December 11, 2024 • 25 mins
In this Hate It or Love It installment of the I Hate This Industry Podcast, the hosts delve into Drake's recent lawsuit against UMG, exploring its potential implications for the music industry. They discuss the dichotomy between cultural hits and manufactured hits, highlighting how Drake's career has been shaped by industry dynamics. The conversation also touches on the disconnect that comes with superstardom, the cultural exposure of Drake, and the broader machinery of the music industry that influences artists' careers.
Takeaways
- Drake's lawsuit against UMG could expose industry practices.
- The difference between cultural hits and manufactured hits is significant.
- Drake's recent actions may reflect a loss of cultural relevance.
- Superstardom can create a disconnect from the audience.
- Kendrick Lamar represents a more authentic cultural connection.
- Drake's career has been heavily influenced by industry support.
- The music industry operates like a factory, producing artists as products.
- Public perception plays a crucial role in an artist's success.
- Drake's cultural impact is being questioned amidst his recent struggles.
- The dynamics of the music industry are complex and multifaceted.
Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on culture, creativity, and collective progress.
Share your thoughts using #IHateThisIndustryPod.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you don't know what I'm talking about, Drake filed a lawsuit or filed or has launched a petition petition to file a lawsuit against UMG.
(00:09):
And I feel like I get it.
There's two sides of this coin, right?
There's a side of it where you go.
This is going to shake up the music industry and maybe in a way where it exposes a lot of things that the major labels do.
(00:30):
And that's interesting and that's cool.
So there's that aspect of it.
And maybe two things could be true.
That could be happening as well.
But culturally, he's lost the people.
Culturally, he's lost it.
I just don't see.
He looks bad.
It looks like he's down bad.
And he instead of like climbing back up to greatness, he's just taking like the Karen route.
(00:57):
You know, and I don't know, man.
I don't.
I could see it from both perspectives, but it's like to attack the same system that you benefit from your entire career because you lost the battle.
And I hate when people go, he's not it's not against Kendrick.
(01:19):
It's not against any of that.
And it's like, you know, it's indirectly.
That's what it is.
It's an indirect attack on Kendrick.
Or not attack, it's an indirect way to attack him or approach him or the result or the response to it.
You know what I mean?
(01:40):
Because if he didn't lose that battle, would he be doing this?
If he had a drug that had the cultural impact that Not Like Us did and they pushed it the same way, would he be reacting like this?
Tootsie Slide, I'm sure, got the same fucking promotion.
Tootsie Slide sucked.
That was a terrible record.
(02:00):
But it still was number one.
From who?
I've never played that record in my damn life.
I've played Not Like Us about a thousand times.
Never wait to see it.
You see you for is my second most played song here.
It's just kind of.
It just.
Oh, we're talking cultural impact versus manufacturing hits, right?
(02:27):
Cultural hits versus manufactured hits.
Tootsie Slide is a manufactured hit.
It was not good.
It got the same, I'm sure it got the same push on.
It got the same power behind it, the same money behind it, the same type of support behind it.
Not like I don't even believe Not Like Us needed that.
You know what I mean?
Because it was so impactful.
Absolutely.
(02:48):
Every major label has relationships with radio.
Every major label has relationships with other corporations.
That's the game.
When you have a joint that goes and is going to create you more money or more cultural relevance.
You're going to put money behind it and resources behind it.
Bottom line.
Drake got to stop bitching, man.
(03:11):
Rapping won't even help you no more, man.
It only.
Now it's becoming like, oh, it's.
You know, he's that guy.
You know what I mean?
Or.
Yeah.
I mean, it hurts.
It hurts, man.
I ain't going to lie to you because.
Growing up high school, college, Drake, Kanye was up here.
(03:32):
Kanye is still up here for me.
Yeah, yeah.
Drake is one of the goats.
I've heard every song.
From high school to college to now.
Well, his last few albums I didn't really hear like that.
But.
I know every Drake song, every moment, every video.
All of it.
(03:52):
I don't think I haven't done was been to a concert.
I guess like that.
So like just looking at the situation and looking at what's
going on and how it can affect the industry.
I think early on, people was thinking like, OK, y'all don't.
Y'all don't really understand.
Y'all LLC niggas.
Y'all y'all should be freeing up Drake.
(04:13):
Y'all should be he fighting the system.
I'm like, is he is he or is he just is he just whining?
And is he just like, OK, we see what they're doing with not
like us.
We sing the word that was that was used.
We sing this to jeopardize his his his likeness, his image
(04:36):
and things like that.
So like from Drake's standpoint and from his count,
they may think they're doing the right thing.
And from our standpoint, people like me and you, we can say,
OK, he's crying and moaning.
But then this something like this will change the system.
Somebody like Drake and what makes him different from people
(04:58):
that go against the system, they're doing it.
The people that's going against the system, like a prince,
like a Michael Jackson, they're doing it to change not only
themselves, but those that come after them.
So it's bigger than just Prince.
It's bigger than just Michael Jackson.
It's bigger than just a Malcolm X or Martin Luther King.
(05:19):
And they do it with integrity.
