In 2012, Pittsburgh native Taylor Maglin, with the help of his childhood friend and business partner Jake Stotz, founded The Daily Loud, a hip-hop media blog.
“Three years later we have grown to be the biggest source for hip-hop news in the state of Pennsylvania,” Maglin writes in an email interview. “I couldn’t rap or sing, so me being an artist was out of the question.
“I decided to start a hip-hop media outlet where I applied the same principles Wiz [Khalifa] and Mac [Miller] used to boost their careers.”
Maglin is proud of the work that has gone into TheDailyLoud.com — new tracks, videos and artist updates are posted on a daily basis — but he’s not in it for the personal glory. “Helping an artist get to the next level is an unreal feeling,” he writes.
The Daily Loud has run articles on rappers like Fetty Wap, Chance The Rapper, Gucci Mane and many more. “We were posting these artists’ music before they were even at an established level,” he writes. “Thousands of people discovered [this] music because of us. To me that is a great feeling.” Maglin and Stotz don’t see themselves as journalists, but rather as “hip-hop/rap connoisseurs.”
The key to the website’s success, according to Maglin, has been perseverance. “At the time I started my website,” he recalls, “I was attending school and working dead-end jobs in the restaurant industry. To sum it up: It sucked.” After just three years in operation, TheDailyLoud.com is one of the country’s 20 most-trafficked hip-hop web pages. Maglin and Stotz have another 250,000 followers on Twitter.
Maglin has a few words for others trying to make it in the music business: “It doesn’t matter what genre you are in, you do not need a major-label deal — all of this is possible on your own. Your work ethic is everything,” Maglin writes. “Do not get discouraged, you will face adversity. The important thing is to remember you have to keep pushing forward no matter what.”
Check out Maglin’s site and the artists it profiles on TheDailyLoud.com. Keep up to date on Twitter and Instagram: @dailyloud.
