The music annotation website once known as Rap Genius has expanded radically since three Yale alums launched it in 2009.
Today, the re-branded Genius.com hosts crowdsourced annotations of a wide variety of written materials, including song lyrics, news stories, Shakespeare plays, and even the internet itself. But the site’s recent expansion into video and other media platforms has produced some of its most compelling content yet.
Far from its humble beginnings as a lyrics site, Genius now regularly attracts high-profile artists for guest annotations and new projects. The site’s artist relations team, Rob Markman and Brian Hernandez, works to facilitate inventive multimedia features with some of the biggest names in music. That means a typical day of work might mean meeting with top artists like Lil Wayne and Christina Aguilera, hanging out at recording studios, and getting backstage access to concerts.
Business Insider shadowed Markman, Genius’ head of artist relations and a veteran music journalist, as he and his team produced the first installment of their brand new “IRL” video series, featuring an epic interview with producer and rap mogul DJ Khaled.
Take a behind-the-scenes look at Markman’s incredible job at Genius :
Markman joined the site in August 2015 from MTV News, where he was a senior hip-hop editor.
With an extensive list of industry contacts from a prominent career in music journalism, Markman now works with record labels and publicists to bring high-profile artists to Genius. His focus is to find innovative ways for artists to discuss their music and the stories behind it.
"What I try to do when I talk with labels and publicists and different reps about artists is to find the one really good idea," he said. "What's the really good conversation that we can have that will be impactful. I always look at it like a Rubik's Cube. With every artist there's that really good idea, and it's trying to unlock it and find it."
At the offices of Genius in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, nearly 60 employees keep the website and its many projects running.
With the company's tech team on one side of the office, the workers on the opposite side focus on developing the site's annotations, creative content, social media presence, and much more.
In the past year, Genius has launched a "Behind the Lyrics" feature on Spotify and a "Verified" video series on YouTube - featuring artists like Mac Miller, Ice Cube, and Common decoding their songs on camera. The site's new "IRL" series starts Monday with the DJ Khaled interview, and subsequent video interviews will appear in the coming weeks.
On the day of his interview with DJ Khaled, Markman made an early morning radio appearance on The Breakfast Club at Power 105.1, a notable hip-hop show in New York with national syndication. He spoke candidly on Genius' latest ventures and the state of rap, and he even free-styled.
Markman's freestyle rap later appeared transcribed on Genius's site, and he annotated it.
4:30 p.m.: We met Markman at Genius' office as he was finishing a meeting with up-and-coming rapper Young Dolph. He recounted one of the highlights of his time at Genius thus far: a meeting he had earlier this year with Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz to annotate their collaborative "ColleGrove" LP.
Lil Wayne was so taken with the concept of decoding lyrics that he started annotating a song from 1995 that "changed [his] life" - "Cell Therapy" by Goodie Mob, the influential southern rap group led by Cee-Lo Green.
For the song's chorus, "Who's that peeking in my window? / POW nobody now," Wayne wrote the following annotation: "POW meant prisoners of war. Everybody thought they meant 'Pow' like a gunshot, but they actually meant prisoners of war."
"The whole song was about being trapped, not in jail, but metaphorically, in the projects," Markman explained. "And Wayne broke it down. So, I'm here fanning out over Wayne, 2 Chainz is fanning out over Wayne, and Wayne is fanning out over Cee-Lo. It's amazing."
4:45 p.m.: We rode in an Uber with Markman to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the site that Genius and Khaled had agreed on for their "IRL" video interview. Markman described the "IRL" series as an attempt to "take artists and put them in real-life, everyday situations, and still talk about music and life."
5:20 p.m.: In the park's Zen Garden, on a gazebo deck overlooking a koi pond, Markman took a call with rapper Wale's publicist to discuss a potential feature for the site.
5:45 p.m.: The Genius video crew set up its equipment at the Zen Garden, where they were looking to film the first of two segments with Khaled. Markman received a text from Khaled's publicist. "They're running late," he said.
5:55 p.m.: We asked Markman what he was most excited to ask Khaled about. "I really want to talk about his beginnings," he said. He explained how few people were aware that Khaled knew Lil Wayne and Cash Money Records CEO Birdman back when the latter two were "selling records out of the trunk of their car" in New Orleans.
"And then I want to hear more about his process," Markman continued. "I think people see Khaled and think it's just the Snapchats, think it's just the memes, and 'another one,' you know, the catchphrases and things like that. But there's a real process to what this guy does. He wouldn't be successful, he wouldn't be here nine albums later."
6:25 p.m.: With the sunlight waning and Khaled's team half an hour behind schedule, the Genius crew decided to move their equipment to a different site.
6:40 p.m.: Markman, a team player, carried a lighting stand across the garden to the Lily Pool Terrace.
7:00 p.m.: Khaled was over an hour late, and one of the video crew members said that she had just seen Khaled post a Snapchat video of him shopping. Markman told us that he jokingly reproached Khaled's publicist with a "No shopping" text.
7:40 p.m.: As time passed and the camera equipment lay idle on the Lily Pool Terrace, there was still no sign of Khaled. "You know, this is just part of the business," Markman said, taking it all in stride. "Sometimes you really have to wait on artists."
7:50 p.m.: The crew moved again to the Cranford Rose Garden, where they were hoping to shoot an elaborate opening sequence that involved Khaled popping a bottle of champagne. Markman took off his white Jordans to avoid grass stains and reluctantly posed for a picture.
8:00 p.m.: With Khaled still on his way, Regina, the executive video producer, mic'd up Markman. A large crowd was gathered directly next to the Rose Garden anticipating the Sunset Picnic Night presentation of "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial" that was set to start at 8:30 pm.
If Khaled didn't arrive before dusk, the crew's sound equipment would be drowned out by Steven Spielberg's classic film, and the Rose Garden segment would be unusable.
8:30 p.m.: "E.T." began to play, and the champagne remained unpopped.
8:40 p.m.: We returned to the Lily Pool Terrace, and Markman kept to himself as he mentally prepared for the interview. The crew set up their lighting and camera equipment by a wooden bench in front of a pool.
8:50 p.m.: Khaled arrived, at last, and the park security picked him, his publicist and his posse up in a golf cart. They arrived at the Lily Pool Terrace, and the video producer gave him and Markman their mics.
8:55 p.m.: The interview commenced.
9:00 p.m.: In their talk, Markman and Khaled traced the producer's evolution over the course of nine albums, and Khaled gave a nearly track-by-track breakdown of the making of his latest project, "Major Key," which became his first no. 1 album in August.
Source: Billboard
9:45 p.m.: Khaled's notable catchphrases ("I like that," "major key") appeared frequently in the extended interview. "Cloth talk" — which Urban Dictionary defines as "a DJ Khaled classic, meaning serious talk that gives you a 🔑 to success" — was the prevailing theme of the interview as it came to a close.
9:50 p.m.: To make up for their lost opening sequence at the Rose Garden, the Genius crew, quick on their feet, moved into the nearby atrium to film a park official teaching Markman and Khaled about the various plants in the building. Khaled took numerous Snapchats.
10:00 p.m.: Our time shadowing Markman came to a close, and our interview of an interviewer ended with a photo of a camera's footage of DJ Khaled on his phone.
