When Pharrell Williams and Tyrese Gibson are looking for a daily dose of interesting hip-hop facts and information, they turn to a teenager in the UAE.
Hassan Bargathi may come across as a quiet and shy figure, but the 18-year-old is a big deal on social media, thanks to his popular @OnlyHipHopFacts Twitter account.
Launched in 2012, the account now has 207,000 followers, including rap royalty such as Wiz Khalifa and Macklemore, in addition to legends such as Public Enemy’s Chuck D.
Modelled after popular accounts @Uberfacts (9.4 million followers) and @neverknownfacts (1.78m), Bargathi's site is dedicated to disseminating a mix of random and timely hip-hop knowledge.
Sample tweets reveal facts such as: rapper Nas's father "Olu Dara performed the trumpet solo at the end of his track Dance"; and Methodman is the only solo artist to appear on records with Tupac and Biggie before they passed away.
It’s not only about trivia, Bargathi explains – he also aims to give readers a deeper understanding of hip-hop culture.
“I am trying to give people the stuff that you don’t get just listening to the music,” he says. “What I am trying to do is to give people information that makes them perhaps understand the deeper meaning behind a particular track they are listening to and also to get some deeper knowledge about the artist.”
Born in Libya, Bargathi moved with his family to Jordan when he was 11, before moving to Dubai two months ago to study Digital Production at the American University of Dubai.
A keen hip-hop head – he is a fan of Kanye West and J Cole – he originally launched @OnlyHipHopFacts as a hobby. Within a few months, he had attracted more than 8,000 followers and realised he “was on to something”.
Asked what it is about his Twitter feed that has proved so popular, he puts it down to good news and no negativity. “What people enjoy about it is that I only post positive tweets,” he says. “I am not interested in writing about any of the negative stuff – they can find that elsewhere. With me, it is all about promoting the positive parts of the music and culture.”
Not surprisingly, the artists appreciate Bargathi’s enthusiastic approach as much as the fans.
In April 2013, he posted that rapper Tyler the Creator doesn’t smoke or drink. The message was not only retweeted by Tyler, a rare feat in itself, he also responded with what was for Bargathi a game-changing tweet: “Hip-hop facts, haha, I made it on there, that’s funny.”
“I got 10,000 new followers that month alone,” Bargathi says. “That basically added fuel to the fire.” It also established a new trend where artists such as Wiz Khalifa and Big Sean began to retweet @OnlyHipHopFacts posts. The barrier between Bargathi and the artists was well and truly smashed in November when Pharrell approached him to share the previously unknown fact that his notoriously fragile voice gave out while recording with the legendary hip-hop crew A Tribe Called Quest in his early years.
Williams sent that information on November 20, only two days before a similar incident during his Abu Dhabi show at du Arena – a bad omen, perhaps, or he was already clearly under the weather. “That was an amazing moment because I tweeted him to give us a fact for our readers,” Bargathi says. “I never expected he would get back to me.”
Bargathi also got an invite to Kim Kardashian’s perfume launch in Dubai last year, where he ran into Tyrese. The singer, possibly the UAE’s most popular unofficial resident, dubbed him “the facts man”.
Bargathi’s success has not gone unnoticed in the entertainment industry, locally and internationally – he said a few well-known rappers had approached him to run their official Twitter fan pages – though he diplomatically declined to reveal their names.
Meanwhile, @OnlyHipHopFacts is set to get the biggest scoop yet: Bargathi has accepted an offer by Drake’s concert promoters, Louder Entertainment, to cover the artist’s Dubai visit and concert on March 14.
“I am so excited about this,” he says. “It is one thing to write about him but to actually see him physically and write about it at the same time will be an amazing experience.”