Wow, our first full year in this blogosphere…that was quick!

First and foremost I can’t thank you (readers) enough for checking word is bond on the regular…if it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be anywhere.

We’ve been blessed throughout this year, and have done a series of steps that allowed us to be in a real nice space in this underground scene.

Please allow me to let me take a few moments to write down a bit of the story that got us to this point…

A year ago, when I first created WIB, it was called J’s Music Inc. LOL…Not the best name, but It was just myself, posting whatever I could find that I thought was dope.

A few weeks later, Ben (~peacelove) a good friend and mentor on all things hip hop, accepted to join me on the blog. Straight away, we started brainstorming on what direction to take the blog and what needed changing. A name change was in order immediately, as it was no longer just J’s Music.

Continue Reading “WIB The Story So Far…” After The Jump…

Cont…

After many ideas Ben came up with the name Word Is Bond. Being a hip hop blog, trying to keep it real to the roots, the phrase that came to prominence in the mid 80s to early 90s and encapsulated the very essence of this culture was, we felt, perfect as a title, Word Is Bond. A defining moment for us, as “word is bond” has been almost forgotten since the 90’s.

A couple of months later, a brother called Bob42jh, hit us up on twitter, with very kind words on what we were doing. Before then I didn’t know about his super successful youtube channel so I had a look, and the more I listened to his submissions, the more I was like “Danm, would be so dope to have this brother on board” so I made the proposal, and to my surprise Bob accepted.

Things started to really take off from then on. People where digging more and more the music we where posting on the daily. Especially the compilations that Bob and Ben where churning out.

About 5 months in, Quillis, Jordan & Gerald, joined us pretty much at the same time to do reviews, 3 brothers blessed with the gift of the word. Our take on Album Reviews was that they had to be as honest as possible, reviews from the people for the people. Soon after all there reviews started receiving praises from the artists and record labels, both on content & presentation. This was another important and big step for us.

3 months ago, Bob & I got talking and got to the conclusion that we needed more people, as the amount of work we were doing was becoming a bit overwhelming…so we started hunting for people, with similar taste, and found Heraldo (H) & Patrick (Paddy).

Heraldo is a student journalist, real laid back, cool brother, with loads of knowledge in hip hop, both film & music. Heraldo already had a blog, and his gift for words and good music was very evident. Once we got working, we realised that Heraldo was in perfect sync with us, and all of us where super happy to having him on board for brainstorming new ideas to take the blog forward.

Patrick was in the same vain as Bob, as he was already an established underground blogger, very known for his interviews, with loads of connections in this underground world. It was actually a surprise when he reached out to us. He liked what we were doing and wanted to join an upcoming team of talented people.

Both once again brought a lot to the table, Heraldo is in charge of News,  Events & Discussions, and Patrick is doing Audio Interviews , Food 4 Thought & anything in between.

Today we are adding 4 new members to the WIB Fam as we announce the grand opening of the WIB Forums later on today, and we would like to welcome:

Kuroisoul & Lorcan as Forum Administrators & Hardeep & Rhino as Forum moderators…

Kuroisoul is no stranger to the readers of WIB, he was featured on the Underground Chronicles about 3 months ago, not only is he a producer extraordinaire, he is also very gifted with words. Also he has some experience moderating and administrating forums and the same goes for Lorcan.

You guys (the readers) are going to be in great hands with these 4 brothers on the Forum boards, I can’t wait to join the dicussion and news.

Conclusion…

Who would have thought that a year later we would be a team of 11 strong!?

We have achieved a whole lot in a year, and I hope our next year is a productive as this one.

Next year will be our “sophomore” year, so I really hope we can keep things moving and get WIB even bigger and better, just like any good artist, our aim is to make our second year even better than the first.

I started WIB…thinking that maybe I/we could get some people listening to some dope underground music, but I never thought that a year in, we would be in this position. It humbles me to no end.

I want to thank everybody that decided to join me or has been involved in this crazy ride:

@~Peacelove: Thanks for the Inspiration & knowledge you gave me homie, if it wasn’t for you WIB would have never happened.

@Bob42jh: I can’t thank you enough for all the hard work, ideas and to always keep me in my toes to deliver the best content out there. Thanks for the compilations and for representing and believing on WIB from the beginning. I really hope we can keep working on this for many years to come.

@Heraldo: Thanks for being such a dope brother, and to get going so quick man, it’s difficult to find people like you, real glad and proud to have you on board.

@Patrick: Thanks for all the posts and all the ninja moves you been making to get us all the audio interviews and for the excellent ideas and writing of Foor 4 Tought.

@Jordan: Thanks for all the reviews brother, specially of late, the artists, labels & readers love them, big or small they are always quality.

@Quillis: Thanks for being so reliable Q, you deliver dope reviews fast and whenever we required them the most and I can’t thank you enough for that.

@Gerald: I know you busy at the moment brother, but just wanted to say thank you for the reviews you made for us, and that you’re the most gifted with words 17 year old I’ve seen, you going to go places with your writing skills brother. Hope to see you soon.

A special thanks to Kevin Nottingham, for helping us so much to get in to this blogging game, and for being a fan of the content published on here.

Thanks to all the artists that have been close to us, and have contributed greatly to our dope content, special thanks to H.W, Last Emperor, Rozewood, Kuroisoul, Awon, Twist (from Civil Mics), K-Murdock and last but not least Random.

And of course It’s all thanks to all of you (readers), that we’ve achieved this much in such a short time span, and as long as you stick with us, we promise that we’ll keep doing our best to ALWAYS deliver the best underground hip hop music, in the most accessible way possible. We genuinely want to uplift these underground artists that we all believe deserve more consideration and praise, and that’s what we strive for, everyday, from the completely unknown act, to the more veteran acts.

We are just starting ya’ll we have many more ideas to put in to practice…stick around this it’s going to get much better.

Word Is Bond!

Jose

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