Infographic Reflection

The idea behind this infographic is that the independent label at one point represented a specific identity and sprang out of a local scene, but that technological change has made it possible to have that same shared identity across a broad geographic range. Rhymesayers, for example, built a sound and identity around the Twin Cities. Today, they work with acts in California and New York as well. Mello Music Group was born entirely out of the possibility of making music remotely, rather than out of a central studio. It's founder continues to be based out of Tucson, but key players and musicians work as far away as DC. There are multiple ways that this change has been occurring in hip hop, as the ways listeners encounter new music and build community around it are less and less centered on a local scene. What I wanted to represent was the way that hip hop has begun to develop a national or non-geographic underground scene.

A map seemed the most appropriate way to show this dynamic, since it represents things spatially. Mapping labels and artists seemed like the most intuitive way to show this in a map-like form, since labels are geographically located. That does reveal the limitation of this approach, however. A lot of fans are discovering new music through digital mediums. My initial exposure to hip-hop actually came through browsing YouTube, and jumping from one suggested video to another. The artists I discovered through this approach were often on different labels. I remember I was bounced from The Roots to Living Legends, then to Atmosphere and Aesop Rock. Instead, they were associated by being posted by the same uploader, who wanted to share the music they liked, and by the way the algorithm responded to overall listening trends. Instead of being tied together by the label, this sense of community was tied together by a set of values about hip-hop, whether that be expressed as “realness” or “consciousness” or a common hatred of Drake, and by a particular sound, like trap or jazz-hop.

As far as data, there are probably over one hundred labels or promotions that aren’t part of the three major labels in the music industry. I chose those that I knew personally through my own music. There was an aspect of rolling the dice involved, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that older labels, like Rhymesayers, did in fact spread out geographically, even as they’ve remained pretty steady in terms of size or sales, while the newer groups like Mello Music showed a greater spread from the start. Picking out artists to represent the label was also really tricky. In the independent scene, musicians can be very nomadic. I tried to use my best judgement to determine which artists could be identified as being an established part of the label family, but the result is selective, rather than comprehensive.