Issues Accomplished Modified
After many years of radio personalities and DJs being the go-to supply for sharing inside info and leaking new information, current beefs revealed a serious shift. Podcasters and streamers now maintain weight in how music and messages are disseminated.
Interview: William E. Ketchum III
Editor’s Word: This story seems within the Summer time 2024 situation of XXL Journal, on stands now.
This previous March, the rap world was on its heels when Kendrick Lamar despatched photographs towards Drake with a shock verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s track “Like That.” Years of oblique subliminal photographs between Okay-Dot and Drake had lastly congealed into an all-out battle, and followers have been prepared for 2 of rap’s heavyweights to sq. off.
When it got here time to maintain up with the minute-by-minute updates and commentary in regards to the beef, the vacation spot was clear: streamers and podcasters have been taking up because the go-to supply for the real-time happenings in hip-hop.
Earlier than any solo songs have been launched throughout the feud, podcasts like The Joe Budden Podcast and New Rory & MAL obtained conversations flowing with buzz about what that they had heard concerning extra disses that Drake and Kendrick have been engaged on. When there have been questions in regards to the authenticity of a leaked model of Drake’s “Push Ups” amid faux songs circulating on-line this previous April, Drizzy reached out to streaming persona DJ Akademiks, host of the Off the Report with DJ Akademiks podcast, to substantiate that the track was real.
Drake even added an audio clip of Akademiks wildly reacting to the monitor on the track’s closing model. Different artists additionally enlisted Ak of their beefs all through April and Could: Rick Ross had Ak premiere his Drake diss “Champagne Moments.” Quavo hit Ak as much as drop “Over H*es & Bi**hes (OHB),” his diss towards Chris Brown, and The Sport gave Ak the Rick Ross diss “Freeway’s Revenge.” The Sport even gave the favored streamer a shout-out on the diss monitor: “Akademiks, get this ni**a Ozempic starter pack.”
All streamers and podcasters use totally different supply strategies. Akademiks dwell streams for seemingly days at a time, spilling tea on business drama, meshing his perspective with what artists have shared with him, and premiering songs. His streams dwell on Rumble, a platform identified for its embrace of conservative and right-wing voices, and likewise Twitch, a livestreaming platform which has a spotlight that spans throughout video gaming, music, sports activities and extra. He additionally hosts a pre-recorded interview present known as Off the Report and makes use of X, previously often known as Twitter, to announce streams and break information. The podcast New Rory & MAL gives perception into the music business, popular culture and leisure usually on a present that releases free episodes twice per week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube, and one Patreon episode weekly. The Joe Budden Podcast commemorates main events like Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s beef with hours-long, line-by-line breakdowns of diss songs. They launch two episodes per week, and faucet into audiences with Patreon-exclusive episodes conversations on X Areas and an X-specific group.
Adam22’s No Jumper model makes use of YouTube to publish a sequence of hours-long sit-down interviews with up-and-coming artists and business figures, freestyles and commentary on business information. Burgeoning streaming powerhouse Kai Cenat offers reactions to songs and welcomes movie star visitors for sleepovers which have them hanging out and enjoying video games.
Artists and their labels attain out to streamers and podcasters as a result of audiences belief them. Whereas rappers use their social media pages to attach with followers, talking by means of podcasters and streamers offers them a unique alternative to manage the narrative. In doing so, artists can keep an air of inaccessibility that elevates movie star. Concurrently, additionally they maintain a protected distance from their fan base whereas nonetheless getting out the message they need to ship.
In the meantime, audiences have a fair stronger relationship with podcasters and streamers than with artists generally. They watch and hear to those personalities as a part of a schedule of their common lives, chat with them on social media and see them in individual or at dwell occasions. These personalities are sources of data that followers can depend on between their favourite rappers’ album releases and provides views that gasoline conversations in regards to the music as soon as it truly comes out.
“[Listeners and viewers] gravitate in the direction of people who they really feel have a unique perspective and a unique angle, particularly when you have a private relationship with the artist concerned,” MAL of the New Rory & MAL podcast says. “We’ve got actual info, not simply rumors on-line.
I feel [artists] respect it extra as a result of they know we’re not in the identical sport as radio guys.
o r We’re not enjoying the programming sport. We’re followers, we respect the music and we’re being trustworthy from our perspective.”
MAL has a private relationship with Drake, and he’s used his present with Rory to clue listeners in on Drake’s perspective. Forward of Drake releasing the Kendrick diss “Push Ups” in April, MAL hinted {that a} response was within the works. Rory even coyly referenced a lyric from the track earlier than it got here out.
After Rick Ross dropped “Champagne Moments” in April, Mal shared Drake’s response to the monitor on the New Rory & Mal podcast: “He was like, ‘He mentioned he was richer than me, and
I turned it off.’”
