Is Genius and the art of annotation starting to come of age? (original) (raw)

The annotations site Rap Genius was founded in 2009, but it came to prominence three years later, when it received $15m in venture capital funding. The founders of the Brooklyn-based site, awash in cash, rented a Malibu beach house, where they hung out with their favorite rappers and passed a volcano vaporizer.

But the party threatened to end early. The site was widely disparaged by rap critics and hip-hop heads. Its Wikipedia-style approach – anyone can contribute – led to plenty of crude, racist annotations, and leaked conversations between editors seemed to showcase a culture of insensitivity. Dallas Penn, formerly of the Combat Jack podcast, called the crew “cultural carpetbaggers”.

Last year one of the site’s co-founders, Mahbod Moghadam, resigned, following his annotations of the UC Santa Barbara shooter’s manifesto, which he called “beautifully written”, and speculated that the shooter’s sister must be “smokin’ hot”. Now known as Genius, the site has branched off into numerous sub-sites, covering subjects as varied as literature and film. At the beginning of this year, Genius seemed to pull off a coup, hiring music critic Sasha Frere-Jones from the New Yorker, but he resigned shortly thereafter, and joined the Los Angeles Times as culture editor.

But the site this week announced another significant hire, Brendan Frederick, formerly of Complex, who joins other respected hip-hop journalists including Rob Markman (from MTV News), and John Kennedy, formerly of Vibe. From a personnel perspective, Genius seems to have gotten over the hump. And despite its criticism, along the way it has become an indispensable hip-hop resource.

For starters, many MCs love it. Everyone from Eminem to Kendrick Lamar and Nas (an investor in the company) has dedicated countless hours to explaining their songs; in this video, Ice Cube seems prepared to scoff at the annotations, but ends up agreeing with most of the contributors’ assessments. Really, it’s not surprising that rappers dig the format, considering the time they tend to spend packing multiple meanings, veiled references and double entendres into their rhymes. Jay-Z published a whole book in 2010, Decoded, dedicated to explaining his lyrics, but nowadays to do as much a rapper just has to log in.

The site’s critics don’t like the idea of a bunch of snickering suburban white kids dubiously attempting to explain rap culture. And it’s true that, as with any crowdsourced operation, you’re going to find some garbage on the site. But as Genius has grown it’s pulled in a critical mass of savvy users who, employing a series of checks, balances and upvotes, are able to do timely, increasingly useful work.

March’s release of Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly was a watershed moment for the site. Within hours, its lyrics were posted; this is no small thing, especially to those of us used to wading through the crappy, pop-up-heavy lyric sites that have existed practically since the internet began. Quickly, Butterfly interpretations began springing up, growing more thorough each day, to the point where there’s probably now more written about the album on Genius than any other official criticism site. Novelist Michael Chabon was among the annotators opining about the potency of Lamar’s lyrics on The Blacker the Berry. And Genius tends to have information that sites like, say, Pitchfork, lack: listings of songs’ and albums’ producers and songwriters. When it comes to hip-hop, Genius is more thorough and user-friendly than comparable resources like, say, All Music.

“Moghadam is illustrating perfectly the limitations of Rap Genius: wanting to annotate the world is fine, but the site has yet to prove it can add anything substantive to the wider conversation,” wrote Gawker last year, at the time of the co-founder’s scandal.

The critique references Genius’ goal to “annotate the world”. Indeed, that doesn’t seem likely to happen soon, as many of their verticals don’t see a lot action, including history and news. The music categories beyond rap, however, are well trafficked and draw big names. Selena Gomez verified the lyrics on her new album, and the hot Broadway musical Hamilton has been thoroughly analyzed.

But there’s little doubt in my mind that their rap annotations have helped many newcomers appreciate and understand hip-hop in a way they couldn’t otherwise. Take Earl Sweatshirt’s latest, I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside. Without context, that album is difficult to process, but following along on Genius while you listen quickly brings you up to speed on the artist’s lineage, alienated childhood, sudden fame, and tragedy that pepper his oft-autobiographical lyrics.

Genius is an excellent resource for newcomers, but it also enriches hip-hop appreciation for those who follow the genre closely. In the end, it’s similar to Wikipedia – easy to find flaws with and sometimes inaccurate. But you’re a liar if you say you don’t use Wikipedia; and if you’re a rap fan who doesn’t consult Genius, you’re probably missing out.