Absolutely.
That's the key point here is integrity.
I feel the route Aubrey has taken has no integrity.
And because it's your label.
You can't brag about being the guy at the label all these years
(05:41):
because I remember that period of Drake being like,
wait, he's that you know, he bragged about being that guy.
Like I could get it.
Or he had that line where he's like,
I could get anything from Elliot Grange or whatever it was.
He made a reference like that.
Like that's what it is.
Anything is OK.
Yeah.
That's what it was.
He was Elliot.
He was Lucien Grange's golden boy.
(06:03):
They pumped the billions into it.
And they did this.
And I was listening to Ian Dunlap from EYL.
Yeah, he was talking about like once we start talking about UMG,
people have to understand.
I understand the people talking about it on the surface level,
on social media and crying and talking about this about Drake
and he doing this.
But once you're talking about UMG,
(06:24):
you're talking about Chinese investors.
Yeah.
Talking about people from British,
you're talking about these type of investors
that have spit millions on Drake and spit millions on Scorpion.
When Scorpion came out, it was on every,
I think it was on a gospel playlist.
Yeah.
I covered things like this.
It was like on all these playlists.
(06:44):
It was all of these billboards and things like that.
So Drake has been spoiled, spoiled,
which he has his entire life.
So Lucien had manufactured, they done sculpted his abs.
They done all types of crazy.
He's a, Ken Lupin has pumped billions into him.
And then you have this Marcus Garvey individual,
(07:08):
this Malcolm X individual.
You have this individual that has culture.
Yep.
You heard what Jay-Z said.
You reposted the video.
We are culture.
We are culture.
Nothing goes without us.
Kendrick had the euphoria.
Kendrick had to not like us and things like that.
(07:30):
And same with, I can have this Nicki Minaj type of situation.
She was so on top.
She was at the top of the totem pole.
But then you have a Cardi B come in.
Then you have another option.
People are going to gravitate to that other option.
Especially when you swore it was in touch.
Because success, the higher you climb on the ladder of success,
(07:51):
I feel like you separate from the ground floor.
You separate from the people.
So it's superstardom.
Because you can be successful and all that
and still have a grounding.
We see it with J. Cole in a bit.
Even though J. Cole has said himself,
he has been out of touch with it.
(08:11):
And Kendrick comes out whenever he comes out
and then goes back in.
But their level of superstardom, Drake, let's be real.
Drake's level of superstardom probably
will never happen again with another artist.
And that level of superstardom makes you kind of oblivious
to what actually happens on the ground floor.
(08:33):
And the higher you climb up, the further
you get from that relevancy and that connectivity
to the people.
And people love success.
And they love to see you win.
But they love even more to see you burn.
They love, they'd rather watch a train wreck
than to go in the fire and help you out.
(08:54):
They love it.
You might be going 150 miles an hour.
And people are like, damn, that's fast.
But they're hoping you crash.
So that could be like, you see?
Yeah, right.
They could look and point.
Because that's just part of America.
I don't want to say it's the world.
America loves entertainment.
We love to be entertained.
So we love tragedy.
(09:14):
We love success.
We love comedy.
So when you, Drake is in that.
Drake is in that.
But also, did he ever have culture?
Was he ever actually culturally connected?
Not at all.
Because you had guys in the barbershop,
you had guys talk about this singing guy, this rapping guy.
(09:37):
OK, is he a singer?
Is he a rapper?
Is he a pop artist?
This and that.
And like I was saying about Kendrick,
you have this cultured guy that is from LA.
You have this guy that when he produces and when he does,
Not Like Us, UMG didn't have to push the button for that.
Not Like Us was a cultural moment in history
(09:59):
that will live forever.
So that was something that Drake couldn't stop.
He couldn't.
He couldn't stop.
That's why that was the last record of the entire beef.
And it basically stamped like, OK, this
is where we are in this moment.
I'm here.
(10:20):
So UMG being UMG, a billion dollar corporation,
of course we're going to put money
behind our main product.
The same we have done for you, Drake, for the past 10 years.
So yeah, he's just a jealous millionaire there.
Honestly, so sorry.
(10:41):
That's why it's kind of lame.
And the thing also, Not Like Us didn't
have to be the last record.
Drake tapped out.
The Hard Part 6 was disgusting.
That was a disgusting record.
I didn't like that.
I saw people say that was a good record.
(11:02):
The hard part was the hard part.
The hard part 6, that record he put out after Not Like Us.
That's about what Drake did.
Yeah, yeah, not the room.
I mean, it was bad.
It was just not a good record.
That was with him saying, basically
backtracking everything.
And again, that felt like a label move.
That felt like somebody told you, yo, you
(11:23):
got to go say something about these allegations
and say something about all of this.
And what I was going to say about UMG,
when you bring up a good point about the Chinese investor,
it's not only just Chinese investors.
UMG has their hands in so many different things.
They like mass produce water in a country somewhere.
That's what I'm saying.
It's the message to you, or some friends, and all over.
(11:46):
It's more than just that.
It's more than just entertainment.
