Hip-Hop
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When Nico Baran was 10, he discovered the popular digital audio workstation FL Studio during a class presentation and started making dance tracks. “That helped me build up my skills for making loops,” says Baran, who soon transitioned to R&B and trap productions.
Seven years later, in 2020, the Houston-born, Madrid-based producer started DM’ing loops to members of the producer collective and record label Internet Money. One member, oktanner, played the beats for CEO Taz Taylor, who brought Baran onto the team that year. Taylor asked Baran to send him ideas ahead of his session with The Kid LAROI, which led to Baran scoring his first major placement on LAROI’s debut mixtape, F*ck Love, co-writing and co-producing “Tragic” featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again.
He has since compiled a genre-spanning résumé — and an impressive original loop library, which he often shares as sounds on TikTok — producing songs for rappers like Lil Tecca, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Shy Glizzy, as well as Latin artists like Bad Bunny with Young Miko, Eladio Carrión and Fuerza Regida. In June, when Baran posted a now-viral snippet titled “Love Is Gone” — a moody instrumental that has since amassed 1.8 million TikTok plays and 4.3 million official on-demand global streams, according to Luminate — Drake caught wind of the hype. “He reached out to me through Instagram,” Baran says. “I’m still sending him stuff to this day.”
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Wallace Joseph, SVP of A&R at Warner Chappell Music, calls the producer a “genius,” saying his talent is “purely natural. What he’s doing is next level; whether he’s playing keyboards, producing, or anything else, everything he touches goes viral.”
Ahead, Baran is hoping to make time for his own music as well, saying he “definitely” wants to release an album of his own — “kind of like Metro Boomin and DJ Khaled,” he says, “where I can bring artists into my own sound.”
¥$ (with Lil Wayne), “Lifestyle”
Last November, Baran wrote, “POV: Ty Dolla $ign & Kanye need beats for their next album,” over a TikTok featuring one of his loops. In December, when Ye previewed “Lifestyle” during an Instagram Live filmed at a private Las Vegas party teasing Vultures 2 (despite Vultures 1 not having dropped), Baran noticed a familiar beat: The song sampled “Love Is Gone.” As Baran recalls, “People were sending me screen recordings through Instagram like, ‘Kanye sampled you!’ ” One of the song’s producers, Australian duo FNZ, had sent Ty “Love Is Gone.” Baran says, “He liked it a lot. He showed it to Kanye, and Kanye loved it. It still feels unbelievable.”
Ice Spice & Central Cee, “Did It First”
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In 2023, songwriter-producer Lily Kaplan sent Baran a Dropbox link and asked him to tinker with her vocal tracks. He built a loop around one of them by chopping up the line “Baby, do you understand?” and adding synths before sending it to RIOTUSA, Ice Spice’s go-to producer. RIOT ultimately used it for Ice and Central Cee’s “Did It First,” one of the buzzier singles from her debut album, Y2K!, that dropped in July. “Ice Spice really loved that one loop, and it kind of went crazy,” says Baran of the track, which hit No. 10 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
The Kid LAROI, TBA
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Four years after “Tragic,” one of LAROI’s producers reached out to Baran about sampling a loop that he had posted on TikTok to use on a track from the Australian artist’s forthcoming second album. (His debut, The First Time, arrived last November.) “That’s mainly what I’m focusing on right now,” Baran reveals. “I’m sending a lot of ideas to LAROI’s producers. Aside from that one song, hopefully more [will] come about.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the August 31, 2024 issue of Billboard.
When André 3000 released his debut solo album, New Blue Sun, in November, hip-hop die-hards were understandably upset: The set spanned 88 minutes, showcased flute-playing in a new age and jazz paradigm and included zero words.
At 49 now, André 3000 suggested that topics like getting a colonoscopy and checking his eyesight didn’t fit into hip-hop subject matter. “Sometimes it feels inauthentic for me to rap,” he told GQ at the time of the album’s release, “because I don’t have anything to talk about in that way.”
