Ray Rahman - Chasing Kanye текст песни

aАЬfirst popularized in the US by Bill Cosby in the aАШ80s.aАЭ
Rap Genius wants to offer its brand of CliffsNotes to more than just hip-hop, though. The siteaАЩs new mission is to archive and explain everything from indie rock to poetry to Biblical verses. And now they have the money to do it: earlier this month, venture capital firm Andresseen Horowitz announced a whopping $15 million investment in the project.
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As Marc Andresseen wrote, the funding will help Rap Genius aАЬgeneralize out to many other categories of text aА¦ annotate the world aА¦ be the knowledge about the knowledge aА¦ create the Internet Talmud.aАЭ A tall order, yes, but the siteaАЩs founders aАФ college friends Mahbod Moghadam, Tom Lehman, and Ilan Zechory aАФ are confident that they can pull it off.
Very confident. aАЬFive years from now, weaАЩll have 5,000 employees, weaАЩll have gone public, and weaАЩll be the biggest site in the world,aАЭ Moghadam tells me when I visit the Williamsburg penthouse-apartment that currently serves as Rap Genius HQ. Moghadam isnaАЩt afraid to make grand pronouncements (sample quotes include aАЬItaАЩs the reinvention of the printing pressaАЭ and aАЬI have this thing that is going to be the future of the written wordaАЭ), and he speaks as though it was always obvious that the InternetaАЩs future would come in the form of a rap-lyrics site.
aАЬItaАЩs changed the face of human knowledge,aАЭ he says of Rap Genius, before dialing it back just a notch: aАЬI mean, so far itaАЩs hip-hop knowledge. But no question, soon itaАЩs going to be all of knowledge.aАЭ
Rap Genius launched in 2009 as a aАЬhip-hop WikipediaaАЭ that encouraged a community of aАЬhip-hop scholars,aАЭ with users spending hours analyzing and annotating one rap lyric after another. The site blew up pretty quickly, and currently averages over 10 million unique visitors a month.
aАЬThere are plenty of lyrics sites,aАЭ explains Ben Horowitz, the rap-obsessed Andresseen Horowitz partner whoaАЩs betting big on the siteaАЩs success. aАЬBut Rap Genius is the interpretation of rap music aАФ very, very high-quality interpretations.aАЭ
Anyone can join and contribute, but users are ranked according to their demonstrated aАЬRap IQ,aАЭ and only those at the top earn editor privileges. Lately, though, the siteaАЩs team has gone a step further by cultivating an increasing number of verified accounts aАФ rappers who sign up and explain their lyrics themselves. So far, name-brand sign-ups have included Nas, 50 Cent, and A$AP Rocky, just to name a few. Some artists even do it twice: the man born Calvin Broadus verified one account as Snoop Dogg and another as Snoop Lion.
ThataАЩs some impressive cred, but thereaАЩs one particular artist out there theyaАЩre still chasing. aАЬKanye is our white whale,aАЭ Moghadam admits.
And thataАЩs where the investment could help. Says Lehmann, aАЬItaАЩs just a matter of time before the product gets compelling enough in terms of the features that KanyeaАЩs going to get involved.aАЭ Meanwhile, Nicole Otero, the employee whose job it is to get artists on board, thinks peer pressure could do the trick. SheaАЩs working on getting WestaАЩs GOOD Music buddy Pusha T signed up soon, perhaps as early as this week. aАЬAnd we already have 2Chainz signed up,aАЭ she says. aАЬSo, when you think about it, weaАЩre just getting closer and closer to Kanye.aАЭ
aАЬBut it can be difficult,aАЭ Otero says of the process of getting the rap world involved. aАЬSome labels are pretty archaic and arenaАЩt receptive to these new possibilities. But I have a few allies who are just amazing, people who think outside the box. Def Jam [where Kanye is signed] is pretty down with us. TheyaАЩre into looking for creative methods of promoting their artists, and they understand the value of people searching lyrics.aАЭ

Or searching anything. These days, the site has been widening its scope. aАЬHip-hop is really the cutting edge of the culture,aАЭ Horowitz says. aАЬAnd the people who are on the site, particularly the scholars, are at the cutting edge themselves. So whether theyaАЩre into law or literature or poetry, they tend to have a real affinity with rap.aАЭ This leads to contributors posting slang-y explanations of, say, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (annotated by Stanford Law professor Mark Lemley), or the iTunes Terms of Service, or the presidential debates.
Eventually, the goal is for non-rap entries to live on a number of new verticals, such as StereoIQ (for indie-rock lyrics), Bible Genius (check out the lyrics to aАЬGenesis Chapter 1aАЭ by Moses), and Poetry Brain (William Carlos Williams and The Great Gatsby are already up). These spinoffs will be found on either the main Rap Genius site or at separate URLs aАФ they guys are still debating.
aАЬI feel like RapGenius is about to enter puberty,aАЭ Zechory says. aАЬThere are all these sorts of new and funky things we want to try and figure out. Rap Genius is going to be saying to itself, What are all these changes happening to my body?aАЭ
Of all the new ventures, Moghadam aАФ who says he sometimes writes his contributors letters of recommendation to schools like Harvard Law School aАФ seems most excited about sinking money into Law Genius, which already claims Plessy v. Ferguson as one of its first annotated cases. aАЬ[Law Genius entries] are mainly going to come from our hired sources because weaАЩd want everything to be vetted,aАЭ he says. aАЬSo at first, people at law firms can go and use it and then go pretend they used Lexis-Nexis. And then eventually we want to compete with Lexis-Nexis and QuestLaw. Then weaАЩll probably go premium. Charge every single Am Law 200 firm like 50k or 100k a year for the premium version, which will be amazing. Because Lexis-Nexis and Questlaw are saАФ, and I know that if we have the staff they have aАФ well, they donaАЩt even have good staffs. We could get together a better legal staff.aАЭ
Think thataАЩs bold? If they have their way, the entire Internet will ultimately be Rap GeniusaАЩ playground. aАЬTomaАЩs working on a browser tool,aАЭ Moghadam says. aАЬSo with anything youaАЩre reading on the web, you can instantly highlight any line, click the explain button, and it becomes memorialized somewhere on our site.aАЭ
All this from three guys who still spend all-nighters dissecting Drake albums. But despite their confidence (they already have a skit planned for when they ring the opening bell), sometimes the skeptics do get to them. When a writer remarked in the Wall Street Journal, aАЬI doubt that the next Facebook will spring from a website quoting hip-hop lyrics,aАЭ an irked Moghadam sent the article to none other than Mark Zuckerberg (via Facebook, natch).
Pulling up the message thread on his laptop, he showed me ZuckerbergaАЩs supportive response: aАЬNobody thought we could build what we have starting from a college site, either.aАЭ
Says Moghadam, aАЬI almost saАФ and paАФed myself.aАЭ No annotation needed there.