Not only that, to add to that, with UMG,
you've got to also realize there are some people in the UMG
boardrooms and major stockholders.
I'm not talking about the people who own little pieces.
I'm talking about the major stockholders,
those investors, all that.
(12:08):
There's certain people in that company who don't give a fuck
about Drake.
Their concern is an instrument.
Drake is just one piece of this giant machine that works.
So it's like if he's costing you money and making you look bad,
(12:29):
yo, fuck that guy.
He's not even, to them, he's not even that relevant.
He's just one, I'm not saying he's not relevant,
but Drake is only relevant entertainment-wise.
For what I mean, Drake is not like a humanitarian.
When you think of these bigger businesses that
(12:52):
kind of add to the capitalism of the world
and add to the structure of society,
Drake is not one of those guys.
And in comparison to like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk,
who have those stakes in the ground that
affect the world, kind of, you know what I mean?
And how the overall culture shifts.
(13:14):
I don't even know if Kendrick has that for hip hop,
but Kendrick is a moving cog in that machine
of how culture shifts.
Or if nothing else, he is a representative of the culture.
And I don't think we get that with Drake.
And I feel like we're seeing a product malfunction.
So are we seeing the downfall of Drake?
(13:36):
I think we're seeing the cultural exposure of Drake.
I think an act like Drake can't fall,
they're just too successful.
And you have too much in the bank and not financially.
I mean, you got too much work you've done,
too much stakes in the ground.
You know, like he is a legend, whether people like him or not.
(14:00):
I don't agree with this.
I don't discredit his entire career.
Because I respect the career.
The career is one that's never been.
It's just there's no career like it.
And I don't see there ever being another career like it.
I think he's a shooting star in this industry.
The same way every city or next album,
(14:21):
I think it's going to do like roughly,
it's going to do good.
I think I just saw statistics that he's still
the most streamed artist every month this year.
So it's like, I don't think that's why this is crazy.
Because you're not really losing.
Dickerson.
(14:41):
What's up about that?
He's not really losing.
He's still on top.
He's still the guy.
People still love Drake.
It's not like, yo, you got a little chink in the armor.
That's fine.
That's cool.
It comes with the game.
Like, whole shoulder play though.
Yeah.
Well, I feel like he did that.
(15:04):
I feel like he did that.
That pedophile shit could have been here and done.
And I don't know.
My whole perception of that battle
was crazy because now when I look at it,
I look at all the things of Kendrick telling you,
yo, don't say lies about me and I won't say truths about you.
Don't mention my family.
Don't mention my family.
(15:25):
We can keep it friendly.
I see all that.
And then I see Drake.
Now you can really look at it and go, oh, he's just an egomaniac.
Oh, I think I'm the guy.
I'm thinking.
Then you get chinchacked.
And that's what happened.
And you're going to take a blow because the one thing you could
I mean, you might not like Kendrick because his music is
(15:45):
kind of a certain type of music.
But he is one of us.
He is the people.
Whether you like it or not, he has always stood for
he has been an artistic figure as far as a moving piece of art.
His cultural relevance and stance has always been impactful
(16:11):
and been respected and been like, OK, this is the guy
that we put on those pedestals.
This is the guy who represents that.
He's the guy who's keeping the actual art form of this alive.
From the storytelling, from the conceptual albums,
from the releases, from all of the processes.
He's always been that guy.
And he's been surgical when he's been on the attack mode.
(16:34):
You know what I mean?
Every time he's kind of thrown a shot,
and he's been the guy letting you know I'm that dude.
I'm number one.
He did it on the control verse.
He's always thrown those things out into the universe.
It's other people who have said these guys are, Drake is the go.
But Kendrick has always stood on that stance.
(16:57):
So that wasn't nothing else.
It was just like, you don't reach out.
I think he just got offended.
You don't reach out to do this damn song.
They're like, fuck you.
You know I don't like you.
What was it, the BET cypher shit?
He's like, I took the sensitive rapper back in his pajama clothes.
He's like, yo, he's been joking.
He knew.
I said, what's up?
And year to late, a year later, it stands.
(17:21):
That stands true.
That shit crazy, bro.
I thought I hold grudges with some people.
But damn, that was like 2011, 12?
Yeah.
But I think Kendrick saw it back then.
I think a lot of people saw it.
I think if you're in the industry, and as you build your career,
and you're at those levels, you see the type of career routes
(17:44):
that these artists take, where Drake took the manufactured route.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I'm a fan of it.
I'm a fan of acts.
If you're a good act, I'm a fan, because I love entertainment.
I love music.
I love it.
So it's like, I love a good show.
I love a good production.
I love a good act.
(18:04):
Drake is one of the greatest acts of the music industry,
of the entertainment industry.
So I respect his decisions of how he chose to go about his career.
I get it.
He took the money when it came.
He took the big checks.
He took the easy records.
He took the pop records.
He did everything to be the best manufactured product in the market.
(18:25):
And I love that.
And I think somebody like Kendrick sees that,
while he's choosing the grassroots route in his career.
And he looks at that, and he goes, oh, but that's the same way
they look at Vlad.