Less than a month later, Lil Wayne, 41, said on Young Money Radio that he was “depressed” to hear 3Stacks’ comments because he has “everything to talk about.” Pusha T, 47, agreed, telling Idea Generation in live-event footage uploaded in December, “It is kind of stifling to the genre to even think like that. As long as you live in hip-hop in all capacities and as long as you’re still sharp with that pen, you got something to say. We want to hear it.”
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Ironically, the chatter about rappers reaching an expiration date occurred at the end of a yearlong celebration of hip-hop’s cultural longevity. In 2023, genre pioneers including DJ Kool Herc, Kurtis Blow and Roxanne Shanté were honored with a celebratory Hip Hop 50 Live event at New York’s Yankee Stadium. Meanwhile, icon-heavy arena tours kicked off, including Masters of the Mic: Hip-Hop 50 Tour (featuring Big Daddy Kane and Doug E. Fresh, among others), and LL COOL J’s F.O.R.C.E. Live outing (featuring Queen Latifah, Rakim and more).
That attitude has continued well into hip-hop’s 51st year, with sold-out shows and buzz-worthy albums released decades into artists’ careers. “It’s been interesting to watch rappers get older and redefine what’s acceptable and possible in hip-hop,” says Carl Chery, creative director and head of urban music at Spotify. “Rap has historically been perceived to be a young man’s game, but we’re now seeing rappers have critical and commercial success [into] their 40s.”
In July, Eminem released his long-teased concept album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), led by the top 10 Hot 100 hit “Houdini.” Its debut atop the Billboard 200 ended Taylor Swift’s record-breaking streak at No. 1 with The Tortured Poets Department. That same week, Common released his Pete Rock-produced The Auditorium Vol. 1, and in August, Rakim dropped his first album in 15 years with G.O.D.’s Network (Reb7rth) while Killer Mike delivered Songs for Sinners and Saints. Still ahead, LL COOL J will return with his first album in 11 years with The FORCE, due Sept. 6, and Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre have teased their joint album, Missionary, fresh off a performance at the Summer Olympics’ closing ceremony in Los Angeles. Will Smith has even returned to music with his first Christian/gospel single, “You Can Make It,” featuring Fridayy and Sunday Service Choir, which they debuted at the 2024 BET Awards in June.
How, then, are these rappers staying active while entering their fourth or fifth decades? Common believes it’s a matter of understanding the difference between “legacy” and “veteran.” “Sometimes when I hear ‘legacy,’ it makes me think that people don’t view you as still present in it,” he says, “that you are still creating music that is palatable and viable for the times. To me, it’s an honorable way of saying, ‘Man, you had a good run.’ ”
Meanwhile, being a veteran, he says, not only alludes but gives respect to the length of time an artist has sustained. “They have experience and some time in the art form,” he says — which is something Common felt was missing when he was starting out, as hip-hop was still a relatively new commercial art form. But now, at 52, he believes there is victory in having a passion that burns strong enough to want to keep writing raps.
“When we were coming up, we didn’t have any examples of people in their 40s and 50s making music,” he observes. “In my 20s, I was thinking, ‘Man, how am I going to make it in my 30s? Who is going to listen? I have to hurry up and make this happen.’ And now, in my early 50s, I’m like, ‘Wow, it’s a new life to this.’ ”
Chery says he’s been paying special attention to Eminem and Ye, both of whom have managed to appeal to a Gen Z audience. “Granted, Ye and Em have a unique appeal, but I wonder how many artists will be able to change their audience moving forward,” he says. “I’ve always been envious of how young rock listeners take pride in knowing Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin. They’re students. A lot of younger rap listeners are dismissive of older music.” (Upon the release of Common’s The Auditorium Vol. 1, Grammy Award-winning producer 9th Wonder proposed on X that “adult contemporary hip-hop needs its own category” at the awards show; during this year’s ceremony, Killer Mike swept the rap categories.)
