Southern & Internet Savvy
The hip hop community has always been an early adopter of marketing trends, and to a further extent, technological trends. Here is a good excerpt from a Complex Magazine Q&A with Bun B of UGK that explains his take on social media. You know this is going on, but it's always nice to see it or read about it.
C: You seem to be very in tune with the digital aspect of the game. What was your learning curve?
Bun B: It was just about hearing people talk about different things and wondering where they were getting all this information. I read the Times, I read the Houston Chronicle, I read USA Today, and Newsweek, so I take in a lot of different information. But I would keep hearing like, “Yo, I just got this new song,” or “I saw this new YouTube clip,” and I’m like, where are these people getting all this information from? And they’d be hitting up the blogs, so I entered the blogosphere and it was something to see. It’s definitely a unique way of looking at the world. People with all these different opinions, it’s just something beautiful to behold, and I thought I had to jump into this and feel what’s going on, and I’ve been moving forward with it ever since. I’m the gadget king [laughs].
C: How do you value the Internet as a business opportunity?
Bun B: I feel it’s promotion and marketing more than anything. There’s only so many ways that people can actually make money off the Internet. For me, it’s just a way to connect with people, and letting them know where I’m going to be at physically, so if I’m in that area they can come and see me physically, and watch the show or communicate. Really to me it’s more help than anything, the only people who get rich off the Internet are people who specialize in advertising other people’s stuff. Yahoo, Google, and people like that who help facilitate what they need. It’s killing the newspapers; it’s killing television, as we know it, so we’ll see what happens.
Click to read this whole thing.
(SOURCE: Complex)
Here are some pics from the 