It's like, oh, you're just using our culture.
(18:45):
And not only that, and you're trans Dominican.
So it's like, you're not even you.
You're not even the Canadian Jewish guy.
You're trying to convert into something in front of us.
He's like Kim Kardashian.
It's like, you go from one person to the next person before our eyes,
(19:06):
and we're just supposed to eat that shit up.
Now Kim, I mean, the Kardashians are a certain type of people.
People just respect it.
But we all know what the fuck goes on in the Kardashian.
Don't know that.
Darryl, you don't watch the Kardashians.
You don't sit there.
You go, this is entertainment.
Because you know what?
You seen a man turn into a woman.
Granted, fuck it.
(19:26):
That's your freedom.
Do whatever you want.
I'm just saying, we all watch this shit, and it's crazy.
Now we got to watch a Jewish black man turn into a Dominican.
And we got to be like, it's OK.
And on top of him exploding black culture,
on top of him exploding hip hop culture,
is that we live in a crazy world.
Motherfuckers just transforming in front of us.
(19:47):
And I'm joking about the Kardashian thing.
Not joking.
I'm being serious.
But I'm saying those elements, the extremes, where you can see a man
become a woman, no problem with that, just to make that clear.
I'm just saying we saw it on TV.
See?
On this thing, when you watch a man become a woman on TV,
(20:08):
on public outlets, that's such an extreme
that when you see their child go from a normal human to a plastic human,
it's regular.
You don't like, you know.
Well, I don't think about it when Kim Kardashian is a walking Barbie doll.
(20:29):
You don't think about it because it's like, oh, you know, their family already,
so much extremes are happening in society that it becomes such a normalcy.
And I'm not saying it's not normal.
I'm saying the extremes of these things are crazy.
They're so wild that back in the day, it stood out, right?
(20:51):
Today, it doesn't stand out because it's normal.
You got saucy Santana.
You got all these crazy things.
You got saucy Santana.
You got all these crazy, like, these extreme characters.
I just say all that to say Drake is an extreme character.
He is the dream capital of Shemarie.
(21:12):
He's the Kim Kardashian.
No, saucy Santana is crazy.
That's a wild character.
I think it's the Kim Kardashian of...
Kenji Lamar's Kanye?
Kenji Lamar's Kanye.
(21:35):
That's crazy.
I mean, it's sad to see as far as what I remember with Drake as far as so far
gone come back season, that's the Drake that I remember.
Even...
You know what I'm saying?
Even DeGrasse, I think DeGrasse is the first time I've seen him and then I see
him transform into a comeback.
The Dominican man.
So far gone, things like that.
(21:56):
And we've seen him with the braids, the fro, the low cut, the...
He's on...
Like, this shit is crazy.
It's crazy.
My fault to get you all.
I'm saying he stole Sauce Walker's whole style, man.
People don't even say that because Sauce Walker is a little not...
He's underground.
I love Sauce Walker.
(22:17):
Shout out to Texas.
Sauce Walker is one of my favorite artists, honestly, out of Texas in hip hop.
But he took his whole style with the braids and the beads and all that shit.
And it's like...
And because he lives in...
You know, he stays in...
It's like, bro, you stealing a man's whole identity who kind of...
He kind of cemented it.
That was like his thing.
(22:38):
And it's just weird when I see that.
And I say that to say that's the thing Kendrick was pointing out.
When he said you run to Atlanta to get a game from you to lingo and all that.
You ran to Texas and stole Sauce Walker's whole style.
That's crazy.
And to tag along with you saying is like when you see Degrassi, you don't see that Drake.
(23:00):
You see a kid who's, you know, earning his career, where now you see a guy who's...
Oh, let me take what's...
You take what the people love and the people don't love it from you.
They just like it from you because you make it relevant and cool and you put it in the
(23:21):
eyes of everybody.
As opposed to it being just an original thing on your end, as far as being like a tastemaker
and being somebody who curates these things.
He curates what's already popular or amongst the culture and he just puts it on that main
stage.
(23:42):
And it is what it is.
I've always seen it happen.
And it is.
It's going to be interesting to see the lawsuit.
I know there's some dates, I think next week or something like that, that they're circling
and we'll see how they go.
And the fight with Drake and UMG, like I don't know what he's looking for.
I don't know if he's looking to become a saty.
I don't know if he's looking to change the industry.
(24:04):
I don't know.
But if secrets do come out and say anything, UMG is going to say Drake, the same thing we
did for Kendrick, we've been doing for you for 10 years.
Even if you do not know it, no matter how big of an act you are, Joe Bun talked about
this all the time.
No matter how big of an act you are, as far as inside their system, you will never know
(24:28):
the true analytics.
You will never know the true day to day and what goes on in Spotify office and the UMG
office and the TikTok audience.
I mean, office and things like that.
You will never know because you're not truly a part of that company.
You're a product.
Yes, you're a product within their company that you're literally a Coke bottle in the
(24:51):
factory that gets manufactured with the rest of the Coke bottles.
And they have placed you in line in order for you to design what you need to do, which
is quench the thirst of the customer.