While Common is less concerned with how the music he makes today is perceived, there is one thing he knows he wants: longevity. He admires the arc of many jazz musicians’ careers, recalling seeing pianist Ahmad Jamal, who died in 2023 at 92, play in Chicago; as Common says, Jamal “played until he left the planet.” He says the same of drummer Roy Haynes, who is 99 — and whom Common saw perform just a few years ago.
“If André 3000 decided to rap about a colonoscopy, he’s going to make it dope as hell,” Common asserts, “because this dude rapped about going to Whole Foods and made a whole story out of that.”
This story will appear in the Aug. 31, 2024, issue of Billboard.
A$AP Rocky dropped his eagerly-awaited single “Tailor Swif” early Friday (Aug. 30) on streaming platforms.
The track, which first surfaced as a leak after Rocky’s live performance at Rolling Loud Portugal in July 2022, has sparked plenty of conversation, especially with its nod to Taylor Swift.
Rocky initially performed the song under the name “Wetty,” and after it leaked online, fans clamored for an official release.
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Though the rapper was initially hesitant about including leaked tracks on his upcoming album Don’t Be Dumb, he ultimately decided to give fans what they wanted. Rocky took to social media on Thursday (Aug. 29) to announce the release, cheekily writing, “SINCE U DUMMIES LEAKED IT ALREADY,” and sharing a snippet of the music video, which was shot in Ukraine.
While describing the project for his Billboard cover story, Rocky said he’s continuing his exploration of German expressionism.
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“In this very moment, it’s very grim. That’s an abbreviation,” he said. “It’s infusing German expressionism with ghetto futurism.”
The track’s title has drawn reactions from fans, particularly Swifties, who have mixed feelings about the playful reference to the “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” singer. Despite the reception, the release of “Tailor Swif” has only heightened anticipation for Don’t Be Dumb, which Rocky has pushed back to the fall.
“Tailor Swif” follows Rocky’s August single “Highjack,” which debuted at No. 89 on the Billboard Hot 100.. With Don’t Be Dumb on the horizon, Rocky’s upcoming album is shaping up to be a major statement, both musically and visually.
Stream A$AP Rocky’s “Tailor Swif” below.
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To celebrate the 10th anniversary of his mixtape Days Before Rodeo, Houston-born rapper Travis Scott has dropped a special edition titled Days Before Rodeo – Live from Atlanta: Chopped & Screwed – Vault 1 & 2.
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The limited-edition release, available exclusively on shop.travisscott.com, features previously unheard snippets from the Days Before Rodeo era and a full live set from Scott’s recent anniversary performance in Atlanta. Alongside the music, vinyl bundles, exclusive merchandise, and other limited-edition items are also available.
Released in 2014, Days Before Rodeo was Scott’s second mixtape, setting the stage for his debut album Rodeo in 2015.
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The mixtape featured standout tracks like “Mamacita,” featuring Rich Homie Quan and Young Thug, and “Don’t Play,” featuring Big Sean and The 1975. The tracks, along with production from Metro Boomin, Lex Luger, and Travis Scott himself, introduced a moody, atmospheric style that has since become a hallmark of the trap genre.
The release comes following following Scott dropping the music video for “Drugs You Should Try It” more than a decade after its original 2014 release.
La Flame released the trippy “Drugs You Should Try It” visual on Aug. 18 after DBR came to streaming services on Aug. 23. The clip kicks off with an homage to Virgil Abloh, who designed the neon-lit smoking cowboy sign that makes an appearance. Scott starts free-falling into a pool of despair and allows his mind to drift into the depths of his conscious.
Scott’s chart success includes his sophomore album Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, which topped the Billboard 200, and the Astroworld album, which spent three weeks at No. 1. His hit single “Sicko Mode” became a staple on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 1, while his collaborations with artists like Drake and Young Thug have secured multiple top 10 hits
A court-ordered auction of Damon Dash’s one-third stake in Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records has been postponed for at least three weeks, court documents show, and the minimum price for the sale will be more than doubled to help cover Dash’s massive unpaid tax and child support debts.
The auction – in which the U.S. Marshals Service will sell off Dash’s 33.3% interest in the storied record company – had been set to be held Thursday. But in an order Tuesday, a federal judge granted a motion to extend the deadline for the event to Sept. 21.
