A Letter From the Editors
Photography by Mary Osunlana
Over the past year, we’ve been building Black 2 Infinity into a platform that explores the artistic expression of Black folks through our radio show, in-person events and social media presence. Today, we are excited to introduce a new medium: long-form journalistic content. Both of us individually have fond memories of being young teens in the ‘blog era’ of music, a formative time when we shaped our music taste and opinions, but also got into the habit of reading and consuming music journalism.
Blogs created new avenues for music discovery and spaces for meeting like-minded music fans, replacing the oligarchy of popular music magazine publications that had decades-long relationships with labels who controlled the music we received and artists we learned about. These blogs were independent internet platforms curating, educating, and connecting people to new artists that lived on the internet, at least until the industry adjusted and labels were able to manipulate and incentivize blogs to push their artists just like the magazines before them. But for a short time, we got to experience one of the most exciting eras of independent thought in music journalism.
Fast-forward to today and many of the music blogs we knew and loved are gone or owned by massive media and music conglomerates, the gatekeepers and tastemakers in music have shifted from the blogs to the playlist curators and DSPs, and the appetite for independent music journalism from the once-powerful blogs has dwindled. Most music sites and publications have adapted to the 24/7 online, short-attention span manner in which we consume media today, focusing more on grabbing and keeping your attention with top-10 lists, salacious tabloid content, and bite-sized album reviews. Sadly, the decline in meaningful music journalism has also coincided with some of the more significant moments in Black music of recent memory. For example, there was rightful discontent among Black audiences with the coverage of Beyonce’s Renaissance that critiqued publications for allowing a majority of white journalists to cover such an unapologetically Black album.
While most blogs are no longer spaces for multi-faceted music analysis today, there is still great music dialogue happening on social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube. However these platforms can be limited and less conducive for the types of music conversations we are interested in engaging in. Social media is an important tool, but also an ever-changing and fast-moving one that relies on an unreliable algorithm. So rather than be constricted by these platforms, we wish to simultaneously build a space outside of them to support the proliferation of nuanced writing for and by Black people.
There is something truly intrinsic to the art of long-form writing that allows you to communicate succinctly but thoughtfully with substance. It asks you to consider multiple sides of each story, fleshing out a topic to paint a wide picture that is panoramic and yet distinctly from your point-of-view. That’s why editorial is essential for what we want to achieve as Black 2 Infinity. Our ambition is to be at our core, a music curation and education platform. And on this blog, we intend to create thoughtful and substantive articles in support of our ambition so that we can create a space to explore topics in a nuanced fashion and spark conversation amongst like-minded music fans. We welcome you to engage with us and come along on our journey exploring new shit.
Hopefully we can make our teen selves proud.
