Zade: Let's start off simple: how are you doing? Is there anything you'd specifically like to tell us about yourself before we get started, where you're from, how you got started on Genius, etc?
Onemanband: I just wanted to do this interview so I could tell you all one thing: I'm vegan.
But on a serious note, some of you probably already know how I found Genius, but for most of you that don't, basically I first came on this site back in late summer of 2012 when Lupe was just about to drop FNL2. What brought me to the site was searching for the lyrics of what was once considered the intro to the album that Lupe had shared with fans before Lasers dropped. I was appalled at the fact that there was a lyrics site that could allow you to view explanations (what annotations used to be called) of specific lyrics, let alone allow you to make your own explanations yourself. So in a nutshell, after discovering this site for the first time, I kept making occasional visits for other songs that I liked until eventually I made an account right after FNL2 dropped so that I could take part in annotating it.
Zade: So given the influx of users these days, relatively you're an OG on the site, having been around for like four years. In that time, Genius has evolved quite significantly, generating a very divisive reaction from the community (e.g. the bagon interface, the penalty box policies, News Genius, etc). What's your stance on the site's current landscape and direction?
Onemanband: I think it's good for right now where we're at, but it's not great. We still have some work to do and we have a little ways to go before we can reach that point where it's ok for us to say “that seems good enough”. A lot has changed since summer of 2014. Some of it has changed in a good way, some of it not so much. During my time on the site I've seen several users sign up, get bored of the forums and then leave. Part of the reason why they leave is because we're overall not a very welcoming community and if we ever want to become a highly populated public forum again, we need to change that.
I'm not an SJW or a feminist, nor do I really care about being politically correct, but whenever I try to help enforce the rules to encourage a more welcoming environment, people treat me as such. People think that we're ruining Genius by enforcing rules that other forums have already been enforcing since the dawn of the internet itself, but on the contrary they're the ones that are making it a much more difficult community to want to be involved in. Personally, I don't really care about offensive language (except for racism, but that's expected on the internet), but that's beside the point. The reason why no one wants anything to do with our forums is because many of us are too hostile most of the time, especially towards those that have different opinions. If we ever want to grow again, then we need to find a way to change that for the better and become a place that everyone feels welcomed to, rather than a place where people with low IQ scores are only referred to as alts/trolls.
Zade: One of your crowning achievements as of late is earning the mediator role, congratulations once again! What do you hope to achieve as a mediator on Genius, and what are your thoughts on the role overall?
Onemanband: Thanks. As I said before, I am hoping to influence a few long overdue changes that need to be made and I think others who have the same role as me should aspire to do the same if they feel their ideas are worth discussing. Not trying to give myself a pat on the back here, but I was one of the first people in GM to suggest reducing the strike limit from 5 to 3 and the staff actually went with it. That just goes to show that I have that influence, but it's not impossible for somebody else to have it too if they put the work in. Once people notice how dedicated you are to something, they listen to you and they take what you have to say seriously. If anybody who is reading this right now is considering becoming a mediator, read up on the duties of the role. If you like what you see and you think it's right for you, message us and we'll set you up with coaching if we decide to go forward.
Zade: Are you coaching anyone to be a mediator currently? If not, are there any contributors in particular at the moment that stand out which you think would be worthy of the role sometime soon in the future?
Onemanband: No and off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone that I would personally recommend for the role at the moment. I was talking with somebody (not sure if he wants his name mentioned or not) over in pm's about becoming a med and he seemed (at least from what I could tell) mostly uninterested in what the role had to offer. In regards to coaching, I'm not sure I'm ready to get into that just yet. Aside from fulfilling my regular duties as a mediator, right now I'm just focused on giving continuous feedback for the things that need to be changed so that more people are less likely to leave once they join.
Zade: So your Debate of the Day series has entered, as you put it, Phase 5, the primary emphasis returning to the realm of music. Now the project itself is centralised around creating interesting topics and putting them up for discussion, but more recently you explained that it also aims to enhance activity in the site's less popular forums, such as Screen Genius and the Music forum. Are there any other long term goals you have for the series, and if not do you have any other ideas for thread series you'd like to see on Genius?
Onemanband: I am planning on ending the series for good sometime next year and starting with something completely new and unique. What that new series is I have not entirely decided on yet, but until then, we still have a little ways to go before reaching that point. Speaking of which, I recently decided on what the theme of Phase 6 will be, so there's that to look forward to. After Phase 5 ends I'll let everyone know what it is, I think a lot of people might find it very interesting.
Zade: Expanding on from that, do you ever worry about discussing an edgy or touchy topic with good intentions and being met with hostility or more controversy than you'd prefer? For instance, with the RG Interventions series, it's not difficult to foresee someone misinterpreting or being unreceptive to insight or advice given, even if the discussion is more holistic and applies to more than one person. Penny for your thoughts?
