Cull TV Helps Catapult Indie Musician Toward Stardom

Katherine de Leon and John Hurliman at Cull TV HQ

Cull TV, the new, user-curated music video streaming service from Linden Lab and Second Life alum, has only been live for a few months, but it's already helped an indie performer get a big break: Jesse Israel of Cantora Records recently came across the Cull stream of young Harlem hiphop performer Azealia Banks, liked what he heard, and hired her to perform at the label's CMJ afterparty, a performance which in turn got a good review on Pitchfork, a blog that often breaks out rising indie stars. This happened in October, but I only got word about it last week during a visit with Cull's founders, Katherine de Leon and John Hurliman, at their SOMA office. They spoke with a lot of passion about Cull giving indie artists a new way to promote their music online, and were thrilled to see Azealia fast on the rise. As record mogul Israel puts it, "I love that it was a music startup that first showed Cantora about Azealia."

Here's her top track on Cull, and it's really great. (NSFW warning: contains salty language, provokes irresistible desire to dance your ass off.) There's a some indie musicians big in Second Life who are about as great, and now that Cull can stream in-world, I bet it could become a handy new tool to get their music to a larger audience, in SL and beyond.

Comments

[Pussycat Catnap]

I grabbed up one of those CullTV things, rezzed it, and proceeded to see nothing but a blank screen.

That was back when the last blog about it came out. So maybe that's been fixed since?

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I wish Cull and Banks all the best. There are so many talented musicians in the world who never get heard by the right ears at the right time. Anything that helps change that gets a big thumbs-up from me.

[Katherine de León]

Thanks for this great post, Hamlet!

Pussycat Catnap, sorry to hear you had an issue with Cull TV in SL. There is a bit of a loading process sometimes and that can be compounded by being outside the US. We'd be happy to help you troubleshoot ([email protected]).

[foneco zuzu]

I still tried the cull tv recently and with same results;(
My question, it needs a vieewer that accpets media on a prim (v2/v3 tpv or ll viewers?) as i use old good Phoenix?

[SPyvspyaeon]

Aww love cull tv