What’s new with RapAnalysis.com?

Hey guys! Thought I’d drop back in and give everyone a quick update on the status of this website.

So, it’s obvious that, for the past year, I’ve been devoting my time and attention to projects besides RapAnalysis.com. This is true because, during that time, I was focused on making a career-switch from journalism and music, to software engineering. I decided to change careers because I felt like I had accomplished most of what I set out to do as a journalist. My goals as a journalist were to help rap fans enjoy rap more; to make new rap fans out of people who didn’t like rap; to give back to rappers, after they had given me so much; and to encourage onlookers to see rappers as musicians, rather than “just” celebrities, poets, fashion icons, sex symbols, etc. With the help of all you guys — my readers — I really feel like I accomplished that, whether it was with the Emmy-nominated videos I did for Vox; the 4 books I published; or my weekly newsletter and its 1,100 readers.

To have continued with journalism, such as by trying to become a staff writer somewhere (or maybe a Ph.D student in music), would have forced me to compromise some pretty core principles in my writing. I would have had to write about things that are only ancillary to rappers’ musical abilities, like their tweets; I would have had to give up this website entirely to work on someone else’s; I would have had to talk about music besides rap, like classical or country; I would have had to write listicles — enough said, haha. And — after giving a lot of time and thought to whether or not all of that was worth giving up just to put another company’s name in my Twitter bio — I decided that it wasn’t.

So here I am! A software engineer…but that doesn’t mean that I, or RapAnalysis.com, are going anywhere. The great news is that software engineering gives me the best of both worlds: the time and money to invest in RapAnalysis.com and its readers, as well as the freedom to do whatever I want in my projects. And one of those projects is just…well, you’re going to want to stick around to see it. All I’ll say for now is this:

1. It’s an interactive website geared towards rap fans, that brings you closer than ever to your favorite rappers;
2. I’ve been working on it for over a year now, and it’ll be fully released in mid-2021, with beta testing to start at the end of 2020;
3. It’s encapsulates everything I’ve ever learned in my thousands of hours of listening to your favorite rappers.

So that’s it! I’ll still drop an article on here from time to time, but not as much, and all of that is why. If anyone wants to write an article and get it put on here, please email me at [email protected], and I’d be happy to do so — especially people who are new to, or looking to get into, journalism.

As for everyone else, you know my door is always open @martinconnorrap, or mepc36 at gmail. Any, I would love to hear from you guys too. Honestly, this decision and process has been way more turbulent than I make it seem here, and it still kinda feels like I’ve lost a close friend or family member by stepping away from the site a little. So if anyone wants to hit me up to give me their own perspective on it, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks to all you guys who made this possible, it’s why I know God loves me.

—Martin