand new freestylejust one day after he released his latest mixtape, The Eleven One Eleven Theory. Spitting over the instrumental for AZ’s 1995 hit, “Sugar Hill,”Wale took a moment to name-drop those who’ve supported him. Among call-outs to folks on Twitter, Wale made a quick mention of a file-hosting site calledHulkShare:
Shoutout HulkShare. You tell me you wasn’t a Walefan, I’m not a HulkShare fan.
The line came as a response to an interview I conducted with HulkShare CEO Ted Brinkofski for the Washington City Paper that went online earlier that day. Wale used HulkShare to debut his new mixtape, and the incoming traffic to the download page overwhelmed the site’s servers and caused that specific page to crash. I reached out to Brinkofski to talk about the downloading issues mixtape and his interest in working with the hip-hop community, and the subject of his current favorite rappers came up: Brinkofski mentioned that he hadn’t listened to Wale as much as other rappers and one of his favorites happened to be Wiz Khalifa, which some folks–including Wale–took to mean Brinkofski “wasn’t a Walefan.”
Once the “Sugar Hill” freestyle hit the net, Brinkofski received a rash of calls from friends about it. Rather than shrug it off, the 21-year-old used the opportunity to reach out to Wale’s team and work with them on developing some of HulkShare’s newest endeavors.
HulkShare isn’t your average file hosting website. Unlike MediaFire, zShare, SendSpace and a mess of other sites that offer anyone free space to upload and share files, HulkShare is a site specifically designed for musicians and industry professionals in mind–especially those involved in the hip-hop community. That goes beyond Brinkofski’s love for hip-hop, though that admiration for the genre certainly provides some fuel for his goals. In the two years since he founded the site, he’s been trying to come up with innovative new ways to monetize and unite the hip-hop community (or a portion thereof) online.
Brinkofski has some lofty long-term monetizing goals that he says could take years to develop, but for now HulkShare’s main avenue for artist revenue is through ads. The site offers sponsorship opportunities to musicians, where Brinkofski pays artists to place their brands on HulkShare’s front page: You can see DJ Smallz and two-time Grammy winning production duo Play-N-Skillz with short quotes about how HulkShare is helping them on the site’s main page.
While long-term monetizing strategies are still in the works–Brinkofski mentions developing a gaming platform like FarmVille as one possibility–HulkShare has already been taken in as a go-to site for many people involved in hip-hop. Not only have rappers like Wale and Lil Wayne used it to upload and debut their most recent mixtapes, but popular hip-hop blogs like Nah Right and 2dopeboyz often link to HulkShare files (Nah Right’s post on Wale’s “Sugar Hill” freestyle links to a HulkShare download page), and popular cross-genre music sites like the Fader and Stereogum have embedded songs hosted by HulkShare as well.
But Brinkofski isn’t resting on his laurels just yet. “It’s still a small imprint on what the impact can be on the hip-hop community,” he says. He’s a bit distracted when I first reach him on the phone, as he’s knee deep in coding and making changes to the site. But it doesn’t take him long to launch into the details about his plans for the site, rattling off information with the whiplash-inducing speed of a rapper like Freddie Gibbs. He likes to update HulkShare with that speed, too, like with the site’s embeddable music-player. “We put out an HTML5 one the other day, so you can view it on Apple mobile products,” Brinkofski says. “I’m making all these embed players and throwing them out there and seeing what people like… we have five more coming out next week.”
The real big innovation Brinkofski is working on could very well set Hulkshare apart from the rest of the file-hosting pack: Profile pages that artists could have total control over, something akin to a MySpace, Bandcamp, or Facebook page. “[In] hip-hop, everybody’s trying to be unique and do something different, I kind of want to build that into the site,” Brinkofski says. “You can totally express yourself as an artist.”
That’s the idea Brinkofski worked on with Wale and his team last week. Building customized download pages for each song and testing out a variety of options that would allow any artist to make their file-hosting page reflect their personality. It’s not a ground-breaking idea, but its execution might be. “Really, the only thing that’s different or innovative on my end would be the strategy and the target market,” Brinkofski says.
It’ll be at least a few months before these changes begin to roll out, but as long as HulkShare maintains its foothold in the hip-hop community it could very well help the site grow the way Brinkofski wants it to. ”The hip-hop community is large enough for me to go after so I can build a large business,” he says.
Disclaimer: Apologies to @Wale for my views and opinions regarding his new album #Ambition. The following views and opinions are all based on fact therefore this is a Review About the Truth.
Who is this man? I don’t know Wale as an artist anymore. This album reminds me of the scenario when your big brother, whom you’re so proud of, goes away to college and the next summer he returns home as a douche bag. Wale has changed drastically for the worst since he joined Maybach Music Group. This is an atrocious follow-up to Attention Deficit and More About Nothing. The lyrical content on this album is very crude and moronic; I had never heard this man use the word “bitch” this much in his exHip-Hop career. Now he has graduated to be a mainstream rapper, or his self-proclaimed title “Maybach Poet.” His voice and flow has changed from exciting to lackluster. The lyrical delivery on this album sounds like a “Rick Ross lite” flow; even the production sounds like a second-hand Rick Ross production. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few tracks on this album where the production is good but that’s only the production. Songs like: Focus, Slight Work, Chain Music, and maybe Lotus Flower Bomb are solid enough. Example: Chain Music is very catchy and if this was a quality album Chain Music would have been the worst song on the track list but since this is a bad album Chain Music ALMOST a good song, in comparison to the others. I do not enjoy hearing the Maybach Music Group sound stamp all over this album. “YES! We have heard of Maybach Music before! Shut up, I don’t care for hearing about this group once more!” I do not understand Wale as an artist or this album; how could he go from a song called Dairy to a track titled Illest Bitch? Is it me or is there an oxymoron sound accompanying Wale these days? A career is about growth not back tracking, this isn’t monopoly, its chess. Overall I rate this album a D. It lacks creativity, growth, solid production, and the interesting lyricism that Wale’s fans are used to. Overall, Ambition contradicts Wale’s sound before this album. I am highly disappointed in him as an artist, I expected so much more from him. I’ve wasted thirty plus minutes on this misuse of sounds called Ambition. I do not know where he can go from here but what I do know is I will not be listening to him anytime soon. This album and his name make my ears sad. Damn Illuminati can make anyone sell out these days. Those Illuminatists are great at their jobs because they have done a great job turning out an artist who could have been a great MC.
