Its bout that Time…..

Well its taken about 3 weeks to actually find the time to sit down and write this installment of my ‘Our Say’ and its very likely that this is my last. From here on I have semi retired from the site, I can no longer promise my time to it or to the visitors and more Importantly I can’t go letting Hugz down on deadlines anymore cos other things got in the way. I’ve had 2 great years with the site since it started, some ups, some downs but overall its been a good experience and one that’s not only taught me a lot but switched me on to hip hop and its artists that I normally wouldn’t have connected with. I was amazed to get an Email from Kool Kim this week who read my editorial on the UMC’s I wrote when I first started on Tha-Real, that was sort of surreal, now I’m just waiting on some hate mail from Nas.

My experience with the Internet and its users is that it’s plain selfish and I do not go leave myself exempt from that. We all want what we can get for nothing whether its porn, music or money, we’ve been given this medium to communicate and interact yet we abuse it every day, I’m not gonna get self righteous and preachy on you now but I’m setting the tone for whats about to be said. Tha-Real.com has always GIVEN to the hip hop scene, what the fuck have we ever taken or got for spending day in day out keeping you informed? NOTHING! We even pay the server costs, the least we asked you to do was to take a few minutes a week to help with online services so that they could be paid and we were not running up debts, it was never put together to make money, the only way that could be done is to charge a subscription or have an online store. What I’m really trying to say is when the site closes very soon just remember you could have made a difference in its future but in your hurry to listen to that new track or get that new bit of news or review from us, it took OUR time, it took a lot longer to put together than the time its taking you to get your own satisfaction out of it, appreciation would be good, don’t leave it to the next man just 3 seconds it takes to click. Be proactive and recognise that effort that has gone into making YOU happy, keeping YOU informed and most importantly giving YOU the exclusive we wanted to share with you.

I just wanna say that hip hop can’t be saved, not for now anyway, it's too popular, so that all the politics involved from record companies, and even the internet we will have to wait for it to go back underground to really inhale the true essence of what its about, will that day ever come? Maybe, maybe not, but Americas best selling music form of music is even now penetrating charts all over the world, even injecting itself into other forms of music, pop artists are now rapping and rappers are going pop where will it all come to a head? Who knows but one things certain its lurking there somewhere in some kids basement or garage like a disease ready to spread again and when it mutates I’ll be the first one to watch its growth.

Before I wanna go I wanna give a shout out to a few of the following people, you all deserve a mention, if I forgot you I apologise but sometimes I don’t remember my own name:

Pun, Buddah Mac, Q, Mic, DJ Ghost, Ant One, J-Zone, Mark Goodbody, Celph Titled, DJ Greenpeace and Hip Hop Connection, Blueprint and Illogic, Saukrates, The Snipa, John Book, Sean D, Fenaxis, Ian Wyght, Freestyle, Braille, Seth (From BEP Management), Capital D and most importantly Hugz Boss

If the site survives, Maybe I’ll be back next year, maybe it will be 2002 but for now I bid you farewell and hope you’ve enjoyed the ride.

Phil Oliver, 3rd December 2000, 17:47 GMT