The Find. The End.
I always took some pride in telling people that The Find Mag has been around for about thirteen years. Thirteen years! That’s pre-streaming era. That’s pre-a lot of things: a world without Instagram, Bandcamp, WhoSampled, Mixcloud… Saying that always made The Find sound like somewhat of a blogosphere survivor. Last of the Mohicans. But as times change, so do aspirations.
I remember a meeting at an advertising company after running The Find for a couple of years. One of their account managers asked me about the business model behind The Find Mag. That question caught me off guard. At the time, I was just a 21-year-old journalism student with a passion for hip-hop. I didn’t have a clue about “business,” let alone “models.” We were supporting independent hip-hop, which was apparently successful enough for them to notice and show interest. But there was never a monetary model. As cheesy as this sounds: passion was our business. It has always come down to that.
So yeah, that meeting didn’t lead to much. The Find, however, did: we self-published a magazine back in 2011, followed by three print magazines made in collaboration with a Dutch record label and hip-hop festival. The Find released three cassette tapes, the Jazzvolution vinyl compilation series, T-shirts, a sling of digital releases, a 7” by Mr. J Medeiros featuring Shad, Stro Elliot & 20syl in 2012… Next to that, we hosted close to 300 guest mixes on Mixcloud, including our own Stay Thirsty & Stay Hungry mix series hosted by Kamir and Jelger, respectively—big shout-out to them for those insane bodies of work. And TheFindMag.com is 3.825 articles deep(!) by a total of 68(!!) different contributors from all over the world.
Summarizing all of that makes it even harder to officially write down this damn sentence, but: this post marks the end of The Find. Without getting overly dramatic, the reality is that it’s been getting harder and harder to find the time and motivation to keep The Find going—and everything that comes with it. My love for music is as strong as ever. But over the last years, my personal aspirations shifted towards my own work as a freelance music journalist/curator and running Rucksack Records. Which is somewhat of an organic successor to The Find. Similar to how The Find was born out of the MS blogspot. If you know what the abbreviation ‘MS’ stands for: thanks for sticking with us even longer than 13 years!
You know what, fuck it. Let’s get overly dramatic: it’s crazy to realize The Find lasted for pretty much half of my lifetime—I’m 31 years old now. With that, The Find feels rooted in my identity. Most of all my work can be traced back to The Find, one way or another. Same for many of the wonderful people I’ve met over the years (you all know who you are!). So this decision wasn’t easy.
But sometimes it’s good to rip things up and start again (© Simon Reynolds). So this is as much a new beginning as it’s an end. I’m super excited for what’s next. I keep doing what I do as a freelance music journalist, in line with what I’ve been doing with The Find Mag. And let’s make it another half-a-lifetime with Rucksack Records. So find me there instead. Pun intended.
—Danny Veekens
Stay connected:
Personal:
www.instagram.com/dannyveekens
www.twitter.com/dannyfinds
Rucksack Records:
www.instagram.com/rucksack_records
www.rucksackrecords.bandcamp.com
PS) The aim is to keep TheFindMag.com online as an archive for as long as possible. If you’d like to show your appreciation or support, please consider a donation via Paypal to contribute to cover annual hosting costs.