The delay will give more time to sort out who will get paid first from the proceeds. The auction was originally intended to pay off an $823,000 judgment against Dash won by movie producer Josh Webber in a civil lawsuit over a failed film partnership. But New York City has jumped into the case to demand more than $193,000 in unpaid child support, and New York state later claimed that the auction must also help pay down more than $8.7 million Dash owes in back taxes.
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In a court filing on Monday, Webber’s attorney Chris Brown alerted the judge that he had reached an agreement with New York City and New York state to sort out a pecking order for the proceeds, but he also asked to push back the auction; it was that request that was granted by the judge on Tuesday.
Under the agreement, the minimum bid for Dash’s stake will be increased from $1.2 million to $3 million. New York City will get first dibs at that money, taking at least $193,000 to cover the money Dash owes in child support. That will be followed by $1.7 million going to the state to cover part of the massive tax bill, followed by the original $823,000 in legal damages owed to Webber. After other civil litigants are paid smaller sums, the remainder of the tax bill – roughly $7 million – will be paid to New York state. If anything is left, it will go to Dash himself.
Other issues remain to be ironed out. New York City is still seeking an additional deposit of nearly $70,000 more from Dash to cover ongoing child support payments in the future, and wants any payouts from the auction paused until a judge decides the issue. Brown has opposed that motion, and a hearing before the judge to decide the issue is set for next month.
Dash himself was not involved in the deal. In court filings, his attorney Natraj Bhushan said his client was “not privy to these discussions, had no input on the same, and disagrees with the priority given.” In a statement to Billboard on Wednesday, he said the pecking order had yet to be finalized.
“We look forward to upcoming court conference so that all interested parties can be heard and the court can decide who gets what, and in what priority from the forthcoming public auction,” Bhushan said.
Brown declined to comment on Wednesday. Attorneys for New York City and New York state did not immediately return requests for comment.
Whenever it happens, the auction will be for Dash’s stake in Roc-A-Fella Inc., an entity whose primary asset is Jay-Z’s iconic debut album Reasonable Doubt. The rest of the catalog of music released by Roc-A-Fella, which dissolved as an active label in 2013, isn’t involved.
The owners of the other two-thirds of Roc-A-Fella — label cofounders Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) and Kareem “Biggs” Burke — have already attempted to stop the auction, including making changes to the company’s bylaws and intervening in the lawsuit. But a federal judge rejected such opposition in February.
Though the auction’s minimum bid has now been increased, it’s entirely unclear how much a potential buyer is going to be willing to spend on Dash’s one-third stake.
The royalties from Reasonable Doubt would likely provide them a revenue stream; since its 1996 release, Reasonable Doubt has racked up 2.2 million equivalent album units in the U.S., according to Luminate, including 21,500 units so far this year. But the eventual buyer also would be a minority owner in a company controlled by hostile partners, with little ability to perform typical due diligence on the asset they’re about to purchase. And Roc-A-Fella’s rights to Reasonable Doubt will potentially expire in 2031 thanks to copyright law’s termination right, which would allow Jay-Z himself to reclaim full control.
A federal judge has ordered convicted pharma executive Martin Shkreli to hand over his copies of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, rejecting his claims that he had a right to retain duplicates of the one-of-a-kind album even after he forfeited it to federal prosecutors.
Following a hearing Friday in Manhattan federal court, Judge Pamela K. Chen granted a preliminary injunction to PleasrDAO — a digital art collective that bought the album in 2021 after Shkreli was forced to forfeit it as part of his criminal case.
In addition to extending previous restrictions barring him from sharing the album, the judge ruled that Shkreli must hand over “all recordings of the Album’s contents that Defendant possesses or controls” to his own attorneys. He has until Friday to file written confirmation that he’s done so.
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By granting the motion, Judge Chen rejected Shkreli’s arguments about the copies. In court filings last month, his lawyers argued that making private copies had been legal when he owned the rare album — and that he had not been required to turn those copies over to prosecutors when he handed over the famous original CD.