That is basically what you are.
This analogy I've heard for a second.
That is basically what these acts are in this environment and Drake tells us with, and even
(25:17):
some sort of Kendrick, they are all just Coke bottles in this factory.
So yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
Kendrick is part of that.
Kendrick is just, he just has a different superpower.
He just has a different, it's like how they make the toys and the toys come with accessories,
you know, like wrestler comes to the championship bell, if they're known for talking on a microphone,
(25:39):
they have a microphone.
Kendrick comes packaged the same way.
He just has culture with him and he has the people with him.
And okay, what did you think of G&X?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, Drake filed a lawsuit or filed or has launched a petition petition to file a lawsuit against UMG.
(00:09):
And I feel like I get it.
There's two sides of this coin, right?
There's a side of it where you go.
This is going to shake up the music industry and maybe in a way where it exposes a lot of things that the major labels do.
(00:30):
And that's interesting and that's cool.
So there's that aspect of it.
And maybe two things could be true.
That could be happening as well.
But culturally, he's lost the people.
Culturally, he's lost it.
I just don't see.
He looks bad.
It looks like he's down bad.
And he instead of like climbing back up to greatness, he's just taking like the Karen route.
(00:57):
You know, and I don't know, man.
I don't.
I could see it from both perspectives, but it's like to attack the same system that you benefit from your entire career because you lost the battle.
And I hate when people go, he's not it's not against Kendrick.
(01:19):
It's not against any of that.
And it's like, you know, it's indirectly.
That's what it is.
It's an indirect attack on Kendrick.
Or not attack, it's an indirect way to attack him or approach him or the result or the response to it.
You know what I mean?
(01:40):
Because if he didn't lose that battle, would he be doing this?
If he had a drug that had the cultural impact that Not Like Us did and they pushed it the same way, would he be reacting like this?
Tootsie Slide, I'm sure, got the same fucking promotion.
Tootsie Slide sucked.
That was a terrible record.
(02:00):
But it still was number one.
From who?
I've never played that record in my damn life.
I've played Not Like Us about a thousand times.
Never wait to see it.
You see you for is my second most played song here.
It's just kind of.
It just.
Oh, we're talking cultural impact versus manufacturing hits, right?
(02:27):
Cultural hits versus manufactured hits.
Tootsie Slide is a manufactured hit.
It was not good.
It got the same, I'm sure it got the same push on.
It got the same power behind it, the same money behind it, the same type of support behind it.
Not like I don't even believe Not Like Us needed that.
You know what I mean?
Because it was so impactful.
Absolutely.
(02:48):
Every major label has relationships with radio.
Every major label has relationships with other corporations.
That's the game.
When you have a joint that goes and is going to create you more money or more cultural relevance.
You're going to put money behind it and resources behind it.
Bottom line.
Drake got to stop bitching, man.
(03:11):
Rapping won't even help you no more, man.
It only.
Now it's becoming like, oh, it's.
You know, he's that guy.
You know what I mean?
Or.
Yeah.
I mean, it hurts.
It hurts, man.
I ain't going to lie to you because.
Growing up high school, college, Drake, Kanye was up here.
(03:32):
Kanye is still up here for me.
Yeah, yeah.
Drake is one of the goats.
I've heard every song.
From high school to college to now.
Well, his last few albums I didn't really hear like that.
But.
I know every Drake song, every moment, every video.
All of it.
(03:52):
I don't think I haven't done was been to a concert.
I guess like that.
So like just looking at the situation and looking at what's
going on and how it can affect the industry.
I think early on, people was thinking like, OK, y'all don't.
Y'all don't really understand.
Y'all LLC niggas.
Y'all y'all should be freeing up Drake.
(04:13):
Y'all should be he fighting the system.
I'm like, is he is he or is he just is he just whining?
And is he just like, OK, we see what they're doing with not
like us.
We sing the word that was that was used.
We sing this to jeopardize his his his likeness, his image
(04:36):
and things like that.
So like from Drake's standpoint and from his count,
they may think they're doing the right thing.
And from our standpoint, people like me and you, we can say,
OK, he's crying and moaning.
But then this something like this will change the system.
Somebody like Drake and what makes him different from people
(04:58):
that go against the system, they're doing it.
The people that's going against the system, like a prince,
like a Michael Jackson, they're doing it to change not only
themselves, but those that come after them.
So it's bigger than just Prince.
It's bigger than just Michael Jackson.
It's bigger than just a Malcolm X or Martin Luther King.
(05:19):
And they do it with integrity.
Absolutely.
That's the key point here is integrity.
I feel the route Aubrey has taken has no integrity.
And because it's your label.
You can't brag about being the guy at the label all these years
(05:41):
because I remember that period of Drake being like,
wait, he's that you know, he bragged about being that guy.
Like I could get it.
Or he had that line where he's like,
I could get anything from Elliot Grange or whatever it was.
He made a reference like that.
Like that's what it is.
Anything is OK.
Yeah.
That's what it was.
He was Elliot.
He was Lucien Grange's golden boy.
(06:03):
They pumped the billions into it.
