Here is an interesting story I found on Mashable about a Jewish / white dude who used to work for Google (named Hoodie Allen) and decieded to QUIT to pursue a carrier as a rapper. The most insiring art about his story is that he is following the Web 2.0 apoch to the music industry which is to simpley give it away 100% free and “Hoodie” replies solely on concert sales to support his rapper carrier. Allot of these dudes in the industry now a days should take notes. I haven’t made up my mind yet as to whether or not I’m feeling his genre of music but it is definitely something different and an interesting story to say the least. So without further a due meet Googler turned Rapper : Hoodie Allen.

Former Googler, Current Rapper: Meet Hoodie Allen – We’ve all heard the time-honored tale of a Googler leaving the Googleplex to work on a startup, but Steve “Hoodie Allen” Markowitz departed for an entirely different reason: to pursue a full-time career as a rapper.

Markowitz is a 21-year-old University of Pennsylvania alum (he graduated last spring) and is currently unsigned. His album Pep Rally was released free online last September.

The rapper’s upcoming release is Leap Year, due out this summer.

Markowitz took some time to speak to Mashable via phone today about his upcoming record, his history at Google, and why an web-savvy white rapper doesn’t necessarily have to go the nerdcore route.

Markowitz started at Google in April, 2010. He worked as an AdWords associate in the company’s START (that stands for “Standarized AdWords Reseller Training”) program.

Then, he left the company in 2011 “in January or February. It feels a lot shorter than it actually is,” he told us. “I was moving so fast, and even while I was at Google there was so much going on that I felt like I was doing two full-time jobs.”

But Markowitz said his “dream and passion” was definitely music, so when he started getting more opportunities to do live shows, he decided to leave Google, which he called a “leap of faith. But it was a lot easier because everyone at Google was so supportive of me.

“I still feel very connected there. All the people I hung out with in San Francisco were Googlers.”

Still, even though Markowitz’s provenance lies solidly in a white-collar, tech-aware world, he draws on that experience in a less obvious way. “It’s not nerdcore,” he said. “I’m much more inspired by the classic lyrical MCs… I think I pull a lot from my own life experience. My perspective happens to be a unique one — going to Penn, working at Google. It does make me kind of different from a typical hip hop artist.”

In fact, the rapper’s online experience plays more into his marketing than his music. “Everything I do is tied to the online space,” he told us. “I take a unique approach to social media; I make a flat universe between me and everyone who listens to my music.”

Leap Year “is almost done,” Markowitz revealed, saying the album should drop sometime in July and is much more mature and stylistically developed than his previous releases.

“It’s exciting to feel like you have something really good on your hands that the people who already support you are going to dig even more. I’ve got all these tracks, and I’m ready to unleash them on the world this summer.”

Like its predecessor, Leap Year will be available as a free download online. And that works for Markowitz’s personal business model just fine. “I’ve made a good living from playing live shows and touring. And the music lives so much more if you put it out there and let people share it for free.”

Bonus Joint : Hoodie Allen- You Are Not A Robot (Official Music Video)

(352 days ago)

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