Pleasr sued Shkreli in June over the potential leak of the album, accusing him of violating both their purchase agreement and the federal forfeiture order. They also accused him of violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
Wu-Tang’s fabled album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. Though the group intended the bizarre trappings as a protest against the commodification of music, Shaolin later became the ultimate commodity. In 2015, Shkreli — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought it at auction for $2 million.
When it was initially sold, Shaolin came with much-discussed stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103. But Shkreli’s lawyers say the deal granted him the right to “duplicate or replicate the work for private use.”
After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited the album to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. Pleasr then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights to the album for another $750,000.
Pleasr, which has recently been attempting to monetize the album, sued Shkreli on the grounds that had been threatening to release the album publicly and destroy the exclusivity that the company had purchased.
In a statement following Friday’s ruling, Pleasr’s attorney, Steven Cooper of the law firm Reed Smith, called the ruling “an important victory” for his client: “We are pleased that Judge Chen recognized that immediate relief was necessary to thwart the continuing bad acts of Mr. Shrkeli.”
An attorney for Shkreli did not immediately return a request for comment.
Following Friday’s ruling, the injunction against Shkreli will be in place until a final ruling is reached at the end of the case. Barring a settlement, the lawsuit will now proceed to full litigation – including discovery, dueling motions from each side, and an eventual jury trial.
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Dr. Umar Johnson is known for his strong opinions and ability to both enlighten and infuriate those who choose to debate with him. In a recent appearance on a popular podcast, Dr. Umar Johnson shared his thoughts on Hip-Hop and how he feels the music and culture have not helped the wider Black community.
Dr. Umar Johnson was a guest on the Hustle Over Everything with host Alex Whitfield, and the pair got into a spirited conversation regarding Hip-Hop that has since gone viral. In the chat, Johnson asserts that Hip-Hop music has “betrayed Black America” after fellow guest Mouse Jones locked horns with the famed Pan-African psychologist and educator.
Jones asked Johnson if he felt that Hip-Hop as a culture or the industry where it thrives was what sparked his harsh critiques. Johnson stated that the culture and industry are both responsible for what he framed as a betrayal.
“You’re still selling death and destruction to my kids while your kids are going to $30,000 a year privileged white schools; that’s what you call a traitor,” Johnson said. “The hip-hop community has betrayed Black America.”
Despite Hip-Hop’s half-century existence, Johnson doesn’t see that the music or culture has added true value to Black culture overall.
“You’ve been around for 50 years, the most popular music genre in the world, billions and billions of dollars, and all you can tell me about is a few people can get jobs,” Johnson shared. “That’s bullsh*t when you look at the cost that the black community has had to pay for Hip-Hop. A whole two or three generations of black kids growing up thinking the best thing you can do is be a gangster.”
With the clip of Dr. Umar Johnson and Mouse Jones debating the finer points of Hip-Hop going viral, fans on X, formerly Twitter, offered their thoughts on the debate and even posted some examples to counter Johnson’s arguments. We’ve got those reactions below, along with the episode of Hustle Over Everything mentioned above.
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Photo: Hustle Over Everything/YouTube
OutKast has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against an electronic dance music duo called ATLiens – the same name as one of the iconic hip hop duo’s best-known songs.
In a lawsuit lodged Tuesday in Georgia federal court, lawyers for Big Boi (Antwan Patton) and André 3000 (André Benjamin) argue that the name (a combo of “aliens” and their hometown of Atlanta) is a novel linguistic term – and that the rival group is confusing music fans by using it.
“The word ATLiens was invented by OutKast. Before OutKast created it, it was not used in the cultural lexicon and did not exist,” the group wrote. “Defendant’s use of the ATLiens mark is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, or to deceive the public.”
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Released in 1996, ATLiens is OutKast’s second studio album, featuring the same-name song as one of the singles from the LP. The album spent 33 weeks on the Billboard 200, while the song itself reached No. 35 on the Hot 100 and spent 17 weeks on the chart.
