Read This: An Oral History of the ‘Black Internet Gold Rush’
Ellis Island rented out for a private party. A trip to Las Vegas to buy a dozen Prada bags. HTML.
In a new feature from OneZero’s sibling publication LEVEL, Aliya S. King chronicles how the dot-com boom gave rise to Urban Box Office, 360HipHop, and Volume, a group of hip-hop and “urban” entertainment sites that assembled the industries’ top talent and gave them a blank check.
But within 18 months, it was all gone. Mismanagement, the death of George Jackson, and terrible tech support led the sites to be shuttered or scrapped before launch.
Many of the writers and editors have stayed in media, going on to lead sites like Vibe, The Source, and LEVEL itself. They recount to King in this oral history just what happened in those 18 months—and why Rudy Giuliani isn’t hip-hop.