And they did this.
And I was listening to Ian Dunlap from EYL.
Yeah, he was talking about like once we start talking about UMG,
people have to understand.
I understand the people talking about it on the surface level,
on social media and crying and talking about this about Drake
and he doing this.
But once you're talking about UMG,
(06:24):
you're talking about Chinese investors.
Yeah.
Talking about people from British,
you're talking about these type of investors
that have spit millions on Drake and spit millions on Scorpion.
When Scorpion came out, it was on every,
I think it was on a gospel playlist.
Yeah.
I covered things like this.
It was like on all these playlists.
(06:44):
It was all of these billboards and things like that.
So Drake has been spoiled, spoiled,
which he has his entire life.
So Lucien had manufactured, they done sculpted his abs.
They done all types of crazy.
He's a, Ken Lupin has pumped billions into him.
And then you have this Marcus Garvey individual,
(07:08):
this Malcolm X individual.
You have this individual that has culture.
Yep.
You heard what Jay-Z said.
You reposted the video.
We are culture.
We are culture.
Nothing goes without us.
Kendrick had the euphoria.
Kendrick had to not like us and things like that.
(07:30):
And same with, I can have this Nicki Minaj type of situation.
She was so on top.
She was at the top of the totem pole.
But then you have a Cardi B come in.
Then you have another option.
People are going to gravitate to that other option.
Especially when you swore it was in touch.
Because success, the higher you climb on the ladder of success,
(07:51):
I feel like you separate from the ground floor.
You separate from the people.
So it's superstardom.
Because you can be successful and all that
and still have a grounding.
We see it with J. Cole in a bit.
Even though J. Cole has said himself,
he has been out of touch with it.
(08:11):
And Kendrick comes out whenever he comes out
and then goes back in.
But their level of superstardom, Drake, let's be real.
Drake's level of superstardom probably
will never happen again with another artist.
And that level of superstardom makes you kind of oblivious
to what actually happens on the ground floor.
(08:33):
And the higher you climb up, the further
you get from that relevancy and that connectivity
to the people.
And people love success.
And they love to see you win.
But they love even more to see you burn.
They love, they'd rather watch a train wreck
than to go in the fire and help you out.
(08:54):
They love it.
You might be going 150 miles an hour.
And people are like, damn, that's fast.
But they're hoping you crash.
So that could be like, you see?
Yeah, right.
They could look and point.
Because that's just part of America.
I don't want to say it's the world.
America loves entertainment.
We love to be entertained.
So we love tragedy.
(09:14):
We love success.
We love comedy.
So when you, Drake is in that.
Drake is in that.
But also, did he ever have culture?
Was he ever actually culturally connected?
Not at all.
Because you had guys in the barbershop,
you had guys talk about this singing guy, this rapping guy.
(09:37):
OK, is he a singer?
Is he a rapper?
Is he a pop artist?
This and that.
And like I was saying about Kendrick,
you have this cultured guy that is from LA.
You have this guy that when he produces and when he does,
Not Like Us, UMG didn't have to push the button for that.
Not Like Us was a cultural moment in history
(09:59):
that will live forever.
So that was something that Drake couldn't stop.
He couldn't.
He couldn't stop.
That's why that was the last record of the entire beef.
And it basically stamped like, OK, this
is where we are in this moment.
I'm here.
(10:20):
So UMG being UMG, a billion dollar corporation,
of course we're going to put money
behind our main product.
The same we have done for you, Drake, for the past 10 years.
So yeah, he's just a jealous millionaire there.
Honestly, so sorry.
(10:41):
That's why it's kind of lame.
And the thing also, Not Like Us didn't
have to be the last record.
Drake tapped out.
The Hard Part 6 was disgusting.
That was a disgusting record.
I didn't like that.
I saw people say that was a good record.
(11:02):
The hard part was the hard part.
The hard part 6, that record he put out after Not Like Us.
That's about what Drake did.
Yeah, yeah, not the room.
I mean, it was bad.
It was just not a good record.
That was with him saying, basically
backtracking everything.
And again, that felt like a label move.
That felt like somebody told you, yo, you
(11:23):
got to go say something about these allegations
and say something about all of this.
And what I was going to say about UMG,
when you bring up a good point about the Chinese investor,
it's not only just Chinese investors.
UMG has their hands in so many different things.
They like mass produce water in a country somewhere.
That's what I'm saying.
It's the message to you, or some friends, and all over.
(11:46):
It's more than just that.
It's more than just entertainment.
Not only that, to add to that, with UMG,
you've got to also realize there are some people in the UMG
boardrooms and major stockholders.
I'm not talking about the people who own little pieces.
I'm talking about the major stockholders,
those investors, all that.
(12:08):
There's certain people in that company who don't give a fuck
about Drake.
Their concern is an instrument.
Drake is just one piece of this giant machine that works.
So it's like if he's costing you money and making you look bad,
(12:29):
yo, fuck that guy.
He's not even, to them, he's not even that relevant.
He's just one, I'm not saying he's not relevant,
but Drake is only relevant entertainment-wise.
