If you were in your teens between the years 2003 and 2009, having a Myspace was a must. The predecessor to Facebook was a major step up from instant messaging platforms like AIM, the only form of social network any of us really had until the mid-2000s, and it also had a big impact on the music industry. For the first time, undiscovered artists had a means of sharing their music with millions of people across the globe (YouTube would come into the picture two years later), and the personal touch of a Myspace page gave eventual fans something more to latch onto. Artists from all over the spectrum -- Lily Allen in indie, Arctic Monkeys in rock, Sean Kingston in R&B/pop -- gained fame off of super popping Myspace profiles.
In hip-hop, the biggest winners in the Myspace era were undoubtedly Soulja Boy and Lil B. Soulja actually got his start on Soundclick, a less popular music market for artists, but once he began getting requests for live performances, he linked his page to a Myspace profile, and that's when his career started to take off. Lil B, on the other hand, was already somewhat famous as a member of The Pack before he hopped on Myspace, but then he allegedly created at least 155 profiles to share the 1,500 tracks he had amassed by 2010. Both were some of the first to capitalize on the new platform's potential for reach, and the younger generation definitely took notice.
Many of today's top-tier artists were struggling for recognition on Myspace a decade ago, and we've gone back and found their old profiles. Some have been deleted, and the others have clearly been long abandoned, but we were able to scrounge up some screenshots and old photos. They should bring back some hilarious memories of your own Myspace triumphs and (more likely) struggles.
Username: Nicki Minaj
Active: No
This page is taken from Minaj's Playtime Is Over era in 2007. She wasn't exactly unknown, as she had already been discovered by Lil Wayne and scooped up some guest verses for the tape, but I don't know if anyone was taking her "I Am The Best Artist" banner that seriously at the time. A few years later though, after Beam Me Up Scotty and her "Monster" verse, things would definitely change.
Username: chiefkeef1
Active: Yes
As you'll see as you go on through this list, Myspace was huge for the rappers who would go on to form Chicago's drill scene in the early 2010s. Most of them were all probably in elementary school when the site launched. According to his still-active page, Chief Keef was not immune to the Aeropostale/Hollister wave that swept the nation around this time.
Lil Bibby
Username: Brandon Dickinson
Active: Yes
Bibby's profile has very little info, save for a few low-resolution photo. I wonder if his voice still sounded like a cigar smoking 50 year old's when he was posing for these pics.
Drake
Username: thisisdrake
Active: No
Have you ever tried to write a bio for yourself in the third person? That's definitely what it seems like Drake was doing for his Myspace "about me" section, which boasts of accomplishments like "more than 80,000 topics on message boards" and "collective attendance of over 20,000 fans for mall tours." At the time when he was releasing Room For Improvement, he clearly already had a loyal following from his Degrassi days in Canada, but he would obviously become better at bragging as time went on.
Young Chop
Username: tyreepittman
Active: Yes
Chief Keef's early go-to producer is another guy from the Chi who's left his Myspace page to wither in the sands of the Internet. He looked almost exactly the same as he does now, minus the hair.
Swae Lee
Username: kidkrunk1
Active: Yes
Back then, Swae and Slim Jxmmi were in a trio called Dem Outta St8 Boyz, though they went by different names. Joined by Lil Pantz The Wild Child, Kid Krunk The Young Boss (Swae) and Caliboy Da Wiz Kid (Jxmmi) were a dance-oriented group that promoted themselves pretty heavily on social media.
Metro Boomin
Username: sosometro314
Active: No
Metro Boomin spent his days in high school in St. Louis emailing other producers and trying to get rappers to buy his beats, so it's no surprise that he was pretty active on Myspace. Like his original "This beat is so so Metro" tag though, his page has vanished.
PartyNextDoor
Username: jahronb
Active: No
As you may remember from a popular conspiracy theory earlier this year, Party used to record under his real name Jahron, and wasn't always the ladies man he is today. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like any music has survived from this era. I wonder what he sounded like.
Username: aikoichiban
Active: Yes
Was the term "thirst trap" even around in the mid-2000s? Even if not, Jhene's old Myspace page is filled with them, making it clear that unlike PND, she's always had the looks. Her username combines her last name with "Ichiban," Japanese for "number one."
Kid Cudi
Username: cudi2206
Active: Yes
From the photos on Cudi's page, it seems like even before he met Kanye West, he was taking fashion cues from the guy. There's not much else to learn from his page, other than the fact that he used to call himself "Scotty McFly."
