August is a month of firsts for the Haulix blog. Yesterday we kicked things off with the first edition of our PR Spotlight, and today we’re excited to highlight the first of many urban music properties in the latest Blogger Spotlight. If you know of any sites you want to see featured in a future installment of this column, please do not hesitate to email james@haulix.com with your suggestions.
Drew Ellison and Eric Cunningham, better known to the internet as HowFlyHipHop, have gone from relative obscurity to the forefront of urban music blogging in just over two years of existence. Their recipe for this success is attributed to a combination of hard work, timeliness, and networking that has positioned them to not only be reporters, but tastemakers in the hip hop and R&B realm. From song streams, to playlists and interviews, HowFlyHipHop is on the cutting edge of what’s popular, and in today’s article we learn how it all came to be. Whether you’re looking to gain exposure for your music or start a hip hop blog of your own, we’re confident the insight provided by Drew and Eric in the interview below will help you take the steps towards furthering your career in music.
As always, if you enjoy what Drew and Eric have to say, be sure to reach out and let them know you enjoyed this article. They both have Twitter accounts, so click the links and follow Drew, Eric, and their site as soon as time allows. If you have any additional questions for this duo you can leave them in comments section at the end of this post.
H: For those unaware, please state your name, the site you work for, and your role at said site:
HFHH: We are Drew Ellison & Eric Cunningham, co-owners of HowFlyHipHop.com. We both handle every aspect of running the site, from posting, to checking the daily emails for new talent, to interacting with our loyal followers on social media. And of course, don’t forget about handling technical difficulties from time to time, it’s not all fun but it comes with the game.
H: What inspired you to get into writing in the first place, and how did that lead you to start HowFlyHipHop?
Eric: I originally started HFHH as a hobby, out of a love for hip-hop. Initially it was just on a free Blogger, very casual. It wasn’t until Drew came along that we really started to take things serious. It’s important to team up with somebody whose strengths are your weaknesses, and that’s what made us a perfect team, along with our drive to succeed. Writing wasn’t necessarily a passion of mine, it’s more so the love for Hip Hop, and putting people onto new music.
Drew: I’m on the same page as Eric. I wouldn’t say being into writing lead to me being involved with HFHH. If anything, involving myself with HFHH got me into writing. I’ve always been a huge hip-hop fan, and I had known Eric was running a Blogger. I hit him up with the idea to buy a domain, some hosting, and see if we couldn’t get the site to do numbers. I think we would both agree that we enjoy writing articles now however. It breaks up the monotony of just posting music, and anything we write is always well received.
H: They say the first hip hop album someone loves determines the type of music they love for the rest of their life. What was the first album you remember connecting with, and does that style of hip hop hold up as your favorite to this day?
Drew: The first album I ever truly loved, was The College Dropout. I was 13 at the time, I guess you could say I was in my “formative” years. Just given the time in my life, and what I was going through, it had an impact on me unlike any album prior, or since. It was a perfect blend of being relatable and GOOD music, no pun intended. Kanye was and remains my favorite hip-hop act, even though he has since veered far from the College Dropout sound. As far as favorite style of hip-hop, me and Eric have discussed this before & I know he will say the same… I don’t have one. I have an equal appreciation for all sub-genres of hip-hop, just depends on the mood & setting.
Eric: For me it was Tha Carter II, and I know that’s not nearly the greatest hip hop album of all time, but it’s my favorite. It’s more so about the time period of my life then. I was a senior in high school, right after Hurricane Katrina, that album was one of the first things to look forward to during that time. It was during his prime years as well, when he was on the rise and still hungry. That was the soundtrack to me and my friends’ senior year, so the memories that come with it are what makes it my favorite. As far as favorite style goes, Drew got it right.
H: Urban music is thought by many to be the most covered genre on the internet. What does HowFlyHipHop offers fans that separates it from its numerous competitors?
Eric: I would like to think many things. For one, we don’t clutter, or overpost. I think that’s in important. You go to some blogs, and there’s plenty of irrelevant posts that take up pages everyday. I know what I go to music blogs for. New music, music videos, mixtapes, news, and interviews. Most people could care less about Kanye West being photographed by TMZ, or a live performance of a song that you can barely make out. We like to strictly post the things people are looking for, we want it to be easy for them to see what’s new without having to sift through bullshit that’s just there to take up space.
Drew: To go along with that. Speed. We aren’t an update-once-a-day music blog. We post new music within moments of it hitting the net. We like to interact with our readers. We like hearing other’s opinions, and you will often see us seeking them out on our Facebook page. We like to offer original content to our readers. Whether that’s an exclusive mix, or dropping a compilation for people who may have missed a few of the tracks an artist put out the past few months. A lot of it is just thinking what would our readers appreciate, and then trying to implement that in some way.
H: HFHH has earned a reputation for being one of the quickest sites in urban music. Where do you go to discover news and new artists?