For what I mean, Drake is not like a humanitarian.
When you think of these bigger businesses that
(12:52):
kind of add to the capitalism of the world
and add to the structure of society,
Drake is not one of those guys.
And in comparison to like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk,
who have those stakes in the ground that
affect the world, kind of, you know what I mean?
And how the overall culture shifts.
(13:14):
I don't even know if Kendrick has that for hip hop,
but Kendrick is a moving cog in that machine
of how culture shifts.
Or if nothing else, he is a representative of the culture.
And I don't think we get that with Drake.
And I feel like we're seeing a product malfunction.
So are we seeing the downfall of Drake?
(13:36):
I think we're seeing the cultural exposure of Drake.
I think an act like Drake can't fall,
they're just too successful.
And you have too much in the bank and not financially.
I mean, you got too much work you've done,
too much stakes in the ground.
You know, like he is a legend, whether people like him or not.
(14:00):
I don't agree with this.
I don't discredit his entire career.
Because I respect the career.
The career is one that's never been.
It's just there's no career like it.
And I don't see there ever being another career like it.
I think he's a shooting star in this industry.
The same way every city or next album,
(14:21):
I think it's going to do like roughly,
it's going to do good.
I think I just saw statistics that he's still
the most streamed artist every month this year.
So it's like, I don't think that's why this is crazy.
Because you're not really losing.
Dickerson.
(14:41):
What's up about that?
He's not really losing.
He's still on top.
He's still the guy.
People still love Drake.
It's not like, yo, you got a little chink in the armor.
That's fine.
That's cool.
It comes with the game.
Like, whole shoulder play though.
Yeah.
Well, I feel like he did that.
(15:04):
I feel like he did that.
That pedophile shit could have been here and done.
And I don't know.
My whole perception of that battle
was crazy because now when I look at it,
I look at all the things of Kendrick telling you,
yo, don't say lies about me and I won't say truths about you.
Don't mention my family.
Don't mention my family.
(15:25):
We can keep it friendly.
I see all that.
And then I see Drake.
Now you can really look at it and go, oh, he's just an egomaniac.
Oh, I think I'm the guy.
I'm thinking.
Then you get chinchacked.
And that's what happened.
And you're going to take a blow because the one thing you could
I mean, you might not like Kendrick because his music is
(15:45):
kind of a certain type of music.
But he is one of us.
He is the people.
Whether you like it or not, he has always stood for
he has been an artistic figure as far as a moving piece of art.
His cultural relevance and stance has always been impactful
(16:11):
and been respected and been like, OK, this is the guy
that we put on those pedestals.
This is the guy who represents that.
He's the guy who's keeping the actual art form of this alive.
From the storytelling, from the conceptual albums,
from the releases, from all of the processes.
He's always been that guy.
And he's been surgical when he's been on the attack mode.
(16:34):
You know what I mean?
Every time he's kind of thrown a shot,
and he's been the guy letting you know I'm that dude.
I'm number one.
He did it on the control verse.
He's always thrown those things out into the universe.
It's other people who have said these guys are, Drake is the go.
But Kendrick has always stood on that stance.
(16:57):
So that wasn't nothing else.
It was just like, you don't reach out.
I think he just got offended.
You don't reach out to do this damn song.
They're like, fuck you.
You know I don't like you.
What was it, the BET cypher shit?
He's like, I took the sensitive rapper back in his pajama clothes.
He's like, yo, he's been joking.
He knew.
I said, what's up?
And year to late, a year later, it stands.
(17:21):
That stands true.
That shit crazy, bro.
I thought I hold grudges with some people.
But damn, that was like 2011, 12?
Yeah.
But I think Kendrick saw it back then.
I think a lot of people saw it.
I think if you're in the industry, and as you build your career,
and you're at those levels, you see the type of career routes
(17:44):
that these artists take, where Drake took the manufactured route.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I'm a fan of it.
I'm a fan of acts.
If you're a good act, I'm a fan, because I love entertainment.
I love music.
I love it.
So it's like, I love a good show.
I love a good production.
I love a good act.
(18:04):
Drake is one of the greatest acts of the music industry,
of the entertainment industry.
So I respect his decisions of how he chose to go about his career.
I get it.
He took the money when it came.
He took the big checks.
He took the easy records.
He took the pop records.
He did everything to be the best manufactured product in the market.
(18:25):
And I love that.
And I think somebody like Kendrick sees that,
while he's choosing the grassroots route in his career.
And he looks at that, and he goes, oh, but that's the same way
they look at Vlad.
It's like, oh, you're just using our culture.
(18:45):
And not only that, and you're trans Dominican.
So it's like, you're not even you.
You're not even the Canadian Jewish guy.
You're trying to convert into something in front of us.
He's like Kim Kardashian.
It's like, you go from one person to the next person before our eyes,
(19:06):
and we're just supposed to eat that shit up.
Now Kim, I mean, the Kardashians are a certain type of people.
People just respect it.
But we all know what the fuck goes on in the Kardashian.
Don't know that.
Darryl, you don't watch the Kardashians.
You don't sit there.
You go, this is entertainment.
