You may not remember the mid-2000s, so here’s a quick refresher. It was the dawn of the rap Internet as it looks now: the one that led to stars like Drake; the one that, thanks to ease of access, started to sustain global fan bases for even the most regional rap heroes.

Thanks to the rise of hip-hop blogs pushing obscurities, no one was an outsider anymore. This new reality proved to be a boon for artists still in their prime and who might have been undervalued. With a weakening of the old gatekeepers — major record labels, radio, the music press — fans made their own stars, giving certain artists new leases on their careers. There were blogs, for example, named for lyrics by the flamboyant Harlem meta-gangster Cam’ron, who wore pink and rapped in smug polysyllabic rhyme, peaking with the 2004 masterpiece “Purple Haze” (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam). And the Clipse, a brother duo from Virginia pushing caustic drug-dealer fantasias on its blistering 2005 mixtape, “We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 2.,” became superheroes for an Internet generation playing Alan Lomax and seeking out the unvarnished.

In essence, the online acolytes who buoyed Cam’ron and Pusha T (one-half of the Clipse, with his brother Malice) allowed them the luxury of spending the last decade or so reconciling their pre- and post-Internet selves. Pusha T signed with Kanye West’s label, delivering a handful of savage pinch hits, but no home runs. Cam’ron turned erratic, in both volume and quality of output.