The Universal Music Group said on Wednesday that it had acquired a stake in the operator of the urban social networking Web site Loud.com, which operates the www.loud.com and www.battlerap.com.

“Universal’s strategy is to become actively involved in all areas of media where our artists and our music are present,” stated UMG Vice Chairman/CFO Nick Henny. “Loud.com has created an incredibly vibrant and growing online hip-hop community that features not only compelling user-generated content, but also the means for users to create their own music and compete for a record deal. Loud.com is quickly emerging as one of the leading new online ventures that successfully reaches the new generation of international and multicultural youth.”

“We are delighted that UMG is joining the Loud.com family,” commented Loud.com co-founder/CEO Joseph Safina. “When Steve Rifkind and I started Loud.com, our hope was to create a virtual home for hip-hop fans around the world. To our delight, it has quickly evolved into an online community, competition, A&R site and marketing company all rolled into one. With UMG now on board, we’ll be able to offer even more compelling services to our members.”

The company, a unit of Vivendi, based in Paris, did not disclose the size of its investment in the Web site..

The ad-supported site caters to hip-hop fans, who can upload their own raps and compete for a record deal with SRC Records, a label distributed by Universal.

The Web site also sells audio files of hip-hop beats for 99 cents.

So far this year, Universal has made an equity investment in Alliance Trace Media, which owns Trace-TV, based in Paris, and acquired companies that have record labels and operate merchandising, touring and artist management businesses in Spain, Britain and Brazil.