RIP UGHH.com - THIS IS FAREWELL...

traestar
traestar Members Posts: 6,030 ✭✭✭✭✭
https://www.undergroundhiphop.com/blogs/ughhblog/this-is-farewell

"I have some very sad news to share with all of our visitors and wanted to wait until after Christmas so you could all have a happy holiday. On approximately January 1, 2017, UndergroundHipHop.com (UGHH) will be shutting down permanently. We have been fighting our hardest to stay in business for the past few years, but with declining revenues it is impossible to stay in business at this point. Any orders placed will be fulfilled and we will stop taking orders as of tomorrow morning (Wednesday, December 28). When I opened our first online store in 1999, we experienced 60% growth year after year, for over a decade. However, in 2012 revenues plateaued and have been declining ever since. Our overhead is too great (rent, payroll, internet fees, bank loans, credit cards, etc.) and it makes business sense to not continue in what can only be described as an adventure of a lifetime.


I started UGHH out of my Northeastern University dorm room in 1997 as nothing more than a hobby to share the underground hip hop music I loved so much with the world. I had no idea it would lead into a 20 year career doing what I love to do – bringing this culture to the masses. I grew up listening to this music as a kid (I remember being 7 years old or so in the mid 1980's, and a neighbor giving me a copy of LL Cool J's – 'Radio' and The Fat Boys album dubbed on a cassette) and I was hooked. As a teenager, my music idols were Gang Starr and my favorite MC was Jeru The Damaja. Never in my wildest dreams would I think I would become friends with the artists I grew up on, but I am happy to say I actually became friends with Jeru so… my life is complete :) If you want to read more about the 20 year journey of UGHH, go here


Running your own business is incredibly hard (and rewarding) work and I am very proud with what my team and I were able to achieve with this website. We had a retail store for ten years (another dream of mine come true), became close friends with many of the artists we are fans of (I went to Apathy's wedding!), and helped so many labels and artists get the exposure they deserved. I could have worked a standard office job after college, but I followed my dreams and created a world renown, highly respected website loved by many.


There have been so many people who have contributed to helping make UGHH what it is today and there is no way I can list them all. I would like to give a special thank you to my staff who stuck it out with me to the very end – Jeremy (15+ years at UGHH), Aaron (10+ years at UGHH), Tommy (5+ years at UGHH), and Ian (he stopped working at UGHH 1.5 years ago after 10+ years on the job but has been my personal therapist since then). Thank you to the forum moderator Clokworx, who contributed his time to keep our forums running as smoothly as possible as well as all other mods. An extra special shout out to my wife and children, who were patient enough to put up with the ups and downs of the business and some very long work days.


There are many great websites to get your hip hop from, but some recommendations include: GetOnDown.com (for product and they should be expanding their catalog greatly in 2017), 2DopeBoyz.com (for videos) and HipHopDX.com (for news). There are so many great labels putting out quality product, but some suggestions are: Snowgoons, Ill Adrenaline, Mello Music Group, Red Apples 45, Slice-Of-Spice, REDEF, Rhymesayers, Fat Beats, HiPNOTT, and too many more to list.


I wish the best of luck to all of the artists, producers, record labels, distributors, etc. who make a living from hip hop music. You are doing this for something much deeper than a paycheck, and I respect you all for that. Thank you to all of our customers who have made purchases from us over the years. We have customers who have been dedicated to shopping with us for well over a decade, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for thinking of UGHH when you were thinking about hip hop. Until the next adventure..."


- Adam Walder
Founder, UndergroundHipHop.com

Comments

  • MazterChef
    MazterChef Members Posts: 1,313 ✭✭✭✭✭
    whites owned ughh?
    damn
  • BlueIceBranson
    BlueIceBranson Members Posts: 461 ✭✭✭✭✭
    damn that sucks. i've been rockin with ughh since like 2001.
  • RuffDraft
    RuffDraft Members, Writer Posts: 4,753 ✭✭✭✭
    Ah... such a shame. What a great site. I first started importing from the States using MixUnit.com for mixtapes back in the day, and then UGHH thereafter for some of the most sought after underground music that I couldn't find in the U.K. What a journey that must have been for them, and what a shame it is to have to let it go. That said, I'm sure they'll all move on to bigger and better things in the long run. Each of those labels mentioned at the end will no doubt take an interest in their services too.

    The times they are a changing... streaming will dominate in five years, and we'll all become slaves to subscriptions.

