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We Interviewed the Guy Who Owns OGMaco.com

"We didn’t hack anything or have anything to do with #FutureHive stuff. I don’t even know what the fuck that is."

When OG Maco tweeted about how Future was endangering the youth with his glorification of drug use—particularly Xanax—it didn’t take long for #FutureHive to react. Soon after, it was noticed by some internet sleuth that OG Maco’s eponymous domain was for not only for sale, but that a message appeared on the site beside a smiling Future’s face reading “Q: Is OGMaco.com for sale? A: Bitch you guessed it!” This act of domain squatting prompted Maco to announce that he was actually planning on going by a new moniker after his album dropped and that his actual website was MacoMattox.net, implying that whoever bought the original domain wasted their money.

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An Atlanta phone number was attached to the ad, so we texted it to find out if the creator of the campaign was open to talking about it. After originally being hesitant to do an interview, the purchaser—going by Tom Kane—changed his mind the next day after swapping the homepage of the site to a new image.

The graphic listed the specific asking price of $5,000 USD cash or $10,000 USD in bitcoin. If the purchaser was OG Maco, Kane would grant a discount of 20%, because he believes that ““it's only fair to give them a deal. I’m not familiar with how much he gets a show but that should be chump change for him.” Tom Kane was polite and agreed to answer all of our questions, but started the conversation by stating that he “can’t answer questions on if [he’s] been contacted or if [he’s] affiliated with Future.” Kane seems to be a man with a penchant for understanding the way the web works, and said that his company bought the domain before even knowing who OG Maco was. However, Tom Kane did shine some light on why he chose the time of 8:10 PM on Friday July 17th as the cutoff for the “sale,” as well as letting us know what his favorite songs from Future and OG Maco are.

Noisey: I see that you’ve updated the site with a new homepage. Have you been getting a lot of offers since the site’s been up?
Tom Kane: I haven't even been able to call everybody back with the offer yet, but yeah we just changed the site up and how money could be sent to use because too many people were trying to pay with credit cards and wire transfers. We only accepting cash or bitcoin purchases because we don’t want to get caught up in anything shady and avoid paper trails and whatnot. The highest offer we received was actually $30,000.

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So how did you find out that was up for sale?
We’ve always had ownership over the site name. As far as the rapper himself, he came along after we owned it. I don’t have the date in front of me right but it’s been almost a year if not a year by now. We didn’t hack anything or have anything to do with #FutureHive stuff. I don’t even know what the fuck that is.

So what prompted you to put that picture of Future in the first place and start all of this?
Well, if you think about it, this Maco individual was saying a lot of thing on tour about people being stupid and him being able to manipulate 40 million minds because of song choices, which makes him seem like he is almighty. So, you would think for someone to talk like that, they would be smart enough to own their own name, but clearly they don’t. So, we kind of used his remarks as a window to remind people that you should probably clean your own house before you get to somebody else’s house and start calling it dirty.

Why did you set the price to buy the domain at $5,000 dollars USD and why does OG Maco get a discount?
The individual going by that name will get a discount because we think that if someone is going by a name that we own it's only fair to give them a deal. I’m not familiar with how much he gets a show but that should be chump change for him. I actually heard he was planning on changing his name because of the site, which is pretty sad. I mean it's like “Wow do you have money or do you not.” I know cokeheads that could cough up that amount of cash.

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This is all just a matter of business. When the internet first started a lot of people didn’t believe in it and they didn’t own domains of their names so other people—who were smart—acquired those domains and the non-believers had to pay for their terrible mistakes. Guess that’s what happened on his end.

Continued below…

Is this like a full time job for you, just owning multiple domain names?
We own thousands of domain names; Tom Kane Global is an organization. As far as what’s going on with the site we just trying to fix everything in terms of what’s going on in the market.

Well, Maco did go on Twitter and he was planning on switching his name anyways so he didn't need the domain.
If you come out here with one name as an artist but then decide to change it I don’t think that makes much sense. I don’t know of any successful rapper that’s changed their name and successfully kept it. More than anything that was probably a ploy to devalue the ownership of our domain. We’re not worried in any sense because if he really wants to change his name he can go right ahead. It only take five seconds to change your name but I would think if he hasn’t already done it already that again he’s just trying to devalue our ownership. Up till now no one has identified themselves as being a part of that camp thats contacted us.

Why does the sale end at 8:10PM?
Well, 8:10 PM in military time is 20:10 and there are a lot of things that happened in 2010. Actually … now that I think of it, the first Dirty Sprite came out in that same year. There was also the FIFA World Cup in Spain, Wikileaks leaked a bunch of documents, it was just a good year, so we picked it.

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Are you confident you can sell the domain by Friday?
I mean it would be by Friday when Dirty Sprite 2 drops so that would be nice.

What’s your favourite Future song?
My favourite Future song would have to be “Future Back” off of Astronaut Status.

And what's your favourite OG Maco song?
I like the “Fuckemx3” he put out that was pretty cool.

Do you think he’s saying that right now after reading the message on your domain?
I hope he’s asking his friends to help get him $10, because I know he has at least 400 friends so it shouldn't be that hard. Its really embarrassing that it’s taken him this long.

Are you excited for Dirty Sprite 2?
Yeah most definitely. I might even put a stream on it for the Maco site.

Slava Pastuk is Noisey's tech reporter - @SlavaP