MAL additionally informed their pod listeners that Drake was unsure whether or not he ought to seem as a shock visitor at J. Cole’s Dreamville Fest this previous April as a result of any efficiency collectively can be framed as a response to Kendrick’s diss. “He would possibly get mad at me for speaking about this, however he is aware of he’s my ni**a,” MAL mentioned, referring to Drake on the present earlier than recounting the dialog.
MAL retains himself in test by understanding what to maintain non-public and what to share along with his viewers. He’ll usually use his relationships to dispel misinformation. Nevertheless, artists he has friendships with are nonetheless intentional about what they need to be shared and what they need to keep behind closed doorways. “Lots of people that I’ve had relationships with earlier than I had this platform, they really feel so bizarre saying, ‘By the way in which, this stays between us,’” MAL shares. “Whereas earlier than, they by no means needed to say that. It’s humorous to observe how dynamics have modified.”
Whereas MAL’s relationship with Drake has made for partaking dialog within the beef with followers who need to know extra, it’s additionally led to some listeners questioning the podcaster’s allegiances. An explosive debate between him and his cohosts after diss tracks from Kendrick and Drake have been launched had audiences accusing him of analyzing the battle by means of a pro-Drake bias. New Rory & MAL leaned into this with its promotional supplies, calling him “OVO MAL” on social media clips.
For his half, MAL insists that he’s not biased in any respect. “I’m a harder critic when I’ve an actual relationship with any individual,” he insists. “If that is my actual homie, I’m solely gonna let you know what’s actual and be trustworthy with you.” MAL understands that followers could have their beliefs both method and that it isn’t price making an attempt to show them fallacious. “I can’t struggle it. That’s a shedding battle,” he provides.
For his half, Akademiks spoke on streams late within the battle that appeared to go towards his presumed allegiances: he pushed again towards Drake’s assertion that he covertly fed Kendrick false info to rap about and alleged that each rappers lied about one another in pursuit of victory. Ak’s function as a supply to premiere the rappers’ diss tracks and share info from the MCs along with his viewers was well timed and environment friendly.
“Today, individuals are way more engaged,” Ak informed XXL in April. “We dwell in a TikTok period. Individuals wanna eat the content material shortly and get it as they need it, not because it’s served up.”
Hip-hop’s audience is the youth, and new media caters to a youthful viewers’s mind-set. “The know-how has solely superior now as radio has grow to be much less of a factor that the entire tradition tunes into,” Ak mentioned. “Individuals nonetheless need that dwell premiere. So, that’s at all times going to be a factor…Most of hip-hop isn’t making an attempt to sway the adults. It’s making an attempt to sway the youngsters. So, it’s like, what mediums are the youngsters going to and watching?”
Streamers’ capacity to disseminate messages loudly and speedily offers artists a strong software. Adam22, a podcaster and the founding father of the No Jumper content material platform, which features a standard YouTube channel, social media accounts and a podcast, says that the technological benefits for streamers and podcasters make radio DJs “practically irrelevant.”
“If something, why the f**ok would we dwell in a world through which folks have been dashing to offer [songs] to the radio?” Adam22 says. “No one’s being attentive to legacy radio station DJs or something like that. If something, it’s stunning that this transition took this lengthy.”
Adam22 understands that Kendrick Lamar and Drake had totally different methods for approaching their battle. Kendrick stayed inaccessible, merely sharing hyperlinks to his songs with out saying anything. Drake, in the meantime, wished to excite his presentation and gauge followers’ reactions earlier than pulling the set off on an official launch. Adam22 says he “couldn’t fathom a state of affairs” through which Drake would select one other media persona to assist him accomplish that in addition to Akademiks.
“I really feel like Drake actually wished to manage the rollout of plenty of these songs,” Adam explains. “I feel Drake wished to get a vibe for what the folks thought in regards to the songs earlier than he absolutely dropped them. Releasing it by means of an Akademiks stream is an effective way to get all people speaking about it, but it surely’s not as committal as placing it on streaming providers.”
Adam had his personal small function within the beef as nicely. As different artists started to diss Drake, Adam revealed on X that somebody despatched him an early hyperlink to Ye’s remix of Metro Boomin and Future’s “Like That” that includes Kendrick Lamar. Nevertheless, Adam was “forbidden” to launch it. “I’ve the Kanye ‘like that’ remix. I’ve been forbidden to leak it right now,” he tweeted.
Adam ended up leaking the track in what may very well be seen as daring or disrespectful. Sadly, Ye’s supervisor, John Monopoly, reached out to ask Adam to share a completed model as an alternative; the leak Adam had, they mentioned, was truly early and incomplete. Adam often likes to obtain unreleased music early provided that he can share it or he’ll discuss it in an interview with the artist.
