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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > March > 15 > Entry
SXSW interview: Ice Cube, DJ Pooh and Dave Marsh
Ice Cube and DJ Pooh’s 1:30 p.m. interview with editor and publisher of “Rock & Rap Confidential” Dave Marsh was pretty exciting after DJ Pooh finally showed up.
Marsh would go on to give Pooh a hard time throughout the interview about his late arrival, but Pooh was undaunted by the ribbing as he and Cube explained the concept of their new website, UVNTV.com to fans and music business professionals. Pooh said that UVNTV.com is a broadband social network website — created by Cube and himself — that will stream member-created videos.
“I am looking to have 20 channels myself (on the website),” Cube said. He went on to affirm that “There are no rules or censorship … anyone may create a channel as long as you have the content (initially at least 2 hours) to support it.
“If you’re dope, you’re on,” Cube continued. “We won’t have no crazy standards like B.E.T. and Viacom (MTV’s parent company) have. We wanted to do something to create a synergy so B-boys and Hip hop heads can have (original content) that isn’t watered down by the networks.”
Cube explained that they closely watched the TMZ.com business model and how that website transformed into a commercial television show. He and Pooh expressed hope that young filmmakers and other artists can start original programming on UVNTV.com, which could later be purchased by a network.
“We will have a year long beta process to show advertisers what UVNTV.com can (potentially) be,” Pooh said.
Cube also gave a little advance juice to his new album, “Raw Footage,” to be released independently on June 17.
“During the late ’80s and early ’90s, political Hip hop was king,” Cube said.
“But during the ’90s we got into an escapism kind of rap,” Cube continued. Then he joked, “Blame it on Viacom.”
Cube related that Hip hop fans really want a return to music that carries an uplifting message: “People want that … they yearn for that … what hip hop was back in the day.”
He explained that the flow on his upcoming album will be “dedicated to the brain and not the booty.” The audience followed the pronouncement with extended applause.
Later, when an audience member asked about the potential for Barack Obama to have a channel on UVNTV.com, Cube answered, “We would love for Obama, Hilary and John McCain to do a channel. We’re urging anybody with something to say to come say it with us, worldwide.”
Pooh said that UVNTV.com will utilize Microsoft Corporation’s new Silverlight 1.0 platform. Pooh said that their developers have built “an expensive back-end so that we will know data on how many people are watching” various programs, which can in turn be reported to advertisers and subscribers.
UVNTV.com features exclusive channels such as Snoop Dogg’s Snoopadelic TV, fashion designer Christian Audigier’s Live TV and Ice Cube’s own Hip Hop 24/7 TV. Pooh explained that UVNTV.com’s users can create profile pages to showcase their talent, collaborate and meet like-minded fans (a la Myspace and Facebook).
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