Genius.com (formerly known as Rap Genius) is a site founded in 2009 dedicated to community sourced analyzation of lyrics, documents, and more. The site allows both members of the community and the artists themselves to take a deeper dive into lyrics on a line by line basis and break down details to the minutia to provide context.

Example of a lyrical annotation for Tyler, the Creator’s most recent project.

The ability to talk about and discuss lyrics with a critical eye differentiated it from its peers (shout out to AZ Lyrics, I remember printing out the lyrics to Lookin’ Boy from that site when I was in 7th grade), and gave Genius a unique place in the music community. In a way it also added validation to the art of rap by proving the level of detail and wordplay that may often go overlooked.

Over the last 2–3 years the site has expanded dramatically, however it wasn’t always the cultural cornerstone it is today. In fact, there were several bumps in the word they may have killed off a site with less resilience. But through rebranding, restructuring, and the ability to earnestly admit their mistakes Genius prevailed. So, let’s look at what almost killed them before they got started.

Google Goes After Genius

In 2012, just 3 years after its launch Rap Genius received a $15 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz. At this moment things were looking good for the site. They were having more artists verify the interpretation of their lyrics on the site and were looking to continue expanding. However, in 2013… for lack of a better phrase they pissed Google OFF. In December of 2013 Google de-indexed Rap Genius from its results. De-indexing means it became incredibly hard to find the site via a simple google search. Prior to the de-indexing, when you googled virtually any song followed by the term “lyrics” Rap Genius was at the top of the results. However, according to the website TechCrunch, following the de-indexing searching for the specific site “rap genius’ would prove a fruitless journey until the sixth page.

This kills websites.

When was the last time you went to the sixth page of Google for ANYTHING??

So, let’s take a look at why this happened. Before we talk about why, here’s some cursory information on the way Google ranks sites. Part of Google’s algorithms includes ranking websites based on perceived authenticity. One way that Google measures said authenticity is by giving priority to websites/links that are prevalent on sites outside of their own. For example, if say a clothing start up gets mentioned heavily on fashion blogs and on twitter, the SEO ranking for that website inevitably rises. It’s pretty simple, the more people are talking about you, the more prevalent you are.



Where Rap Genius went wrong was with this email.

Essentially Rap Genius was offering to promote links to blogs in exchange for said blogs linking back to Justin Bieber (shout out Bugatti Biebz, when he’s not culturally appropriating the music is actually good) lyrics on Rap Genius. Which on the surface isn’t too shady but it definitely caught the attention of Google. Particularly because Rap Genius was making this offer to people regardless of whether or not the content was relevant to them at all.



What’s interesting is that according to a Washington Post article the de-indexing was only for about a week or two but I personally felt like it lasted for much, much longer. I feel like for at least a month-2 months I was having issues finding the site without specifically typing the URL into my browser. Rap Genius did eventually rectify the situation. Google was kind enough to advise them on how to do that and for more info on that you can read the Genius blog post here.

One of their Co-Founders Was Kind of A Douche

Following the fallout of the incident with Google, Rap Genius made headlines again. This was only 5 months later mind you, and it was for a terrible reason. In May of 2014, Elliot Rodger killed 7 people and wounded 13 in a shooting spree. It was an attack specifically targeted at women which will be important later on. Elliot also had a manifesto where he detailed his rationale and mind state leading up to the shooting. The manifesto is a disgusting look at what happens when toxic masculinity and misogyny goes unchecked, but the manifesto was posted to Rap Genius. That in it of itself is admittedly a bit controversial, but there could be something of value gained by examining the flaws in his arguments so that perhaps we as a society can identify these warnings early on and deal with them in advance.

Mahbod Moghadam

What got Rap Genius in trouble was its co-founder, Mahbod Moghadam. Mahbod actually annotated some of the manifesto and his comments were disgusting and misplaced. He loosely echoes some of the sentiments written in the manifesto, as well as makes some extremely inappropriate comments. I don’t want to fully detail what he said, so I’ll just link to a TechCrunch article that has images of the removed annotations here.

To make matters worse for Rap Genius, this was not the first time Mahbod inexplicably offered his vulgar and inappropriate opinions. A year earlier, Mahbod was being interviewed by Wakefield about the rise of Rap Genius. Within the interview Mahbod details an interaction between himself, Nas, and Mark Zuckerberg. To make a long story short, Zuckerberg doesn’t like having photos of him taken, but Mahbod didn’t care. Mahbod took the photo, posted it to Instagram and then removed it per Zuckerberg’s request. But in this interview with Wakefield, Mahbod straight up says Zuckerberg & company can,

“…honestly they can suck my d — -”.

I could elaborate but needless to say Mahbod Moghadam was bad for Rap Genius. Following his incendiary remarks about both Elliot Rodger and Mark Zuckerberg, Mahbod resigned. You can read the full article detailing the conversation with Mahbod, Mark Zuckerberg, and Nas here. (I highly suggest you do because it is as much hilarious as it is unbecoming of a CEO)

So, how did Rap Genius survive both of these PR nightmares? How did they grow to where they currently are today? Well first and foremost they admitted fault in earnest ways and apologized. As mentioned earlier they apologized for the Google debacle and again for the Elliot Rodger incident. They also rebranded almost immediately. Just a short two months after Mahbod resigned, they announced they would be launching as purely Genius.com

Rap Genius Logo

Early Genius Logo

Current Genius Logo

The goal was to make it clear to users that rap was not the only genre nor piece of art/literature that could be annotated within their site. It came after they’d previously tested different sub URLs like rock.genius and other genres. This simple rebrand came coupled with some fantastic expansions for the site. They acquired Rob Markman, a former MTV hip-hop journalist and editor as an Artist Relations Manager. His ties to the music community run very deep and there is no doubt his addition helped bring in the many artist Genius deals with on a day-to-day basis. In addition to that, Genius announced they would be partnering to bring lyrics to the Spotify app in 2016. They also launched a YouTube channel that is filled with interviews, having artists break-down lyrics, freestyles, and breakdowns from the Genius staff themselves. They launched an app in mid 2014 as and have been positioning themselves as not just a community for annotations but as a reputable music blog. They also launched a clothing line with some pretty cool merch, (if someone from Genius is reading I wear an XL 👀)



In conclusion, watching Rap Genius evolve from a small lyric site, get hit with a ton of pretty detrimental PR, and successfully come out of the other side of it has been phenomenal to watch. Their evolution is perhaps a bit overlooked, but it is without a doubt Genius.





SOURCES:

https://genius.com/Genius-founders-rap-genius-is-back-on-google-annotated

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/6x7kzr/heres-why-rap-genius-got-banned-by-google

https://techcrunch.com/2013/12/25/google-rap-genius/

http://time.com/116717/rap-genius-dumps-co-founder-over-annotations-to-alleged-ucsb-shooter-manifesto/

https://genius.com/Tom-lehman-a-statement-about-mahbods-annotations-on-elliot-rodgers-manifesto-annotated

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6663866/genius-recruits-hip-hop-journalist-and-editor-rob-markman-to-head-artist

http://www.businessinsider.com/rap-genius-doesnt-like-zuck-2013-2

https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/26/rap-genius-co-founder-resigns-following-elliot-rodger-manifesto-annotations/

https://news.spotify.com/us/2016/01/12/go-behind-the-lyrics-with-spotify-and-genius/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/01/04/rap-genius-on-google-ban-we-overstepped-and-we-deserved-to-get-smacked/