A new iPhone app from XXL does much more than bring the magazine to your iPhone. For hip-hop heads out there, the free app is a must for keeping up with news, music, information. This app takes it to the next level, though. Instead of just bringing you the news, a feature called Ready or Not could help you make the news.
The XXL app packs a News Reader with 24/7 coverage of interviews, blogs, and more. Tweets Is Watching, so the app makes sure you catch all the Twitter updates from your favorite rappers. The Good Life brings you the “kicks, fashion and lifestyle” that drive hip-hop culture. Trivia lets you test your hip-hop might against the XXL experts.
Taking things into the next dimension, Where They At allows you to track down your peeps via GPS, whether they’re at an industry function or kicking it on the block. Ready Or Not is where things get interesting:
A freestyle function, which allows you to record a freestyle and send it directly to XXLMag.com for placement and viewer rating. Your 30-second long freestyle will get posted on the XXLMag.com site for the public to listen to and review.
The release of the app coincides with XXL‘s 2011 Freshman Class, a feature of the magazine that identifies the up-and-comers of the year. This year features Yelawolf, Mac Miller, Cyhi The Prynce, Kendrick Lamar, Diggy Simmons, Lil Twist, Lil B, Fred the Godson, Meek Mill, Big Krit and YG.
More and more we are seeing the music industry reach out to unknown artists via the web. ThisIs50.com recently leveraged Ning’s Soundcloud integration to give artists a chance to be feature on the site. SignMeTo is a social network created by Roadrunner Records that helps bands get signed by the label.
The real question is, now that the gate keepers are gone, do artists really need to get signed to succeed? Even if the answer is “no,” apps and other services like this will at least get an unknown artist some exposure. What do you think? Grab the free app from Apple’s App Store and show us what you got.
via Mashable