You don’t have to take my words for it; give Wale’s Ambition a listen for yourself. Be your own critic.
Amber Cole (@DaRealAmberCole), per her twitter account has “Created a twitter to clear my name…” & that she is also “NOT A HOE! I AM JUST YOUR AVERAGE GIRL……. 14..female…goals…..” …goals which include:
It’s still unclear if she created the twitter or if her mother did,
But regardless, why is everybody at 2am (EST) talking about a 14-year-old girl who isn’t a hoe? And what is she clearing her name from? Why are random celebrities telling this little girl not to kill herself?
(Including @NickiiMinaj which is fake @NickiMinaj page but the irony in that is that Nicki Minaj is probably the reason she was doing it in the first place… But doing what?)
Well, Amber Cole may be the average 14-year-old girl, but this average 14-year-old girl was recorded on a razor phone giving oral sex to a 14-year-old male outside of a school in broad daylight. Judging by what I have seen & heard in my travels, when children speak at times that they think no one is listening, Amber Cole could very well turn out to be the average 14-year-old. This fact is very very sad & especially disheartening to me as a parent & anyone who knows the focus of this generations school age children. Sex is on their mind more than school is and that is because all forms of entertainment they indulge in are loaded with sexual innuendo & partial sexual education which doesn’t include repercussions or safety. This isn’t specific to 14 year olds at all, this starts from Spongebob Squarepants all the way up to Degrassi & continues full steam ahead into adulthood.
The video in question does not show her face nor is her name mentioned, which brings us to our next question: How does everyone know it was her?
Well, the reason why everyone knows its Amber Cole in the video is because Amber Cole told everyone it was her. While #TroyDavis , who was executed (read as: murdered) for a crime he may or may not have committed (See: Too Much Doubt To Execute) never became & has blocked by @Twitter from becoming a trending topic, #AmberCole was trending almost immediately which is indicative of the state of the world we live in today & it sends a message loud & clear: The most popular forms of entertainment that exist today are selling teen sex, or selling sex to teens. Just imagine how much money twitter is making right now from peddling kiddie porn? Due to the fact that I do not support kiddie porn I have NOT embedded the video into this post, however if you choose to watch a 14-year-old girl give fellatio to another CHILD her age, who am I to judge you right? Here you are
Now for those of you who didn’t just google her name to watch mini porn, haven’t clicked the link & are still here, lets discuss the root of this problem. How do 14 year olds know what oral sex is & how to perform it secretly? Why are other 14 year olds taping it? Other “celebrities” have chimed in with their opinions but these two which contrast are the two that I find most interesting
Above you see Tyler’s message & below you see Amber Cole’s response (her twitter background is Chris Brown when he was her age). Tyler, The Creator (of Odd Future fame) decided to take the route that most of the internet has taken thus far which is to make light of a serious situation. The internet is usually the place where this sort of thing takes place because people can hide behind 140 characters (or more on the Facebook) & leave it at the that. The names aren’t real, the situations aren’t real & the people aren’t real… But this is real. Amber Cole is a real person. Lets put this in perspective… as a matter of fact, I’ll let Wale put this in perspective
Wale’s quote makes perfect sense to any adult with a working brain. Amber Cole is a misguided child & the underlying message is #WeGottaDoBetter . Not just a cliché trending topic so you can seem socially conscious on the internet but actually do something. Talk to children about sex & the repercussions that can result from not exercising your sexual power responsibly. Starting these sort of talks and education at this age will prevent or at least curve the number of sexually uneducated adults who started out practicing these of acts while in school. Amber Cole did not invent the wheel nor will she be the last one to roll it. There are millions of Amber Coles out there and it could be your sister, daughter, cousin, niece, neighbor, classmate, roommate or someone you hold dear going through this. Would it be funny then? Would you have 140 characters of jokes then?
Its very easy to attack the fruit & not the root of these sort of problems but you must ALWAYS attack the root before the fruit is even addressed. How did this happen? Why is this happening? How could we have prevented this? How can we prevent this in the future? Don’t complain about flash mobs if you aren’t in support of funding after school programs, don’t complain about drugs taking over your neighborhood if you “support your local drug dealer”, don’t complain about there not being any stores owned by your race of people if all you do is support businesses by those outside of your race, & don’t complain about a 14-year-old girl giving oral sex outside of a school in broad daylight during school hours while nobody was around if you arent in support of more funding for schools & if you’re going to make fun of her cry for help by making serious jokes to her face.
If Amber Cole does kill herself, will you be partially to blame?
YOU CAN NOW SUBSCRIBE TO #PODCASTWEDNESDAYS ON iTUNES!!! CLICK HERE
YOU CAN STILL EMAIL YOUR SUGGESTIONS, COMPLAINTS & #FML STORIES TO IAMNOTARAPPER58@GMAIL.COM