Because you know what?
You seen a man turn into a woman.
Granted, fuck it.
(19:26):
That's your freedom.
Do whatever you want.
I'm just saying, we all watch this shit, and it's crazy.
Now we got to watch a Jewish black man turn into a Dominican.
And we got to be like, it's OK.
And on top of him exploding black culture,
on top of him exploding hip hop culture,
is that we live in a crazy world.
Motherfuckers just transforming in front of us.
(19:47):
And I'm joking about the Kardashian thing.
Not joking.
I'm being serious.
But I'm saying those elements, the extremes, where you can see a man
become a woman, no problem with that, just to make that clear.
I'm just saying we saw it on TV.
See?
On this thing, when you watch a man become a woman on TV,
(20:08):
on public outlets, that's such an extreme
that when you see their child go from a normal human to a plastic human,
it's regular.
You don't like, you know.
Well, I don't think about it when Kim Kardashian is a walking Barbie doll.
(20:29):
You don't think about it because it's like, oh, you know, their family already,
so much extremes are happening in society that it becomes such a normalcy.
And I'm not saying it's not normal.
I'm saying the extremes of these things are crazy.
They're so wild that back in the day, it stood out, right?
(20:51):
Today, it doesn't stand out because it's normal.
You got saucy Santana.
You got all these crazy things.
You got saucy Santana.
You got all these crazy, like, these extreme characters.
I just say all that to say Drake is an extreme character.
He is the dream capital of Shemarie.
(21:12):
He's the Kim Kardashian.
No, saucy Santana is crazy.
That's a wild character.
I think it's the Kim Kardashian of...
Kenji Lamar's Kanye?
Kenji Lamar's Kanye.
(21:35):
That's crazy.
I mean, it's sad to see as far as what I remember with Drake as far as so far
gone come back season, that's the Drake that I remember.
Even...
You know what I'm saying?
Even DeGrasse, I think DeGrasse is the first time I've seen him and then I see
him transform into a comeback.
The Dominican man.
So far gone, things like that.
(21:56):
And we've seen him with the braids, the fro, the low cut, the...
He's on...
Like, this shit is crazy.
It's crazy.
My fault to get you all.
I'm saying he stole Sauce Walker's whole style, man.
People don't even say that because Sauce Walker is a little not...
He's underground.
I love Sauce Walker.
(22:17):
Shout out to Texas.
Sauce Walker is one of my favorite artists, honestly, out of Texas in hip hop.
But he took his whole style with the braids and the beads and all that shit.
And it's like...
And because he lives in...
You know, he stays in...
It's like, bro, you stealing a man's whole identity who kind of...
He kind of cemented it.
That was like his thing.
(22:38):
And it's just weird when I see that.
And I say that to say that's the thing Kendrick was pointing out.
When he said you run to Atlanta to get a game from you to lingo and all that.
You ran to Texas and stole Sauce Walker's whole style.
That's crazy.
And to tag along with you saying is like when you see Degrassi, you don't see that Drake.
(23:00):
You see a kid who's, you know, earning his career, where now you see a guy who's...
Oh, let me take what's...
You take what the people love and the people don't love it from you.
They just like it from you because you make it relevant and cool and you put it in the
(23:21):
eyes of everybody.
As opposed to it being just an original thing on your end, as far as being like a tastemaker
and being somebody who curates these things.
He curates what's already popular or amongst the culture and he just puts it on that main
stage.
(23:42):
And it is what it is.
I've always seen it happen.
And it is.
It's going to be interesting to see the lawsuit.
I know there's some dates, I think next week or something like that, that they're circling
and we'll see how they go.
And the fight with Drake and UMG, like I don't know what he's looking for.
I don't know if he's looking to become a saty.
I don't know if he's looking to change the industry.
(24:04):
I don't know.
But if secrets do come out and say anything, UMG is going to say Drake, the same thing we
did for Kendrick, we've been doing for you for 10 years.
Even if you do not know it, no matter how big of an act you are, Joe Bun talked about
this all the time.
No matter how big of an act you are, as far as inside their system, you will never know
(24:28):
the true analytics.
You will never know the true day to day and what goes on in Spotify office and the UMG
office and the TikTok audience.
I mean, office and things like that.
You will never know because you're not truly a part of that company.
You're a product.
Yes, you're a product within their company that you're literally a Coke bottle in the
(24:51):
factory that gets manufactured with the rest of the Coke bottles.
And they have placed you in line in order for you to design what you need to do, which
is quench the thirst of the customer.
That is basically what you are.
This analogy I've heard for a second.
That is basically what these acts are in this environment and Drake tells us with, and even
(25:17):
some sort of Kendrick, they are all just Coke bottles in this factory.
So yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
Kendrick is part of that.
Kendrick is just, he just has a different superpower.
He just has a different, it's like how they make the toys and the toys come with accessories,
you know, like wrestler comes to the championship bell, if they're known for talking on a microphone,
(25:39):
they have a microphone.
Kendrick comes packaged the same way.
He just has culture with him and he has the people with him.
And okay, what did you think of G&X?
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