On Thursday, RF gang became the first rap group from McLean to monetize their music on the music streaming service Spotify.

RF Gang is a rap group made up of a group of McLean alumni whose hit singles “Spring Chicken” and “Like Mike” launched them into Mclean lore last year. After taking a hiatus, the rap group has begun work on their first studio album that is supposed to be released this summer.

Their biggest hit “Spring Chicken,” was released on SoundCloud almost one year ago today, and has since gone to amass over 9,000 streams. On Mar. 10, the group’s single was approved and uploaded to Spotify.

Unlike SoundCloud, Youtube, and other popular music streaming platforms, Spotify requires an aggregator to, in essence, sponsor your music for Spotify approval and release.

The difficult and tedious uploading process to get an artist’s music onto Spotify is what makes it a more respectable platform, as not just anybody can simply upload any music they make at any time, like an artist can on SoundCloud and YouTube.

Getting approved is the first step towards monetization and the relative legitimization of rap groups, like RF Gang, whose popularity flourished out of the stigmatized culture of “SoundCloud rappers”.

Although, some current upcoming Mclean rappers are finding it harder to justify trying to trying to upload their music to Spotify.

“That would be amazing. I would love to get my music on Spotify and gain revenue, although I believe I am not at the point where I can gain popularity and make money,” senior Kamal Abdelhalim said.

Halim uploaded two songs earlier this year to Soundcloud, becoming part of small, albeit steadily growing, wave of Mclean students who are uploading to Soundcloud to gain social popularity and and work on their craft before they move onto more professional and respected outlets like Spotify.

“I will work towards it, but as of right now, I don’t see it as [being] practical,” Abdelhalim said.