This is to be primarily a Hip-Hop blog. I’ve been a hip-hop head my entire life, and I’ve gone through all the phases. I’ve run the full spectrum. I listened to Run-DMC and NWA when I was 10 years old, then got way into Bay Area gangster rap when I was in high school. I listened to 2Pac 24/7, and a bunch of local Bay Area artists like Tha Funxsouljaz, Ray Luv, Mac Mall, Spice 1, Brotha Lynch Hung, Totally Insane, and Tha Delinquents. I even started working with Crack or Jack Records, a local Bay Area record label, and it’s around this time that I became good friends with one of the dopest producers in the Bay Area, mister DJ Mark 7.

Then I went off to a small liberal arts college, and it was there that someone someone introduced me to Aceyalone and the Living Legends, and I became quite the little backpack rapper. I suddenly put aside the gangster shit in favor of artists like Atmosphere, Aesop Rock, Ab Rude, and Zion I. Then, I went even further down the hip-hop rabbit hole and became a devoted follower of the Anticon family.

This is all just a little background to let you know that in my 30 years on this earth, I’ve listened to pretty much every flavor of hip-hop you can think of.  From the utterly obscure, to the mainstream… shit you’d hear on street corners or in coffee shops, I’ve soaked it all in.

So I think this qualifies me to join the ranks of over-opinionated hip-hop nerds in the blogosphere. I plan on writing about everything from the hot new joint on the radio to the nerdy laptop DJs trying their hardest to ruin hip-hop (who am I kidding, we all know I’m talking about Girl Talk), and hopefully I will have some friends helping me out.

So… why the name “Hootie Hoo”?  Recently, I broke out my collection of OutKast CDs for the first time in about a decade. I listened to them all in order, and it struck me… I don’t think anyone has ever epitomized what hip-hop SHOULD BE than OutKast. They cover all the bases, from gangsta rap and pimp shit to weird bugged out genre bending almost experimental music… undeniable club bangers to smooth laid-back soul tracks. They aren’t afraid to test the boundries of what people believe hip-hop should be. And I also believe that Outkast has recorded the best hip-hop song recorded in the past 15 years, “Liberation”, which is coincidentally on what is likely the best hip-hop album recorded in the last 15 years, “Aquemini”.

So that’s where I am coming from. Keep it locked and look for some updates in the near future.

One.