The track, well-received at the time, is “one of OutKast’s most well-known and well-regarded songs,” the lawsuit claims, and the duo “continues to perform ‘ATLiens’ at nearly all (if not every single one) of its full-length live performances.”
According to the group’s lawyers, the rival ATLiens started using their name in 2012 and later registered the name as a trademark. In the suit, Outkast appears to claim that they did not know about the other dance group until recently.
In accusing the EDM duo of infringement, OutKast says the two names are “identical” and used for largely the same thing – musical duos from Atlanta who perform in “related musical genres.” The lawsuit even claims that, thanks to the rival group’s stage costumes, fans might literally think they’re Big Boi and André 3000.
“The duo comprising defendant performs with masks on, thereby concealing their identities such that consumers will mistakenly believe that the members of Defendant are one and the same with – or at least somehow connected to – plaintiff,” lawyers for OutKast write.
OutKast says it attempted to “negotiate an amicable resolution to the dispute” but that ATLiens has continued to use the name in confusing ways – like a poster for an upcoming show in Atlanta that allegedly riffs on a similar poster used by OutKast.
“Management for OutKast has already received communications from third-parties querying whether OutKast was affiliated with defendant’s upcoming show,” the group’s lawyers write.
Reps for ATLiens did not immediately return a request for comment.
In technical terms, the case was filed by High Schoolers LLC, a holding company owned by Big Boi and André 3000 that controls OutKast’s trademarks.
Sexyy Red is about to be a beauty mogul: The 26-year-old rapper introduced her Northside Princess beauty brand on Monday (Aug. 19). “BO$$ LADY SPEAKIN …. New and improved @sexyyred_products is back better den eva !! introducing NORTHSIDE PRINCESS the brand @getnorthside,” she wrote on Instagram. The first product from her Northside Princess line is lip gloss called […]
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HipHopWired got to interview Dr. A.D. Carson, the renowned University of Virginia professor and author who is building bridges between Hip-Hop culture and academia.
Hip-Hop has always been about education in various forms. It’s become a fixture on college campuses due in part to pioneering work done at The University of Virginia by Dr. Kyra Gaunt, and the establishment of the Hiphop Archive and Research Institute at Harvard University by Marcyliena Morgan in 2002. These days, artists such as 9th Wonder and Lupe Fiasco are among those teaching courses and seminars on Hip-Hop at institutions such as M.I.T., and adding to that legacy of work at UVA is A.D. Carson, Associate Professor of Hip Hop and the Global South.
Dr. Carson’s robust body of work began with his groundbreaking dissertation at Clemson University, a 34-track album entitled Owning My Masters: The Rhetorics of Rhymes and Revolutions. Since then, the Decatur, Illinois native has earned numerous achievements including having the first peer-reviewed rap album for publication by an academic press, i used to love to dream with the University of Michigan in 2020. His music is imbued with a vigorous dexterity and matter-of-fact perspective shining a light on multiple issues facing Black people and other people of color in America and abroad throughout history, demonstrating the true educational power of Hip-Hop culture. Dr. Carson has been a featured contributor to Rolling Stone, as well as having been interviewed by NPR, The Undefeated, and many other outlets.
We had the chance to interview Dr. Carson recently about his work. This interview has been edited for clarity.
HHW: The conceptualization behind Owning My Masters – what was the impetus behind making that decision?
Dr. A.D. Carson: It’s probably important that when I left Illinois to go get a PhD, I knew that it would be Hip-Hop related. The time that I left Illinois was around the time that Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman. I imagine that many people can like, look back on that, and then think “Wow, that was like 10-12 years ago.” But as that’s happening, I’m moving from Illinois to South Carolina. And Clemson is football country. I didn’t know all of the stuff about John Calhoun being Thomas Clemson’s father-in-law. I didn’t know that Clemson was a plantation. I get there and they’ve got a plantation house in the middle of campus. And then you walk out in front of the plantation house, you look to your left, and you can see the like the tiger eyes in the endzone. And it’s like, “Oh, they’re producing NFL football players and millions of dollars of revenue. And I don’t know if folks know that this place is a plantation.”