  • traestar
    traestar Members Posts: 6,030 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The only hope I have with streaming and subscriptions (SaaS boom) is that there's a stronger more direct artist to consumer relationship now
  • genocidecutter
    genocidecutter Members Posts: 17,825 ✭✭✭✭✭
  • water ur seeds
    water ur seeds Members Posts: 17,667 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Whaaaaaaat no UGHH anymore???

    nooooooo_elf.gif
  • (Nope)
    (Nope) Members Posts: 2,746 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Did any of you ever check the forums on UGHH?

    The exposures were brutal!

  • traestar
    traestar Members Posts: 6,030 ✭✭✭✭✭
    hmm no I haven't
  • traestar
    traestar Members Posts: 6,030 ✭✭✭✭✭
    What @(Nope) just posted is maybe part of it, but apparently they maybe saved after all. I have to wait until I get home to see if I could reach the website.
  • traestar
    traestar Members Posts: 6,030 ✭✭✭✭✭
    https://www.undergroundhiphop.com/blogs/ughhblog/and-we-are-back-a-christmas-miracle

    "My life is a rollercoaster, with many ups and downs. This past week has been a roller coaster ride I will never forget, which began with the announcement of our site closing last Wednesday. Within two hours of that blog post going live, I had a phone call from a company in our industry who expressed serious interest in purchasing UGHH and getting us back on our feet, along with several ideas on how to improve the current website – yeah! About 12 hours later, I get contacted by my good friend Apathy, with the news that someone he knows is trying to get into contact with me and wants to discuss the purchase of UGHH – holy ? ! The next day, I get a call from a good friend who is also a one of the most popular underground hip hop artists out there and he wants to know how he can help out with his marketing power and wallet – holy ? (x2)! I then reach out to the biggest hip hop artist I know, and he wants to know what he can do to help get the site up and running again – unreal!


    Over the next several days, I spent a lot of time reading through literally thousands of comments on the blog post I had written about closing, as well as social media posts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. 99.99% of every post was praising UGHH for how much we meant to their lives – from customers, fans, artists, labels, etc. I knew people enjoyed our site but people were comparing our closing to the death of a family member - lol! I cannot thank you all for all of those posts you made – it really touched all of us at UGHH in a way I can't describe with words and made us feel very special and lucky to have such dedicated fans around the globe. To say I have been completely re-energized and genuinely excited about our reach to people around the world is a complete understatement. THANK YOU.


    Back to the main issue at hand – getting UGHH back up and running, and being even better than ever. I had a fantastic dinner meeting with a hip hop artist, who is interested in purchasing the company. This individual has been a fan of the site since our inception 20 years ago and has come a long way from a passionate underground hip hop artist to running a successful company of his own. He not only has passion for our genre, but has a lot of resources and ideas to make UGHH a profitable entity. The great thing is we are both friends with many of the same people in our industry, so there is an instant comfort level working with him (as opposed to a random venture capital firm for example). We talked about ideas for 2017 and beyond, hip hop in general, and ate some delicious Asian cuisine – not a bad night :) The meeting ended with a commitment to partner on an immediate re-launch of UGHH.com while details of an organizational re-structure (i.e. transfer of ownership) are worked out during the month of January. I have confidence that this individual will be able to do many things for UGHH that we have wanted to do for years, but never had the resources or man power to do.


    So how will this transfer of ownership look? UGHH will continue to operate out of Boston, but we would now have a satellite office out of Manhattan. The website will continue to operate the way it has been (at least for the foreseeable future) – keeping the online store stocked with all of the great products we are known for and of course, running smoothly as we always have. The new owner shares our love for customer service and wants the store to thrive again before he begins to implement his ideas as time moves forward. However, the one idea the new owner would like to do immediately is to host a celebratory concert for our 20th year anniversary as soon as possible so if you have ideas of who you would like to see perform, leave it in the comments below. I'm currently working hard on getting my staff reassembled in a way that this partner deems fit and makes sense. Anyone who knows me closely knows my motto is "Everything happens for a reason", and this time was no different.


    I am looking forward to 2017 (rot in hell 2016!), as it is off to an incredible start (and we are only a couple of days in!). I cannot wait to hop back on the rollercoaster this year, and see where it goes – I hope you will all join me and I am sure you will.


    I'm not one who asks for favors, but I think showing the new partner your appreciation for what he is doing would go a long way. Please leave comments below, share this blog post on social media and make a purchase from our online store to show your support is not only visiting the site, but financial support as well – it would really mean a lot to me. I love you all."


    - Adam Walder
    Founder, UndergroundHipHop.com
  • BlueIceBranson
    BlueIceBranson Members Posts: 461 ✭✭✭✭✭
    i'm glad they're back. imma go cop something off the website to show support
  • StreetRap
    StreetRap Members Posts: 416