-What's the metaverse and what does it have to do with hip-hop?

Whether you think the metaverse is a lame fad or the next evolution of the internet, one thing we do know is that it's here.

And it's in a highly experimental stage, especially for hip-hop.

You might think hip-hop and the metaverse are like oil and vinegar or rap and country music, but they have more in common than you think.

More and more hip-hop artists and entrepreneurs are exploring the metaverse and making a huge impact.

If it's the next frontier, then we're going intergalactic.

My name is Taj Frazier and welcome to "Hip-Hop and the Metaverse."

For our first stop, let's drop into the South Los Angeles community of Leimert Park, a historical epicenter for Black arts and culture.

Leimert Park has always been an incubator for emerging technology and music and home to one of the longest running hip-hop cyphers and collectors.

A hip-hop cypher is when rappers and MCs come together to share their rhymes and build community.

Let's meet with the people that created one of the first VR hip-hop cyphers of its kind.

♪ This here is a separation ♪ ♪ Discipline, dedication.

I set the bar up again ♪ ♪ I exceeded the expectation, headed into ♪♪ -Cyphers are so important in the hip-hop culture because for one, they help diversify artists.

-A cypher is kind of like a hip-hop battle.

-It's a real prominent highlight for artists to showcase their lyricism.

-We were trying to figure out where to put our cypher in our stage programming before this TEC Leimert Conference.

I did a little research, hadn't seen anything like it, so let's see if we can get the cypher into VR and teamed up with Adrian and their team.

-We're like, maybe we marry them together.

Maybe we put it in a subway and people can go around and look at this prerecorded for live hologram, but at the same time, experience this dope cypher.

-We want to introduce our community to these different forms of technology consistently in different ways so that they can get used to it, understand it, and learn it, and then be able to use it.

-We try to give the opportunity to the artists and the audience to just have fun in this space.

Experience some music, see crazy visuals.

-You may not originally understand what VR is, or you may not have ever been in a headset and you may not like it, but because we're telling you that there's a cypher in this headset, you're just more likely to try.

-They're making it feel like it's a real tech cypher, like I'm believing this.

The way they use like to projectors to really make it feel like they were projecting into the space.

I was like, won.

-Technology should be invisible always.

Technology should only amplify the narrative.

VR is probably the most immersive way to experience the metaverse.

-But let's back up.

This is just one of the many ways the metaverse is getting access by hip-hop creators and communities.

Right now everybody's got a different definition of what the metaverse is and what it could be, especially this guy.

Is it a virtual universe?

Is it decentralized technologies like crypto and NFTs?

Is it VR or AR?

Well, the story of the metaverse goes back longer than you think.

Author Neal Stephenson first coined the term in his book "Snow Crash" back in the early internet days of 1992.

-My definition when I wrote the book was that it was a worldwide communications medium that brought three-dimensional graphics to the masses.

At the time I came up with the idea, 3D graphics was still pretty expensive and hard to use.

It wasn't really accessible to a lot of people.

And what happened that I didn't predict is that games became the dominant way that people interact with 3D graphics.

-Video games like Second Life, Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox have been creating proto-metaverses, You know -- world-building immersive experiences for years.

The way players interact and build their own virtual worlds in these games provides the basis for the future of the metaverse.

During the pandemic lockdowns, the demand for alternate reality, gaming, and interactive experiences skyrocketed.

Folks found themselves connecting through their screens more than ever.

They created new habits, new modes of consumption, and had to cultivate community and their professional lives online.

Hip-hop was a constant part of this transition.

DJ D-Nice threw quarantine DJ sets on Instagram.

Music producers Timbaland and Swizz Beatz hosted online battles between the biggest names in hip-hop and R&B, and then rapper, Travis Scott took it to another level in a metaverse defining moment.

He hosted a virtual concert on Fortnite where over 27.7 million people experienced the event.

Roblox followed suit with artist Lil Nas X's performance, which more than 33 million viewers attended.

And then Megan Thee Stallion toured the Hottieverse.

A virtual show and interactive experience.

-I see a future where artists, this is part of the regiment, even part of their live events.

Being on the metaverse, backstage pre-show, post-show, all that stuff could definitely be part of an artist's workflow.

-The metaverse opens new possibilities for fans to access and interact with artists.

Hip-hop legend and producer, Young Guru joined forces with Adrian Rashad Driscoll and RomeDigs to form Collimation, an immersive experience company at the forefront of hip-hop in the metaverse.

Their first virtual experience was with rapper Rapsody.

-Creating this world for Rapsody with Adrian, we created a sort of mock Brooklyn, sort of playground, basketball court, a place where people could come.

-We had Rapsody standing on top of this big building, performing at her stage.

-We were on the ground and you're looking up at her on rooftop, performing with the backdrop and DJ and those other stuff.

-There's also like, we play basketball in the back.

You had games and we did the first live NFT auction during a concert, right, so you could buy some of the art that we had transformed into graffiti.

-You could literally click on that graffiti and buy art from that artist, opening up so many more revenue streams for the artist, I think is a huge thing.

So there's just so many different things that technology allows us to do.

It shapes and forms what hip-hop is.

-Hip-hop artists have always had a deep engagement and relationship with technology.

Hip-hop was birthed from technological innovation.

[music] -Turntable was probably the most important thing in the foundation of hip-hop as a technological piece, which obviously was technology that was created just to play records, But we manipulated that in a way that it wasn't designed for.

-Artists incorporated drum machines and computer software for beat programming and sampling to reshape and create new styles of sound.

-There wouldn't be this liberation of so many artists in so many different sounds if it wasn't for digital recording and now you have full studios in your laptop.

-Even the means of distributing music shifted throughout the decades.

Hip-hop musicians and entrepreneurs went from selling their mixed tapes on the streets, to harnessing the power of social media to market their work.

For hip-hop, the metaverse could be the next frontier.

-I think hip-hop's role in the metaverse is just to keep everything fresh.

Hip-hop has always been that voice.

-Now the artist themselves are in the center of the circle and the music is one of the things that points you to the artist and the person becomes the thing of interest.

Oh, by the way, I sell music, so here buy this.

-Right now, entering the metaverse comes with high stakes.

Facebook's Meta alone has spent over $10 billion a year on metaverse tech.

And the artists we mentioned earlier are big stars with major labels and huge economic backing.

-So in 2020, the very beginning, we had no capital backing.

I spent thousands of hours doing YouTube tutorials to learn Unity and Unreal, and it was us putting the team together.

-There's also the thing about being an early adapter allows you to see where the space is or where the holes are.

Seeing problems that can arise when we are in it to better know how to design it.

-I think community building is the way to go.

When we started, even in 2020, it wasn't a very equitable or equal space.

And I'm seeing that change.

-To be able to write our own ticket, to tell our own story in that virtual space is just as important as it is in real life.

-As artists in hip-hop, that's all we want is to be free.

We want to be able to express ourselves in an impactful way.

-We have real estate in the metaverse.

We have a voice in the metaverse and it should not be taken lightly just because it's a virtual world.

-So now, you're able to throw a huge party with everybody.

You're able to connect to people all across the world that would never be able to see your -- your art.

It's huge.

-New technologies are arriving every day with the promise to reshape our lives but really it's artists, their communities and culture that make new tech accessible and meaningful.

Hip-hop has always had a foot in the future.

Thanks for watching the first episode of "Hip-Hop and the Metaverse."

Let us know what you thought in the comments.

Would you go to a virtual concert or do you think it's all just hype?

Where do you think this tech is going?

And make sure to subscribe to join us on this virtual journey.