In Hip-Hop news and journalism, social media is the main outlet for getting the message out to the masses. One example of this is the yearly XXL Freshman Class list. Although officially announced through the magazine’s website, the link is instantly tweeted out with a few of the names on the list.

The magazine also frequently uses twitter to share its newest interviews and breaking news. They aren’t the only ones to do this though. Another popular news outlet for Hip-Hop and popular culture, HotNewHipHop, also takes to twitter to drop its newest stories and share new music videos.

https://twitter.com/HotNewHipHop/status/1056841823161868289?s=20

One of Hip-Hop’s most iconic radio stations, New York’s Hot 97, even uses twitter to get its platform out. However, Twitter isn’t the only network that Hip-Hop journalists use to receive and publish information. Instagram is also a very big contributor to the breaking news of the Hip-Hop community. This is partially due to the popularity of the Instagram live feature. Many Hip-Hop artists will go on Instagram live to announce news about their music, to follow up on public events, and even possible altercations with other artists. One example of this is with the artist Desiigner. Mostly known for his hit song “Panda”, which has just south of half a billion plays on YouTube, Desiigner took to Instagram live to officially release his song “Outlet” back in 2017.

In recent weeks, no song has gotten more hype and build up around it than Kodak Black’s new song which features Travis Scott and Offset from Migos. First, a video was released that showed Kodak and Travis dancing with some other people to a beat in the studio. It quickly became a viral meme and gained a lot of popularity.

After the popularity of the snipet of the song and beat, Kodak took to Instagram to release a longer video of the beat and him dancing. This made the song even more popular, weeks before its release, and even before anyone knew what the lyrics would sound like. Many Hip-Hop journalists used these video clips to report and investigate who might be on the song and when the song might potentially make its debut.

The social network blog that is probably most well known in the Hip-Hop community is WorldStarHipHop. Started in 2005, the site regularly has fights, music videos, and other youth related content daily. In 2012, BET voted WorldStar as the top Hip-Hop and urban culture website, for the third year in a row.

With social networks growing by the day, and ever connecting our world, it is only right that Hip-Hop journalists are utilizing them to spread Hip-Hop videos, news stories, and tragedies to all corners of the globe.