So The Fader wrote a story about our Grindin’ Forum how frequent users went on to lead global cults of their own such as Tyler, The Creator, M.I.A., Drake, Janelle Monáe and other. It is pretty much incredibly insane even getting mentioned in an article, but to write a whole article about Grindin’ is simply speechless.
I can’t stop repeating myself, but The Neptunes.org’s forum, Grindin is one of the most talented Forum that has an above average amount of talented people who will blow up and already succeed in their goals with a lot of talented contributors and readers who have risen to become world famous. The Fader picked four of the forums’ users—producer Matt Martians, artist manager Shiv Pandya, rapper Remy Banks, and video director Shomi Patwary—reflect on their time spent lurking and learning. But before you’re going to check out their story below, this my side of the story.
I’m probably the biggest Neptunes groupie there is, and the reason I’m telling you that is as follows. My name is Milan Stanković, 33 years old, born in Serbia, Belgrade, also known as Mika aka DJ Freakiii, graduated with a Computer Science degree and speak English, German, Swedish and Serbian. My biggest passion is the Music, especially from The Neptunes, Timbaland, and Mr. Carmack, and that’s why I’m running a bunch of (Fan)sites dedicated to them.
It all started back in 2000, when almost everything The Neptunes did turned to gold. So I’ve been writing down all the songs I liked on a piece of paper, so I could download them later at a friend’s house via Napster and I’ve been wondering why the hell this dude Pharrell is always featured on these bangers I liked. I’ve found out about The Neptunes after buying Jay-Z’s ‘I Just Wanna Love U (Give It To Me)’ by reading the booklet, and I’ve immediately started googling the hell outta it on Napster and the next year on KaZaA.
In 2001, that’s when I’ve found out about the Internet Relay Channel (mIRC) and that there is a Neptunes channel called #theneptunes on eFnet where bunch of people shared their rarest Neptunes Music that’s been released til then. That’s where I’ve met the owner of #theneptunes called Melladon aka Melvin Kendall together with the homies Icyblaze, PimpNERD, Matty2phat, Frosty, TennieBoper, ChaseChad, AlSween, Kweli (Aaron), CheLa, Markwilly, DJ Reflex, Torzka, Mari, BabyMilo, Patrick Pryor, Jada, Volks and many others.
Y’all should know that mIRC was the place to get your stuff via the DCC (Data Compression Conference) with the File Servers, when we haven’t had any upload sites like Zippyshare etc. and the mIRC channel is still alive but with like 3 users online at Rizon. I remember exactly when N*E*R*D’s ‘In Search Of…’ leaked, we had like 100 users in the room which was freaking a lot (but the record is still back in 2003 when Clones leaked, we had like 200 users in the room), where everyone queued to get their copy of the album. I pretty much knew after N*E*R*D’s debut those guys were my passion and would change my life.
The next year StarTrak Ent. came online in 2002 with their legendary Star Trak Forum and their Beats Section where everyone showed their best Neptunes Bites, shoutout to Chicago’s finest Patrick Pryor, AlSween, knurrknurr, NaBru aka the real Thicke, that’s when I started doing Neptunes Fakes, because it was fun. Then I’m getting this email by this dude called Jean-Luc from Paris, France who just started a Neptunes Fansite called Grindin’.free.fr which was all in French, and he asked me If I would like to help him out by updating the site regarding Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams.
Jean-Luc has been on the Star Trak Forum where he’s seen me posting about The Neptunes Newest Stuff. Everytime a new Neptunes Track leaked, I’ve immediately posted the Information on the Star Trak Forum like “All Saints – Black Coffee feat. Pusha T. (The Neptunes Remix) (01′) #theneptunes eFnet”, and only the true die hard Neptunes Fans knew what’s it about the #thenptunes eFnet. And I said to Jean-Luc of course I would love to blog for a Neptunes site, and after a while he bought the domain theneptunes.org and the rest is history.
I’ve never managed to meet Chad & Pharrell, but I was at their N*E*R*D ‘Fly Or Die’ Tour when they were performing in Stockholm, Sweden. Back in 2006, the Grindin’ Forum was born with Jean-Luc and Me and then Mari took over and bought the domain. The mIRC channel started getting empty slowly and we all transferred to the forum. The one thing I was good at, (besides doing fake tunes and editing stuff, which you probably have pretty much something I made on your PC whether if it’s a Neptunes or Timbaland track, I’ve edited it) was finding stuff on the net, so I’ve managed to collect the most rarest Neptunes Tracks there ever were and still is and started to leak them slowly track by track year by year, and sometimes, there were some ‘kids’ *cough* managers’ that could trade with me for The Neptunes Tracks #vulnerable #bigwhitespaceship #newglasses #bootknockilization to name a few.
The funny thing about it is, even the management of The Star Trak Entertainment didn’t know about all those tracks that I’ve been leaking and thought I’ve might have been working for them. There is this tradition on the Grindin forum, where I’m giving rare Neptunes Tracks every year for Christmas and new years eve to this day. And as you already know Tyler, The Creator, Drake, M.I.A. Tinie Tempah, Diplo, and many other VIP’s have all been posting and lurking on the forum and some of them still do, but you already know that. And I think that’s about it, and I also have to mention that nothing of this would have happened If there wasn’t Jean-Luc, so salute to the master!
You can read The Fader Article Here.
PS: Here is a lil’ treasure I’ve been working on as I wrote this cuz y’all asked for it.