Selling music with 2D Barcodes, old school - yes as in rap music

Heard about this through our regular contributor here at Communities Dominate, Steve Epstein. He knows I'm a big fan of rap music so this caught his eye and Steve thought I'd like it. Yes, its about "old school rap" (ie rap music from a time when the rapping was more classically tied to the beat of the rhyme, in a time of Whodinni, Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC etc. New School rap came along in the late 1980s and allowed a more jazz-like experimentation in the rhmes, and not being explicitly tied to the beat.) But thats not what this blog is all about. Here at Communities Dominate we are all about digital convergence, engagement marketing, new media and all sorts of social networking.

This story is about music in digital convergence (and mobile). So we have some rap musicians. They are seeking to utilize cutting edge tech to help sell music. Specifically old school rap is by definition not new music, so they don't have the usual ways to promote music as current chart-topping artists have, such as heavy rotation on MTV and BET, radio play, and visits to the TV shows like Letterman, Saturaday Night Live and Conan to play their songs.

So Rhymelibrary which is an old school rap service, has now introduced Hip Hop QR Codes to help promote old school rap songs that are sold via iTunes. They offer several classic rap songs every day (when I just no visited their site, they featured a tune by De La Soul). Cool. Like we've said many times before, 2D Barcodes (aka QR Codes) are perceived by users as being magical. You don't have to do any typing of a web address, you just point your cameraphone at the 2D barcode, and within a second, the long web address appears on your phone screen, as if by magic.

And as to hip hop? I am very confident that the US hip-hop/rap scene remains one of the most influential aspects of pop culture to influence the youth today and thus the future of consumers. Very nice to see that the rap community is experimenting with 2D barcodes. Lets see how this develops. Thanks Steve!