The King Of The Internet Is….

.... Sorry Jackpot, I gotta disagree with you.

A few years ago, it was a lot less cluttered in this rap website game. But yeah, websites and blogging is the new rap. If you don't have a new media venture or outlet in 2009, frankly, you don't even exist. You're a dinosaur.

Allhiphop was the hands down king of the internets for years. For years! They pioneered the two-way text message alerts with breaking hip-hop news. Hip-hop news- what a concept! The idea of there even being something as daily hip-hop news didn't even exist until Allhiphop came around. SOHH, well they did their thing, probably had a good solid year where they were running this rap shit, but then their site was viciously hacked and they've been trying to recover ever since.

While those two were duking it out, my personal favorite, HipHopGame.com was quietly trudging ahead. HipHopGame is the hip-hop site for true hip-hop fans, the ones who don't give a crap about any of the industry fuckery and just want music-related content. There's a couple other good ones that fall in this category, HipHopDx.com, Ballerstatus.com and DubCNN.com all come to mind. I have been on these sites for years and they've only gotten better.

But really, the whole model of there being this big website just for rap related content, I think it's pretty clunky and dated, like a dinosaur. Blogs are where it's at. Just give me the content, spare me the commentary.

Nobody does that better than Eskay at Nahright. From the first time I found Nahright, back in like early 2006 or something (can't remember), I started checking that site literally 30 times a day. It became my one stop shop for all hip-hop related content. From new music to new videos to new magazine covers to articles just talking about hip-hop, if it was even minutely relevant, it was there. And it was updated, constantly. So I had to keep clicking (which is the business model for getting ads, in case anyone forgot that this is a money-making thing too). Truthfully, the first time I met Eskay, when he got hired to run XXLmag.com, and I had just been hired as an editor at Scratch, I had to let him know how ill Nahright was. The amount of praise I was giving him, you would think I was talking to Jay-Z or TI or someone. And you know what, I was. I was talking to the Jay-Z of the rap internets.

Eskay is the king of the internet because Nahright makes taste, bottom line. He single-handedly makes people's careers. I've heard dude get a bad wrap because he doesn't technically "produce" any content. Well actually, he produces the blog entries which give shine to a lot of the content that other people are producing. So it's just production on a smaller level. That said, how many people in hip-hop would you NOT know about if it wasn't for Eskay? Uhhh.... a lot.

I've talked to rappers– some quite popular, others less known– and I've heard them say things such as, "If Eskay posts my music, I know I'm gonna blow. I need to get Eskay to start posting my shit, so I can get popping. I need Eskay to make my career like he made Mickey Factz and Charles Hamilton and all of them other guys."

Nobody says that about anyone else online. There is no other rap website or rap personality online that has the power to do what Eskay does. If he keeps posting your music, and your shit is actually good, you will have a career. Rest assured. Sure, other sites may post your music, but the way people are tapped into that site is unlike any other. The whole tastemaking hip-hop world, and genuine hip-hop fans alike, are on there. It's a powerful combination.

Eskay is the King of the Internet.

Bow down.