Onemanband: The whole RG Interventions thing started out as a joke with the Dongerlord thread, I wasn't actually planning on turning it into a series until afterwards. In the case of DOTD, there are a lot of questions that I've been holding on to, but most of them I feel are not good enough for what I'm looking for. It's not that I'm afraid of controversy or hostility, I'm just not sure how well the questions themselves would be received or if most people really would answer them the way I intend them to be answered. The thing that I'm always asking myself when I post a question is “is this something people will actually find interest in and can it create equal arguments on both sides?” I also have some really good questions that I'm holding on to for Phase 6, which I'm pretty excited for.
Zade: Moving on to a front of music, you've expressed your love for Lupe as an artist, but also disdain for his tentativeness. Do you think that such perfectionism in artistry is overly counterproductive or is it excusable if you account for what Lupe's issue might be, this trait of wanting to announce new material so soon? Also, what's your favourite Lupe album?
Onemanband: I sort of feel like a hypocrite for making that thread because I've made the same mistakes too when it comes to announcing things too early and not following up on them. However in Lupe's case, considering the size of his fanbase, it's much more serious. I think if anything, it's better to announce things super late rather than super early. Yeah, some of your fans might hate you for it, but at least you won't be making yourself look like someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
And to answer your other question, my favorite album of his is a toss up between The Cool and T&Y. I think I would go with The Cool, but only by a small amount.
Zade: Staying in the same vein for a moment, Lupe recently announced that he doesn't want the lyrics for his next album DROGAS to be available on Genius, as he feels it's somewhat cheating, sparking a lot of discussion saying whether or not it's in his right to pull such a move. You've already responded to the situation, so to transcend: who overall should have the most control over an artist's material and how it is used, them or their fanbase, and why?
Onemanband: That's why it's such a damn good debate. It even has me on the fence for the most part. At the end of the day, it all depends on how you look at it. Is not allowing people to post lyrics going against freedom of speech? Or can posting these lyrics without the artist's consent be considered plagiarism? At the end of the day, it is his music, but you have to keep in mind what fair use is too so really, there is no clear answer tbh. Like many people, I was both frustrated and confused when he made this announcement, but after reading the tweet that kind of explained his reasoning, I am willing to give Lupe the benefit of the doubt that he's doing this for a reason.
The fact that he didn't react this way towards Genius when T&Y was coming out is strange to me… like why now? To me this must mean that either Drogas is a lot deeper which means Lupe put even more effort into making it and doesn't want his efforts to be wasted, or it may have something to do with the fact that Drogas Light is apparently an album for dumb people and he wants them to be smart enough to figure it out on their own. If that's the case then I can understand why he might look at Genius like a walkthrough for a video game (great an*logy btw). Lupe has always had a certain ambition for his listeners and he still does. He wants us to actually think about what we're hearing rather than read up on what someone else thinks about it. Either way, I am excited for what he has planned.
Zade: Who else are you feeling musically at the moment, and what projects left to come out this year are you most anticipating?
Onemanband: I just now got into Frank Ocean after years of sleeping on his body of work (s/o to the staff for putting me on) and have been playing Channel Orange on repeat for weeks now. I also just got around to hearing David Bowie's Blackstar album and I've been having that on repeat as well, also just heard Rodeo for the first time around a week ago and I really enjoyed it despite not being a huge trap fan. I've been bumping Malibu by Anderson Paak too, love that album. Ocean's new albums are pretty good too, but I haven't listened to them enough to form a legit opinion on them.
As for albums I most excited for, I'll just list those out (no specific order)
RTJ3
Drogas (all 3 albums)
Isaiah Rashad album
Ghostface k**ah + Anderson Paak album
The Roots? (fingers crossed)
Act II (if it ever comes out)
Atrocity Exhibition (just want to hear it out of curiosity)
That's about it for now, if I think of anything else I'll come back and update this list.
Zade: Until mid-last year you were working on a novel, Revelance about a post-apocalyptic dystopia. Is there any chance you'll return to it at any stage? Would you think to transcribe the project on Genius at any point?
Onemanband: I started writing that novel back in July of 2011, but after 2012, I've only been adding a few chapters to it in the span of a year or so. I have the story completely planned out in my head, I know where I want to go with it and how I want it to end, the problem I'm facing right now is finding the right way to properly translate my ideas to paper (or I guess in this case, a computer screen). If you've ever wondered why my Bill O'Reilly reviews threads have a certain storytelling-like narrative to them, it's because that isn't my first time writing something involving dialogue and various character interactions.
