Hip Hop Headquarters : Submit to Hip Hop Blogs 101

Submit to Hip Hop Blogs the Right Way!

TripleHQ had an older version of how to submit to hip hop blogs dated back in 2015. So many things have changed with technology and within the industry that we felt it is only right to provide a NEW submission strategy for artists trying to get on blogs as well as newbie managers and publicists who are trying to pitch their clients. Okay so here we go!

Submit to Hip Hop Blogs 101

1. Make sure your title is to the point. Artist name and track title (you can add the producer as well). Absolutely NO CAPS whatsoever. Capitalizing everything in your subject line and body only gets you the attention of getting deleted. An example would be the following:

Awesomenezz - The Dopest Song Ever (Prod. by TripleHQ)

2. Insert the artwork into the email. The reason for this is majority of you will use a third party site like Soundcloud which does not allow bloggers like us to click and save the image. So now we have to spend another 5-10 minutes on google tracking down your artwork which most of the time will be a horrible size. Btw..your artwork should be 500x500. Nothing more nothing less. Reason? anything over this size is ginormous and will only slow the website's server down on loading the image. (So then we have to spend 5 more minutes resizing your image). Anything less makes social media sharing a struggle as sites like facebook cannot pull the image perfectly. Also please make sure your artwork is professional, we don't need your snapchat selfie of you in the mirror of your bathroom. Please take time to hire a professional graphic designer to create a vision for your music. If you're on a budget, then shop around. I know designers that are dope that charge $40 or less...if you don't have that, you should wait and save up before releasing it.

3. Provide a short description of what you are submitting. And don't do it in 1st person. (No: "This is my song and Im dope". Speak in third person. ie: Hip Hop recording artist "insert cool rapper name here" just released his new single." blah blah blah. Remember you are representing yourself and this email should be a press release. You want to sound as professional as you possibly could be. On the other hand, if you are directing your email specifically to a website for say..a premiere..it is okay to open up the email introducing yourself then provide the write up afterwards. Your write up should be a minimum of 300 words. If you cannot provide the minimum for the single description, try to blend in your biography to give the bloggers more to work with.

4. Provide the link AND the embed code to your single. (Soundcloud, Audiomack, Datpiff, Livemixtapes, Youtube, Bandcamp etc...do BOTH) Do NOT attach an MP3! The reason why you ask? Because not all sites are via wordpress. Wordpress bloggers are able to drop your link in the post and it will generate the player for them. Other hosting sites like blogger will not allow this so they need the embed code for faster access. If you don't know where to find your embed code it usually is under the "share" section of your music or video.

5. Let them know all of your social media information. Give the sites AS MUCH information you have so they can spend more time writing about you. For example, if you have a website (which is AWESOME info) place that in your email. Sites like ours love to research more information and reading an artist's biography to help us write more to show our readers where you're from, your past work, and also what you're working on. We also love to tag you on all social media platforms ie: twitter, facebook, tumblr, instagram to let everyone who doesn't use all of them know about you. There are millions of readers who may only use facebook and not twitter and vice versa. So keep that in mind.

6. BCC them contacts!! I cannot say this enough. Blind Carbon Copy is the first step to making sure a blog reads your email. The moment they click on it and see hundreds of emails attached that were exposed they will delete you instantly. If you don't bcc your contacts you expose every contact that you have to others included in the email which allows everyone to copy those emails and spam them. It's rude and we hate it...

7. Don't Cry Saying "Yall Posted Me Before!" Just because a website posted your music before only means that you did something right the first time. Maybe this time your music was terrible or your artwork as awful because you rushed into trying to release something again. I cannot stress how important it is for you to take your time when releasing music. Your music should not be a race, it should be a marathon. Everything that you put out should be the best of you. Also don't be afraid to request honest feedback from the blogs too and take it as constructive criticism. These blogs were created to support artists like you, but do remember they don't owe you anything and there are thousands of other artists that are learning how to submit correctly.

8. Try to seek a premiere first. Nothing fluffs our blog feathers more than seeing a subject title asking for a premiere. Try to connect with a specific blog and build a relationship so that they know every time you release something they will get it first. Don't be a blog rapper thot. Meaning you stole 100 emails even though you bcc'ed you sent it to everyone at the same time for a release. Let it premiere first on a specific site that you ONLY emailed first. Once they post the premiere you can then email everyone else letting them know where it premiered and they are welcome to post it on their sites if they have time.

9. Kill Your Ego With a Mortal Kombat Fatality. Don't start off your email saying how you got 20k+ plays/views on your soundcloud or youtube video. Trust me, we bloggers know when you paid for views or plays. You got 20 followers on Soundcloud, no write up, no comments, no reposts, no likes but got 20K+ plays???

10. Publicist & Managers Focus on your Client. We see so many emails daily where the publicist or manager will spend a good two paragraphs telling us about them before they tell us about the client they are submitting. We don't care about your credentials; please hurry and get to the point. The email is not about you, we don't care who you worked with before, it doesn't help get your client posted faster. And for christ sake why are you giving us YOUR social media links and not theirs!?? Learn how to create a signature on your email so that all of your information shows up there instead of in the body of your submission. Here is mine for example:

See how everything is perfectly placed in my signature? That is all the information needed for any site reading a submission on a client to see what I do and where I work. None of this information should be placed in the body of your email.

Thats the gist of it. All that extra stuff yall doing is well..EXTRA. You need to focus on the main reason why you're submitting. Dont send them 5 to 10 different links to all your past work. It just gets confusing. We don't need a full timeline of where you have been posted before either. No need to attach anything...everything should be IN the email. If you have a website or a presskit make sure to link it in the email. Remember give the blogs the most information you have on YOU as an artist and more specifically the art you are submitting to them.

So with that said...let us make hip hop great again

If you still have questions or concerns you are welcome to follow me on Twitter @Awesomenezz but on everything that is holy..please don't tweet me your music and don't seek me out on Facebook to only add me as a friend to message me your music. Same goes with any other social media site. I hope you get more blog posts in 2017.