Where Have We Been?

Many months have passed since we last posted. Numerous reasons can be presented but I think it's vital to just get to the point and really share things from the perspective of myself - @vandigital - the project creator. To be honest, some of y'all might not have even noticed we took a break (5 months to be exact) but it's still important because maybe there are lessons to be learned from all of this.

Firstly...

We want to thank everyone who has participated in this project since the beginning. Namely @djlethalskillz & @stickykeys as well as @neutronenkind who brought us our World Of Hip Hop segment. If it wasn't for you guys it would have been way to challenging for me to handle on my lonesome.

Secondly...

A big thank you is owed to @sndbox & @creativecrypto for empowering us for 6 months during Cohort 2. The support of you and the community was vital to keep us going and for that we are truly grateful. After having a look, I'm happy you all are still going strong and paving the way for creativity on the Blockchain.

Lessons Learned

The biggest lesson that I personally learned from the experiences of putting together this project is the magnitude of the slice of pie I chose to bite off. Hip Hop is such an all-encompassing culture, diverse as the people who are a part of it, and in attempting to put Hip Hop on the Blockchain I was unaware of the degree of difficulty I would face in trying to make it happen. It's like they say "Dream Big" but remember not to bite off more than you can chew!

The next lesson is an extension of the first, in that with such a broad scope to tackle we lacked true direction. I thought that by making such a blanket statement in putting Hip Hop on the Blockchain it would attract more people but in the end I think people didn't really know what we were all about and with the limited resources and sphere of influence it became both overwhelming and confusing at time. Not to mention frustrating.

What really made it all hit home was (no it wasn't this crazy Bear Market) that we never really gained much traction at all. So by the end of it, all of this, our history on the Steem Blockchain, was really just being done for ourselves, which defeated the purpose of doing it in the first place!

So what have I been doing since 2019 kicked off? Well, I was back in Canada attending to family matters and reassessing my direction in life. The last 5 months have been a pivot back to something we did for the local Malaysian Hip Hop community from 2008 to 2014. A project called Think You Got Skillz which you can find here @tygs. I won't go into too much detail about it, so if you've read this far just head to the profile page to check it out (we will be back in action focusing on that project now).

It's sad to say goodbye to something I put my heart and soul into. It's not easy letting go, but I do look at it as a re-invention of sorts. A transition back to what has worked and continues to work since we relaunched TYGS in October 2018. We achieved so much with our efforts here and they have not gone to waste. We have learned our lessons and are moving on with a stronger, more realistic, strategy and hope one day to be able to bring this back to life in some shape or form as the time sees fit!

Thanks again for supporting us and we hope to see you over at @tygs and whatever you do, keep putting Hip Hop on the Blockchain! Oh and I'll leave you with the music video for the song I did with @djlethalskillz so at least you have something to remember us by!