The Windy City Hip Hop Project

“There’s no one-to-one interaction anymore,” said Nando Calrissian, the DJ-turned-vice president of the Bassment, one of Chicago’s leading hip-hop clothing boutiques. “The only one-to-one interaction is between your fingers and your phone.”

As Americans have rapidly adopted digital communication methods like text messaging and online social networking, some people have bemoaned what they perceive as the resulting decline in face-to-face contact and the growing aversion to even phone conversations.

For years, discussions about the Internet’s impact on our relationships have stressed both its positive and negative effects. The benefit of increased communication with physically distant but like-minded individuals is tempered by the troubling decrease in interactions between neighbors and community members.

Independent musicians were one of the groups initially expected to benefit most from the Internet’s growth and leveling of the musical playing field. Niche artists with less mainstream appeal who had forever occupied the historically unmarketable Long Tail of the probability distribution could finally be monetized online.

Personal artist websites, blogs and file-sharing programs afforded listeners a much larger musical selection by removing cost and discovery barriers that had previously prevented widespread transmission when music was strictly a tangible good.

But what originally seemed a godsend for independent artists has had unanticipated negative effects, particularly for hip-hop artists. Aspiring rappers, who frequently hail from low-income, minority communities, have historically relied on passing out flyers and face-to-face CD or casette transactions to promote their music.

With the rise of the Internet, some performers lament that the personal connection between artist and fan has actually diminished, leading to a problematic disconnect and increased musical isolation.

“You shouldn’t ever let go of that [personal connection] aspect of it,” said Esohel, an emcee on Chicago’s North Side who admits he now distributes fewer promotional flyers than he once did. “You gotta make yourself familiar with the people that are actually going out to support live music because when your live show comes around, you’re gonna expect people to be there, not U-Streaming at home.”

Although the ability to connect with hundreds or even thousands of fans at the click of a button through social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter can lend the appearance of having developed a large, devoted fan base, online connections are ephemeral.

“Anyone can click, but who comes out to support?” asked hip-hop promoter Jordan “Juice” Ruiz, referring to fickle fans who R.S.V.P for events via Facebook, but don’t show up.

Hip-hop blogger Anumbus Rah agreed.

“You got a lot of people that false flag,” he said. “I’ve seen it happen on Facebook all the time. You got 30, 40, 50 people saying, ‘I’m gonna be at the show,’ and then when the show comes around, only five of them actually show up.”

The internet has also spelled the end of mom and pop record shops that sold music by local artists.

Besides losing a one-stop shop for local music fans, the demise of these independent shops has also meant the absence of the stores’ knowledgeable owners and staff who could recommend the music of talented, but previously unknown artists to fans.

“Back then, the customer knew where to go, where to find certain music,” Esohel said. “There are a lot of people that always ask, ‘Where can I get your music?’ and it’s hard to say. You kind of just redirect them back into the internet world. It kind of loses that personal touch.”

Esohel said he remembers traveling to different mom and pop shops as a teenager with his brother, a popular Chicago DJ, to distribute thousands of mixtapes.

“We hit up every little mom and pop shop you could think of throughout the city,” he recalls. “We even would spread base to Wisconsin. We were going to Waukegan, East Chicago, Gary, Indiana. We were out there, driving, spending money on gas when gas wasn’t expensive.”

But around the turn of the century, as music file-sharing on the Internet exploded, independent stores started folding. Artists were greeted by shuttered doors and unable to collect money from CD sales after making long-distance CD distribution trips because long-time purchasers had closed shop.

Esohel blames the demise of the independent stores on the increasing ease of do-it-yourself technology – ironically, the same trend that has allowed artists to record their music more cheaply and independently, but while maintaining sound quality.

“[Mom and pop shops] died out after people were able to access their own CDs and CD burners,” he explained. “It just takes one person to buy a CD and the next person to copy it, burn it. The rise of music digitally kind of ruined the local stores.

“If you’ve got a CD store where you’ve left some CDs on consignment for $7, they’re selling them for 14, 15 bucks each,” he continued. “But if you also sold that CD to somebody on the street and they have 10 people that live in the area of that mom and pop shop where they would normally get it from, but this person goes and burns it for them for free or for 5 bucks a piece, then that store’s lost 10 times $14, $15.”

Some stores, like the Bassment in Wicker Park which originally sold music, were able to adapt.

“Throughout the years, as technology did its thing, CD sales haven’t been what they used to be,” explained Shabazz, who opened the Bassment in 2002. “So, we basically adapted to our environment and turned the store into a lifestyle store.”

Most of the stores could not adjust, however, and disappeared.

“It’s hard to name more stores [that survived],” Esohel said. “You kind of have to evolve, and as you see, those stores have evolved by carrying apparel and catering to the boutique clothing crowd.”

The Internet’s splintering of the local hip-hop scene has only been exacerbated by the “no hip-hop” policy held by many Chicago club owners. Owners have traditionally been averse to welcoming the genre into their venues because of liability concerns due to the perception that hip-hop shows invite fights and gang violence.

While Rah, founder of popular Chicago hip-hop blog “The Guttahouse,” acknowledges that some rap acts can attract an unwelcome element, he believes club owners incorrectly lump all hip-hop music and its fans together.

“Not every artist carries the same type of fan base, because not all the types of music sound the same,” he said. “But because a lot of the club owners on the South and West Side can’t tell the difference because they don’t even listen to the Chicago music, they don’t want to risk the liability.”

As a result, many of the city’s top hip hop spots are in the North Side, divorced from the demographic that traditionally listens to the music.

“The North Side was more willing to take those risks because they know they’re more protected,” Rah explained. “They know if something happens on the North Side, police are going to be there quicker.”

It also diminishes the likelihood that fans from the minority-heavy far South and West Sides even make it to shows since transportation from those areas can be grueling and expensive. That is, if fans from those parts of the city are even aware of the performances.

“Since these clubs are not advertised broad-based throughout the city, a lot of South Siders and West Siders aren’t even aware of these clubs’ existence, and if they are aware of them, they aren’t aware of the hip-hop nights at these clubs,” Rah said. “The RedEye does not cover it.

“A lot of the times I learn about the sets that I go to and cover on my site based on the artists,” he continued. “I very seldom hear about any of these parties or these performances from fans.”

All of this harkens back to the splintered quality of the hip-hop scene in Chicago. Not only are artists isolated from fans, but fans are isolated from other fans.

Fans come in homogenous crews to hear the artists they know, but are seldom in touch with people who can introduce them to new artists.

“It is really segregated. I see the same people at every single show,” Rah said. “Some of the people I saw at Abbey Pub are the same people that I would see at Tini Martini, which would be the same people you would see at the Bassment. Because they follow certain artists.”

Instead of the Internet opening up Chicago’s local hip-hop artists to more fans and more exposure, the trend seems to be moving in the opposite direction.

There are more independent rappers making music today than ever before, but a smaller percentage, it seems, are having an impact.

For many artists, the promise that the Internet once offered has turned to despair, as the oversaturated market and impersonal means of distribution the Internet allowed to flourish has diluted the artists’ message and further fragmented Chicago’s hip-hop scene.