HipHopSite.com Recordings

Now defunct Online and brick and mortar hip-hop store. Although they do not operate as a record label, they often released promotional records & other items for various artists. From their "About" section: "HipHopSite.Com started in 1996 by KUNV DJ’s Warren Peace and Pizzo. As the world’s first regularly updated news, reviews, and information source, HipHopSite quickly became the most popular site in it’s genre, receiving numerous accolades and awards, including multiple appearances on MTV. 1997, HHS birthed it’s online mail-order retail store, which served customers all over the world, supplying deejays with 12″ singles and LP’s. The service would soon mature to carry a large selection of CD’s, mixtapes (yes, on cassette), B-Boy & Graf videos, t-shirts, and gear, shipping out thousands of packages per month, quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in hip-hop’s corner of the music industry. All of this was initially done from an empty bedroom at Pizzo’s house in Las Vegas. 1999: After the success of selling thousands of Eminem’s independently released Slim Shady EP, HipHopSite teamed with the newly Interscope signed artist to create and host Eminem.Com. The site was built and hosted for free in exchange for the exclusive distribution rights for Eminem’s tour merchandise. Similar deals would follow with Kool Keith, RJD2, MF Doom, Demigodz, and many others. 2002: Saw the launch of HipHopSite’s fourth iteration, arguably it’s strongest yet. The new site allowed each artist and record label it’s own exclusive store page, plus working search engine, inventory control system, and other perks. While these features are standard in any online store in this day and age, this was revolutionary at the time, making HHS the unprecedented leader in indie hip-hop retail. This would eventually lead to the opening of HipHopSite’s retail store in Las Vegas at 4700 S. Maryland Parkway, right across from UNLV. The massive two-story, five room homebase was where are orders were shipped from, and incidentally the largest hip-hop specialty store in the world. 2004: At it’s peak of popularity, HipHopSite saw the birth of Preemptive Hype, an exclusive new music sampler available free to HipHopSite customers on both vinyl and CD. The exclusive discs were included in each order, putting folks onto breaking new music before anywhere else. 2007: As music sales across the board began to slump, HipHopSite began to consider it’s options, on whether or not there was truly a “need” for an independent hip-hop retailer any more, especially considering companies like Amazon could do the job faster, better, and more efficiently. Albums leaking online before HipHopSite could even get copies to ship to it’s customers led to a huge dent in sales across the industry. Coincidentally, the company’s lease on the retail store building was up for renewal, at which point HHS made the choice to close up shop. After watching Tower, Virgin, The Warehouse, and other music stores close, the writing was on the wall. 2007-2008: HHS launched HipHopSite Digital, a last ditch effort to see if there was anything left in the music retail industry worth salvaging. The answer to that question is “no”, we have found out. 2010: HipHopSite.Com still the news and information source that it always has been, but now relaunched completely without the retail aspect. In the site’s sixth iteration and fourteenth year, HHS now focuses on daily hip-hop news, music, information, now complete with all of it’s archived reviews and interviews from the last fourteen years." In late February 2015 Mike Pizzo wrote on the site: "It’s Time To Say Goodbye… "Friends, the time has come to close the book on HipHopSite.Com. After nineteen years online, I have come to the decision to bring the site to its glorious ending. As many of you have seen, over the last few months I have been working closely with original Source Magazine founder Jonathan Shecter in creating Cuepoint at Medium. Most of my time and energy over the last few months has gone into acting as managing editor of Cuepoint, delivering a wide array of stories that cover all genres of music. Having also spent much of the last 19 years as a DJ, my musical palette has expanded well beyond just hip-hop. Cuepoint is a place that has allowed me to write, commission, and curate articles from the best writers in the business. I am very proud of what Shec and I have started, so now it is time for me to fully devote my time and energy into making Cuepoint into the best place to read about music. I’ve had a lot of great memories in creating HipHopSite, from purchasing product to sell in our retail shop directly from an unsigned Eminem at a Motel 6 to crashing the “Forgot About Dre” and “Stan” video shoots. From helping unknown artists like Jedi Mind Tricks, Little Brother, and J-Live get heard to chasing down MF Doom in a Las Vegas casino for an in-store. From running official websites for Em, Doom, RJD2, Demigodz to hosting in store events with Redman, Pharrell, KRS-One, Questlove, Pete Rock, DJ Premier and Talib Kweli. It’s truly been an incredible ride, but now it’s time to move on to the next chapter. I will still continue to write album reviews on own personal Medium.Com/@DjPizzo account and will deliver more in-depth articles directly for Cuepoint. HipHopSite.Com will remain online for historical and archival purposes, so the option is there to pick things up one day later in the future. But for now, the site will no longer be updated. To be frank, I am not interested in collecting the content that is already infinitely blogged across the internet for HipHopSite each day. I’d rather devote my time to delivering you bigger, better, harder-hitting articles and Medium’s Cuepoint is the perfect place to do so. So below are some links of a few things I have written for Cuepoint recently. I invite you all to comment, respond, and even write your own articles on Medium. Hopefully I’ll see some of you on the other side."