RapChat lets users pick a pre-recorded beat, record their voice over it and send the finished product to other RapChatters. The app’s website says RapChat is used to “showcase your rapping skills, start a rap battle between friends, or send a message in a creative, unique way.”
Take Snapchat. Throw out the pictures and videos. Replace them with hip-hop beats and rhymes. What do you get?
RapChat, a mobile application created by Seth Miller, a recent Ohio University graduate, that recently went public.
RapChat lets users pick a pre-recorded beat, record their voice over it and send the finished product to other RapChatters. The app’s website says RapChat is used to “showcase your rapping skills, start a rap battle between friends, or send a message in a creative, unique way.”
RapChat is free to download, but it’s only available on Apple’s App Store. Every new MC has to sign in through Facebook before they can start sending raps. An Android version could be available by summer 2015, the app’s creator says.
The app has 14 different beats to offer, nine of which were produced by “P-Holla” Pat Gibson, a Westerville native and former Northwestern University student based in Chicago.
“After seeing social media blow up during my lifetime and the recent explosion of SnapChat, I realized there is a lot of room to connect with friends in unique ways,” Miller said.
RapChat was born during Startup Weekend 2013, an event where aspiring entrepreneurs from Southeastern Ohio pitched ideas to a panel of judges. Similar events took place across the country the same weekend. RapChat took first place at the 2013 event held in Athens. The experience gave RapChat CEO Seth Miller and his team of seven the confidence they needed to make the app a reality.
On June 6, 2014, RapChat hit the App Store for the first time. It has been downloaded about 2,000 times since it went live.
The RapChat CEO said that above all, his goal is to “make something that people enjoy using.”
Miller said RapChat is still in the product development stage, with no marketing push. Miller plans an advertising campaign after the app’s next update, and hopes to hit the 10,000 download mark by the end of 2014.
Miller grew up in Westerville, OH, and graduated from OU in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in IT systems management. He called his time at OU “awesome” and said it was “a necessary life experience.” In addition to his work on RapChat, Miller works for Progressive Insurance in Cleveland as an IT systems manager.
When it comes to advising college entrepreneurs, “I’d encourage anyone who has an idea to avoid sitting on it. Just go pitch it, or talk to your professors," Miller said.
jh082913@ohiou.edu
@JeremyHTweets
