By Dana Oliver
With a black cell phone in hand, Queens-bred rapper Consequence
weaves in and out the backstage halls on the Glow in the Dark Tour.
“Pretty lady alert!” Consequence shouts. “Pretty lady
alert!”
Statuesque females of different races smile and wave coyly
into the camera phone’s lenses before dashing into pockets of entertainers,
moguls, and crews. The energy is hypnotic and your senses are teased into
keeping up because if you blink you might miss Kanye West walking out of his
dressing room or tune out Taz Arnold’s political plug urging you to “vote Obama
way.”
Just a simple click on your computer’s mouse or cell phone’s
keypad instantly takes you to video logs from behind the scenes of one the
year’s most successful tours courteous of ConsTV.
“We only gonna bring you the best,” said Consequence, on his
first video mobile show. “I’mma show ya everything! Everything! Everything!”
And that he does via a new digital media platform known as
Kyte.
Kyte broke into the mobile and online tech worlds in 2006
when its co-founders, Daniel Graf and Erik Abair, introduced web communities to
a program that produce, brand, and distribute content to multiple destinations.
“Our view is that the brand is the destination, and fans
should be able to watch branded content wherever they are,” said Graf, in an
email.
There are four major components that separate Kyte from its
competitors, according to Graf. First, Kyte is not a destination site. It can
be viewed on a custom player with advertisements on the artists’s website, as
well as, message boards like the Ill
Community, social networks like Facebook, blogs, and mobile phones. Second,
with it’s Kyte Mobile Producer for Nokia S60 phones, users can instantly record
and upload content via web camera, digital camera or phone. Third, an embedded chat
component allows fans to communicate with artists in real time. And fourth,
channels are automatically updated whenever new material is produced—a key
feature when an artist’s channel is embedded onto thousands of sites.
Sounds like YouTube? Yes and no. Kyte has attracted the
attention of hip-hop artists such as Consequence because of the vast
possibilities it provides artists to get their shine on—just brighter.
Already a fervent YouTube producer, with his video column
series “Real Men Don’t Cry” where he interviews respected figures in the music
and entertainment industry who offer insight on “making it in the game,”
Consequence was gradually earning an online following. The show was picked up
by OnSmash.com and gained thousands of hits and props flooded the comments
section.
However, it was his January 2008 YouTube video documenting
his triumphant Connect Four win against Jay-Z that “got a gang of attention,”
earning over 300,000 hits on his channel to date. Intimate and raw footage like
this would propel Consequence’s online status on his custom Kyte channel.
His first introduction to Kyte was through combing the
websites of fellow hip-hop artists like 50 Cent. The General of G-Unit’s
channel is featured on “thisis50.com,” as well as, his MySpace and a number of
BlackPlanet fans’ pages earning him over 3 million total views thus far.
Consequence recognized the magnitude of power Kyte possessed in sharing not
only music, but also connecting with fans on a personal level.
After hopping aboard the Glow in the Dark Tour in April,
Gabe Brosbe, Kyte’s business development manager, reached out to Consequence
and officially put him on to Kyte. The rapper joined a community of musicians,
athletes, television and radio stations, bloggers, publications, and companies
making up over 64,000 Kyte channels from around the world, according to Graf.
Capturing the happenings on-stage and backstage of the Tour
for fans to relive the moment or engage for the first time was the perfect
subject for the debut of ConsTV.
“This was the first tour where I’ve gotten some footage, and
on a personal level,” said Consequence. “I remember Russell Simmons’ The Show
Tour and because of the lack of technology, I’ve seen very little footage
floating around.”
Thanks to Kyte, Consequence is able to “capture some of
those special moments” and more exclusives including Mos Def discussing the
last Black Star album, Kanye West celebrating his birthday, Pharrell doing a
dead on impersonation of Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z’s Madison Square Garden
performance of “Jockin’ Jay-Z,” and A Tribe Called Quest in what looks like a
home-made studio spitting a few rhymes.
“Using Kyte, I’m bringing fans into my world and giving my
perspective,” said Consequence. “A lot of people didn’t know me from working
with Kanye, A Tribe Called Quest, and the other circles I move through. ConsTV
really gets it across.”
With 62 shows played on 13,619 websites and over 1 million
total views to date, he’s become quite the online megastar.
Dana L. Oliver is a multimedia journalist and blogger. She
is particularly interested in hip-hop, visual arts, and the representation of
minorities in mass media. Check out her blog, D’Real, at www.danalana.com.