“I feel that that individual simply had [the song] from a unique supply, and so they simply knew that I used to be any individual who would in all probability inevitably find yourself getting it on the market,” Adam maintains. “[But] I don’t know why the individual had it. At first, they appeared very critical about me not leaking it. After which I leaked it, and so they completely didn’t give a sh*t. Form of a shock, from my perspective, as a result of I don’t suppose I’ve ever actually leaked a file earlier than.”
Lately, Adam22 introduced that he was chopping the each day information present from No Jumper. He says that commentating on extra standard artists is totally different from the channel’s specialty and that he’s extra more likely to get satisfaction from an interview with an up-and-coming drill rapper that will solely prime out at a pair hundred thousand views. The podcast and streaming panorama will be simply as numerous because the artists themselves, and there’s a unique choice for everybody who desires to maintain up.
Up to now, lots of hip-hop’s iconic real-time moments have come by means of DJs on radio airwaves. Angie Martinez performed Nas’ “Ether” on Scorching 97 in 2001, allowed Jay-Z to react to the track in real-time and welcomed calls from listeners round New York Metropolis to vote for the meat’s winner. Famed Scorching 97 DJ Funkmaster Flex excitedly premiering Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Otis” in 2011 is the stuff of web legend, as followers listened by means of a hilarious 20-minute assault of fixed restarts, screams and bomb drops each few bars. Mixtape DJs equivalent to Whoo Child and Kay Slay have been identified for releasing tapes that have been jam-packed with unique diss information.
Nevertheless, streamers and podcasters convey simply as a lot persona since they will entry worldwide audiences as an alternative of the region-specific listenership that radio DJs have had.
Justin Credible, a DJ who hosts Justin Credible’s Liftoff Present on Energy 106 in Los Angeles, embraces the adjustments that streamers are bringing to the business. He acknowledges the benefit that 24/7 streamers have over his devoted five-hour radio time slot. Credible admits that he loves streamers’ capacity to play soiled variations of songs and communicate their unfiltered opinions, in comparison with radio DJs’ requirement to edit out profanity. However placing his aggressive nature apart, Credible prefers having an quantity of leeway to offer his enter on what’s taking place in hip-hop as an alternative of getting to maintain up in real-time.
“I like truly lining my geese up and getting ready,” Justin Credible insists. “I do know the sensation of being dwell on the radio, and also you’re making an attempt to digest one thing. Everyone desires that real-time response; I get it. However I’ve to dwell with this perpetually. Earlier than I get too deep into ideas, opinions and reactions, I need to digest and listen to all the knowledge. And with as onerous as Kendrick and Drake have been going, we would have liked a second to essentially digest.”
Radio DJs can nonetheless convey artists by for on-air freestyles and interviews. Credible insists they’ve an important function in amplifying songs as soon as they’re out, even when the preliminary unique isn’t within the playing cards anymore. As a working example, test the closing chapters within the Drake and Kendrick beef. Though streamers and podcasters stored followers up to date all through the face-off, radio nonetheless performed an important half. After Kendrick Lamar launched “Not Like Us” on a Saturday night in Could by way of his YouTube channel, DJs embraced it on the radio and at events that proved to be the track’s coronation.
Rick Ross shared footage of the track enjoying at a pool celebration in Las Vegas, and personalities in Los Angeles and the Bay Space spoke about how the track was uniting the West and the file trended on X and YouTube for a number of days. When “Not Like Us” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Scorching 100 chart in Could, it made an early case for the most well liked track of the upcoming summer time and propelled the idea that Kendrick had gained the battle.
Even Drake is aware of that DJs convey a sure degree of credibility. He might depend on personalities equivalent to Akademiks and MAL to share some messages, however he begins “Push Ups” with a drop from DJ Whoo Child, who hosted 50 Cent’s war-path of disses within the 2000s.
However streamers and podcasters are operating the sport now. “Everyone seems to be realizing the cultural shift and the way issues are taking place,” Akademiks says. “And that is enjoying part of that.”
MAL acknowledges that he has a platform however downplays his function in how the meat turned out “What half did I play? I feel I used to be not more than only a man that was simply watching it unfold,” he says. “I used to be lucky sufficient to have entry to the dressing room and communicate to the artist earlier than the struggle.”
Stream on.
Learn how podcasters and streamers are enjoying a serious function in rap beef within the Freshman situation, on newsstands now. Along with interviews with the 2024 Freshman Class and producer Southside, there are additionally conversations with Sexyy Pink, Ski Masks The Droop God, Mustard, Rubi Rose, Ken Carson, Ghostface Killah, Lola Brooke and extra, plus, a glance again at what the 2023 XXL Freshman Class has been doing and a deep dive into the continued scamming and fraud plaguing hip-hop. The difficulty is on sale right here, together with some unique Freshmen merch.
