During an intimate panel at the 2023 South By Southwest Conference and Festivals, brothers Eric and Jeff Rosenthal, better known as ItsTheReal announced The Blog Era podcast with important figures from that time. Featuring Curren$y, founder of nahright.com, Ahsmi “Eskay” Rawlins, and Capitol Music Group‘s SVP of Digital Marketing, Dimplez, the discussion reflected on the impact of SXSW, how rap music and culture was transformed by the internet, and the future of the culture.
Defining the blog era as “the intersection where hip-hop really met the internet and thanks to a handful of nobodies behind keyboards,” the sit-down was the first time the two hosts spoke live with artists and insiders of the time ahead of the spring premiere of their new podcast series.
The nearly hour-long discussion was not without anecdotes from the industry pioneers. The conversation explored memories from all participants on their first time meeting each other and recognizing their platforms, appreciation for The Cool Kids, and their individual and collective places in the history of Hip-Hop and digital media.
“My homegirl had typed it in to just see if I was making any waves with the mixtape since I had left Cash Money,” recalled the New Orleans rapper when discussing how he learned about rap blogs.
“The gatekeepers were kind of in the way, then we came, all these blogs came out and that was the new MTV and the new BET,” he said. “They were posting my pictures every time I put a song out. So I was like, the way to be seen is to keep putting songs out to make sure they could find me. They made a lot of us.”
The Blog Era podcast is set to debut on April 18 and is officially described as “the dynamic story of how complete unknowns built a world free of music industry gatekeepers –the global superstars that it birthed, the kingmakers you’ve never heard of – and how big buildings and big money snatched back the power.”
Listen to a preview of the series below.