The problem is, I'm sort of in a rut at the moment. The same thing happens every year, I get motivated to write again, I post a few chapters, let everyone know that I'm back and then I get overwhelmed and stop. Writing a novel is definitely not easy, especially when you know you're working on something that requires overdue revisions. Because I had little to no experience with writing when I first started working on this novel, the first 9 chapters are in major need of being revised and by revised, I mean basically completely rewritten from top to bottom. If anything the beginning of a story is supposed to be the best part of it, but for mine it's the weakest and that's a huge problem, especially when you're trying to promote it which sadly I've attempted to do so many times already.
The Watpad version of this story was slightly revised before I moved it over from Booksie, which is the website where it was originally written. So to answer your question, I would like to return to it because I really do want to finish it, it's just going to be very difficult and very time consuming given all of the things that I'm going to have to fix. Another thing is, just as I was mentioning about the whole Watpad thing, I don't want to move it over to another site unless it's actually been improved and has a legit reason for being there. I do have the first few chapters up on Genius already, but not all of the chapters that I've written and it might take a while before I get around to doing that. If anything, I'd like to finish it first then go back and make the needed improvements. I'm trying to live by Lemon's “Worse is better” mentality, it's just not always easy to do when you're a perfectionist.
Zade: So moving on, Genius recently introduced the ability for a user to maintain an editor and mediator role simultaneously. There's been a few candidates proposed for the ‘role' already, although there's been a lot of confusion and heavy going discussion over the eligibility people have to be to meet the criteria for the position. What's your take on the matter? Do you think moderation are a little too enthusiastic to see a solid group of mediators and editors with this privilege coming together? Are you aiming to go for the editor role as well yourself?
Onemanband: I'm not going for the editor role unless it's for the sole purpose of becoming a mod later on down the road and I still haven't decided if that role is right for me or not. As for everything else, I don't think we should be handing out the new role so easily and I'm not saying that to disregard the ones who have already earned it, but before we give the roles to people we should be 100% sure that they actually deserve it. People can tend to find less value in things that are given to them than things that they've worked hard for. As we've seen in the past, once the mediator role was introduced and was freely handed out to a select group of people, most of them became inactive because they didn't see what value the role actually had. Will the same situation occur with the ones who just got promoted to dual roles? Probably not, but it's still a lesson to be learned.
Zade: Excuse the generalisation here, but out of all the community projects, announcements, albums reviews and just blatant trolls, what would you say is your favourite thread, either your own and/or someone else's?
There's one particular thread that I am the most proud of and I'm pretty sure most of you already know what it is. As for my favorite threads made by other people, that's kind of a hard choice to make because there's so many good ones.
Zade: Just how much do you miss the old ScopeY? And when you look and look and look around how many ScopeYs do you see?
Onemanband: Here's one.
Zade: Drop some bars?
Onemanband:I didn't have time to write anything new, but here's my most recent verse from "The Purge”:
A lot of nobodies jumping in to reap the benefits
Dissin' us in our sleep while thinking we're gettin' sick of it
You can keep your apologies, my biology's limitless
Viciousness in my veins remains unexplainably endless when
b**hes from Jay's team believe they can proceed to end us with
Whack bars from try hards with elementary temperaments
They're losing self esteem, their future ain't how they envisioned it
Who needs production when the voice in your head is my instrument?
Zade: Thanks for speaking with us! Any closing remarks/shoutouts?
Onemanband: S/o to those of you who just made my 2nd Bill O'Reilly reviews thread go double cla**ic. I never imagined in a million years that a thread I made would get that much support. I have a new one on the way soon and I can't wait to post it. Thank you guys so much.
S/o to the entire M.A.D.D squad
S/o to Metaphors for sending me daily reminders that hentai exists
S/o to Caslon for being perma'd
S/o to Osama Bin Laden for being ded (lel)
S/o to Bill O'Reilly for being dumb enough to warrant this much satirical humor
S/o to Harambe for inspiring me to get arrested for indecent exposure at Disney World
S/o to ALLCAPS for setting my computer on fire with these new beats (my processing speed hasn't been the same since)
S/o to my two well treated and well fed cats who ran away from home (or maybe they got eaten by coyotes, idek)
S/o to my mom for coming in my room every 5 minutes to tell me about useless sh** just to ruin my train of thought
S/o to the “experienced" seller on eBay that I bought used JBL computer speakers from who sent them to me in nothing but a grocery bag and a box that was already almost halfway torn open
S/o to these hoes for forever reminding me to stay faithful… nah I'm joking #foreveralone
S/o to all of ScopeY's alts (even you Zade)
S/o to Chef for being IRISH AS fu*k holy sh**
and finally S/o to everyone reading this interview, you're awesome
Thank you
Peace and much love ✌️