The next digital media playground

Dexter Gore Jr. grew up in one of the worst areas of Chicago. He was always a fan of school and playing on his high school basketball team. The city influenced him to quit the sport he loved and do what he had to do to survive in a place that swallows kids just like him whole, according to interviews available to the public.

Luckily, Gore found a light through music in this urban darkness that brought him from living where drugs and crime are an everyday occurrence to owning a house in Los Angeles and collaborating with some of the biggest names in hip-hop, such as A$AP Rocky, who has two songs that were in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.

The struggle Gore, also known as Famous Dex, faced before his success was a frightfully common plight that had even less of a chance to have a happy ending for beginning musicians until just 10 years ago.

Gore’s light was a platform that thousands of musicians in his shoes have used to save themselves from their equally difficult situations.

That platform is the rapidly spreading website and app called SoundCloud. As natives blow up in the mainstream, such as Post Malone, Bryson Tiller and BlackBear, the service continues to gain traction and recognition as the music sharing digital playground. The most stand-out part of SoundCloud is the bevy of creative individuals who inhabit its servers that are making a wave of music unlike anything listeners have ever heard before.

SoundCloud is a place that can even help those who are not making their own music. The profile Lyrical Lemonade, run by CEO Cole Bennett, has thousands of followers for its ear that has helped aspiring SoundCloud musicians get an extra boost that aids their path to stardom.

Bennett also films and edits music videos that rack up millions of views on Youtube for these artists. One of these videos is the official music video to, “D Rose” by Lil Pump, which has over 74 million views.

While many streaming apps with a monthly fee such as Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal have blown up recently, much of the public prefers to use free streaming services like SoundCloud which has 175 million monthly global listeners, according to its advertising page.

Junior Jacob Knudson’s primary reason for using the platform is because of “free music.” Similar to Knudson, most bop searchers usually come to the app solely for it having the lowest price point possible, but they stay for the unique artists who use SoundCloud as their primary way of pushing music to their awaiting, hungry audience.

One of these artists is the Los Angeles-based hip-hop and R&B singer, Jaylien, who started using SoundCloud.

“It was just the one site that I knew that I could post music for free and send people the links to go straight to the song,” Jaylien said. He continued using SoundCloud for all of the other advantages SoundCloud has to offer that few others have, like the unique culture that is behind the free creative outlet.

“You can put out as many songs as you want and get instant feedback and instant gratification, which is really cool, and then it can change your life,” Jaylien said.

Although his path to success has not had what he describes as a “Frank Ocean Effect,” his hard work, dedication and ability to make what he sees as “dope music” has given Jaylien what seems to be a straight shot to the top of the music industry. This shot has been birthed out of the opportunity and support SoundCloud gives to the newest generation of creative individuals that have a drive to be truly successful to the utmost limits of modern society.