Eric: We strive to be the quickest, if you’re late what good are you? From the start we made that clear to each other, we have to be faster than everybody else. In a saturated market, there’s always option A,B,C,D,E,F, and so on beyond Z in terms of hip hop blogs. It’s unrealistic to be the first blog with every new song, but we always have & always will be one of the first every time. We’re in 2013 now, so there’s really no excuse to not know what’s coming out, and when. If a Drake single is dropping, you’ll know AT LEAST a few good hours in advance thanks to social media, so you should be looking out for it. One of us always make ourselves available when we know something big is due out during any given hour. There’s really no secret about how to obtain the new music these days, most artists will drop it via Twitter, Facebook, or their Soundcloud (usually all 3). As far as new upcoming artists, we pretty much take those from our email. We go through tons of submissions, and if we’re truly feeling it, we’ll post them on the site. That’s about all there is to that process.
Drew: Eric put it nicely. It’s mostly just being vigilant, and willing to sacrifice a little sleep, or maybe postpone going out for a few minutes in order to make sure our readers are up to the minute on new music. New artists seek us out all the time, and make their way into all of our email inboxes and mentions. We like to set aside some days and listen to unsigned artists that have contacted us. If we’re feeling it, we’ll post it, and hit them up.
H: Speaking of music discovery, you probably receive a lot of submissions from young artists vying for a spot on your news feed. What advice can you offer young artists hoping to stand out in your inbox?
Drew: Absolutely. The most important thing is quality and presentation. We cater to the unsigned talent who take the craft seriously. They invest in themselves, and their work. You just picked up a computer mic, and are experimenting with rapping? That’s dope. JUst don’t expect to be posted on the site. Pay for studio time. If you can’t create, pay for professional photography or artwork. I can’t tell you how many emails we get with no pictures, no bio, completely blank. Just a 2MB song attached, with terrible sound quality.
Eric: Yep. A huge problem with new artists is that they don’t know how to properly present themselves, or they just simply don’t take themselves that serious. If you don’t take yourself or your art serious, why should anybody else? The reason unsigned artists are so scarce on the site is simply because very few people can actually follow the simple steps, which we’ve posted on the site multiple times.
H: When it comes to receiving music for review and feature consideration, which services do you prefer and why?
Drew: Unfortunately for hip-hop, it’s the easiest genre of music to get into casually. You don’t need to play an instrument, you don’t need to have a singing voice. There is no real investment, whether speaking in terms of money or time. If you have access to a mic, the internet, and about 20 minutes, you can make hip-hop “music” that finds its way into our inbox. That is the case for a depressingly large number of the submissions we receive. These often include nothing more than an attached mp3 file and a subject line of “check dis out.” If the rant we went on a few questions ago doesn’t make it clear, we really value presentation. Something like Haulix is desperately needed within the hip-hop community, and as a blogger I would love to see it become the norm. As it stands, the best we hope for is a properly recorded track, professional photography or artwork, and a short bio, sent to our email designated for unsigned submissions.
Eric: I agree, and would like to add to avoid our Twitter mentions when submitting music.
H: If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
Eric: The industry is moving in a good direction. Albums are being made available for free streaming more than ever, more artists are releasing their music under their own terms, etc. The formula still isn’t perfect though, labels are still holding back the inevitable new age that we’re stepping into. What Jay-Z did with Samsung for his new album is what the future is. Partner with a big company that way you can release your music for free early, but still get paid for your work via the deal you made. Then, provide hard copies & digital copies for retail later. People will support what they like, it’s as simple as that. There’s not many people who don’t know how to obtain any new album for free on the internet, that’s not going away. But many artists still manage to go platinum, many artists still manage to sell 3 million singles with one hot song, etc. Trying to force blogs to take down music, especially when an artist himself puts it out, and prefers that it be placed on these blogs, is ridiculous. Blogs have created careers for people like Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, and others. Anybody with talent can be heard now. Labels are more and more starting to realize this though, so we’re on a good path I’d say.
Drew: It’s hard to choose just one thing. Even though I believe I know which problems exist within the music industry, I don’t necessarily have the solutions to those problems. Labels are definitely in trouble at this point, as they are no longer vital to being successful as an artist. Digital sales are becoming more and more the norm. Digital markets mean less money for labels. Pandora, Spotify, Youtube, iTunes, etc. are means for an artist to distribute their music at practically no cost, and still be paid. Social media and blogs allow for artists to put themselves on, without the label push. I’m not sure of one specific thing that I would change, but if I had to put it generally: Labels need to realize that the music industry has irreversibly changed, and act accordingly.
H: You tweet a lot about having big plans for the future. Before we let you go, can you tell us a bit about what you have planned in the months ahead?
Eric: Expect more articles. Original content is something that takes a site to the next level. We’ve always had original content, but in small doses. We plan to kick that up a notch in the coming months. More mixes, more playlists, we’re really just experimenting with new things constantly and seeing what people like. You might even see a redesigned HFHH in the coming months. Besides that, we’re going to continue giving everybody the great service that we always have.
Drew: I don’t like to talk too specifically about what we’re going to do, before we do it, but Eric touched on a lot of the things. Stay tuned.
