Coolio Is Just the Beginning, Says PornHub

A lot of conversations about artistic collaboration result in nothing, but when PornHub's head of PR and marketing, Matt Blake, and the rapper Coolio began chatting at the porn industry's annual AVN Awards, a lascivious creative partnership was struck.

 
"We threw a party at a strip club during the AVN Awards, and we invited Coolio," said Blake. "We had some drinks, and I pitched him the idea of coming out with new music on PornHub. He loved it."

The result of that meeting is "Take It to the Hub," a song and forthcoming music video featuring Coolio and the pornstars Alexa Aimes (as a twerking dinosaur), Phoenix Marie, Jessica Bangkok, Missy Martinez and Skin Diamond. The video is set to be released in the following weeks.

While TMZ broke the news, some of the details they put forward were inaccurate. As Coolio said to Rolling Stone: "I let them into the video shoot willingly and then the first thing they do is talk bullshit about me and try to make me look bad. They were trying to say it was my comeback. Man, I ain't trying to make no f--kin' comeback off some porn."

"The way TMZ spun it," Blake said, "they made it seem like we have the exclusive forever [on his music], which isn't true -- him and I have spoken about this, at the end of the day it's all about money. It would depend how much exposure it generates. If it works, we'll go forward. We love Coolio, he was a great sport. If he wants to do again, we'll be more than happy to set it up."

To the outside observer, PornHub may not be the most natural selection for an artist to distribute their work. But consider that PornHub draws 40 million visitors a day and is ranked the 47th most-visited site in the U.S. according to Alexa, and to an artist it starts to look pretty enticing.

While financial details of the deal weren't disclosed, Blake said that it included some money upfront for Coolio, with Coolio agreeing to include some branding in his lyrics (they're right there in the title, after all). PornHub will, instead of monetizing the video for advertisements as they do with the other content on the site, will direct viewers to wherever Coolio wishes -- his website, his iTunes page. The contract was not a record deal, akin to a label.