Live, Work and Party in Bel Air: The Crazy Life of Interning Under the Founder of Rap Genius
“So I found the site because of a Gucci Mane lyric that my friend told me to look up using Rap Genius and I got involved by writing articles for them about “Scarface,” blunts and rap music and “Why No One Has Killed Your Favorite Rapper.” So from that I started talking to Mahbod and now I’m here.”
“We are trying to bring on verified artists and young authors and poets. We got all the really good up-and-coming rappers, so now we are trying to get the up-and-coming literature giants, so 18-20-year-olds, we are just trying to get them on Poetry Genius.”
“But we’ll be bringing back the glory days of literature, finding the next Eliot, Pound, Crane, or Lawrence, people who wrote that real shit.”
“A typical day is like, we all get up, we might exercise or something, and we all go to Whole Foods. Mahbod loves Whole Foods. We all get these huge salads, oysters, smoothies, all this really nice stuff, and then we go back, we feast, and then we work for ten hours straight. At the end, its 9 or 10 p.m. and we just relax. Mahbod meditates, Jeremy and I go out, its really cool… It’s been crazy, they filmed a music video here with Isaiah Rashad and that just happens like every day shit. It’s crazy.”
“This is the most fun I’ve ever had for a job but also the most work I’ve ever had, and yeah Mahbod’s a good boss and he gives us a lot of freedom, but ultimately its because we’ve been trusted to to incredibly important work, annotate all the literature, so we never try to let them down and we work our asses off day and night. And yeah the perks and benefits are really nice but when it comes down to the end of the day, what’s most important is the annotation, all literature, all rap, all text in human history.”
“I went in to Google once and I had the best food ever, there were massages upstairs… this is kind of the same thing except you are living in a mansion as a young person and it’s like, if you are willing to work hard really really hard, and do the things that need to be done, not take things for granted, and not be entitled, then this is a good job because you are trusted with a lot but its a reward for your hard work, so they really take care of you but in order to produce at maximum output for the company. It’s nice, I like it, it’s the new model it seems… we all do hard work though, he’s a good boss.”
“Mahbod’s really chill about work. Although the house is technically our office, we can do work from wherever we are… and since it’s really informal, you can wake up early, do some writing, exercise, work, then rage at night. It’s the life.”
“The craziest thing that happened was when that music video went on, there were a bunch of really young rappers my age, so I kind of made friends with them and went to a party with them the next night in this girl’s tiny apartment. There were only six or seven people there. Do you know who Ab-Soul is, the rapper? He rolls through, just stops by to say “hi,” and I was just like “damn,” I talked to him for a little bit and that was just amazing because talking to someone like that when they are so cool, it made me feel good, made me feel positive. There were only a few people in that room and they were all rappers or doing something so it was nice, I liked the feeling.”
“Hip-hop is the soundtrack to my life and I’m being genuine in that’s the only thing I listen to. My life has been influenced by hip-hop to a belligerent degree… It’s music that I’ve related to all my life… My favorite artists are Gucci Mane, Lil’ Wayne, Wacka Flocka Flame, Slim Dunkin… I like Max B, Three 6 Mafia, Outkast, UGK, Pimp C, I really fuck with the southern rappers because that’s what reached our ears the most.”
“I actually don’t listen to hip-hop that much, I’m more into indie and classical music, but having worked here for a few months I’ve definitely started to acquired a taste for it, and once you get into it it’s a lot more intelligent and moving and clever than you would think. There’s a lot of “fuck bitches and get money” and the bass is insanely simple, but there’s a lot more behind it than meets the eye that I need to appreciate.”
“He’ll drink on occasion… but he’s still definitely down with partying.”
“For this party on Saturday, he’s telling his friends about all the booze he’s going to have… It’s not your typical poetry reading, it’s like a mansion party and then a poetry reading. There will be some really young authors, it’s going to be like a rap party but with really young writers… a lot of people that the world hasn’t seen… You should come!”
