Verified

Have you ever read a poem or a song and wondered what the artist thought about a certain line or lyric? Verified artists are, essentially, personal annotations for artists and authors. They let the author of a text make their own comments about their writing- they can relate the anecdotes that led to the creation of a song, comment about the instrumental arrangements, decipher their own particularly cryptic lyrics, or elaborate on their arguments.

For musicians, this function can serve both as a connection to their fan base, and garner additional publicity for their music. Most of the time listeners want to know the stories and thoughts behind the music, and the speculation of Genius contributors can only illuminate so much. Verified annotations are a far more direct way of discussing the creation of a text- instead of listening to a 20 minute interview to discover something about a line in a song, these annotations provide a much more direct and specific way of hearing the artist’s opinion about lyrics. This practice can be expanded to fiction and poetry- the annotations let the author reveal the more personal side of the writing- discussing the personal experiences that led to a character or event, or lending credence to a given theory of analysis.

For nonfiction writers, verified annotations let writers reach a new level of complexity with their arguments. Not only can an author add additional citations to an article, they can put relevant parts of those sources directly beside the place they use it in their writing. Instead of having to find the footnote that leads to an entire article, the annotations can be used to present the exact lines they were referring to. In addition, annotations can provide an area for editorial comments in articles that are otherwise objective- the author can still convey their opinions without including them in an otherwise factual article. Moreover, they give the author freedom to include the nuance and additional information that inevitably gets cut when writing a research paper.

On Genius, not every writer is verified, but there are a number of very recognizable artists who have been verified. The largest and most recent, within Rap Genius at least, is Eminem. His annotations discuss his own writing process, and also give a unique insight into the actual interactions of the people in the rap industry. Most of the time annotations from Verifieds are invaluable even on texts they didn’t author because they normally provide the perspective of someone within the music industry. Genius contributors are quite good at references and analysis, but have far less expertise at what it’s like to actually be in a recording studio making music. This makes the annotations of a producer like Rick Rubin especially insightful because they deal with the actual musicality of a song- most annotations deal only with the lyrics.

As always, view the annotated version of this text here. Also, I invite you to sign up for the beta version of /theinternet below, so that you can add annotations to this page, or anything on the internet. Also, download the Genius chrome extension to see annotations more easily on any page you visit.