Anytime I tried to say something about that, or about what was going on in the world, then there was this loud chorus of people who were like kind of politely saying “You shouldn’t say that.” Or like, very violently saying, “You need to go back to Illinois.” I don’t think that I would have even made the album if it wasn’t for people not just trying to tell me what I can’t say, but also telling me how to say whatever it is that I do get to say. Because as much as people claim to love Hip-Hop, as much as people claim to love the culture, I don’t think that people have like very high cultural literacy or cultural fluency.
And so that’s a way that you might be able to say the thing directly to folks’ faces while they smile and nod and be like, it’s so great that you did this, but like you’re saying directly to them, “I’m not f—–g with this.” the decision like had everything to do with being in Clemson at that time, and I don’t know that it would have even had the kind of like potency or resonance if I was in Chicago, or in LA or in New York because I imagine that like those are the kinds of places where the politics they express are like a little more receptive. At Clemson, they were trying to shut it down even at a university where you’re supposed to be able to have academic freedom. I’m saying it was a social response, not an academic response, And with the folks in Clemson’s administration on down to the undergraduate students, it was consistent. This is also like the ascent of Donald Trump. So as you’re trying to trace what’s going on in the world, it’s really easy to move from central Illinois to South Carolina and think “Oh, these people are living in the past.” And that was what I thought for a good portion of the time that I was there. But then Trump gets elected. And it’s like “The whole time they didn’t live in the past, they were in the future.”
So Owning My Masters was a way of trying to document that. The early songs that I’m recording are from my first week, being in town, all the way up through all of that stuff happening. The album moves chronologically. It just seems more despairing over the duration of it. It’s because that’s like literally what was happening. And maybe it’s not desperation, much more like defiance. But that was because people were asking, “So this music that you do, or this stuff that you’re studying, like, are you saying this stuff in front of everybody?” And I’m like, “Why wouldn’t I say it in front of everybody?” That means that they need to hear it as much as anybody. It’s really important that the people who are perpetuating the stuff and acting like we’ve progressed, those are the people who need to hear these messages, which also means that they need to have they need to be invited into ways of hearing that they’re actually going to tune into.
HipHopWired: In terms of comprehension, and having Hip-Hop be a way in academia to navigate, confront, and ultimately provide some answers, if not all to some of these questions within your role as Associate Professor of Hip-Hop at UVA, are there any set guidelines or curriculum that you use to those interested in navigating the same path?
Carson: I have to say, when I defended the dissertation I talked on the phone with Mickey Facts and Lupe Fiasco because they were working on what they call a “rapper guild”. I asked, “What are you trying to do, be affiliated with a university?” Part of it was to create the conditions for people who were really interested in emceeing to be better at emceeing and to have that connected to these volumes of scholarship that would be able to bear on it. And it might not be about rap, it could be about linguistics, or it could be about history, or it could be about other kinds of stuff like I was reading as a doctoral student, because, of course, I didn’t go to Clemson to learn how to rap. I think it’s important to say that because folks get that twisted as well, like no I didn’t start rapping when I got to Clemson. Rap was just a way to detail he findings in the research.
In the classes that I teach now, with undergraduates and graduate students in my brand, the graduate students I work with are the ones who are most likely to teach and become professors. I mentioned Lupe and Mickey Factz, because I think to a certain degree, both of them have been interested and engaged in some kinds of teaching appointments in their engagements at other universities or independently. So, in my writing rap class, I’m teaching techniques. Literally, what do you rely on to start a rap? And then, what techniques are you going to use to get from bar one to bar 16? At the same time, there’s some of the mundane like simile and metaphor to the more complicated ways that people might use structured rhyme schemes. But also in that class, I’m alternating between teaching those techniques and listening to people who have been doing this for a long time. So that’s the whole archive of rap music going back to the 70s, as well as reading about the context for those things being made. So it’s not trying to get like a grand narrative of the “capital T” history of Hip-Hop but the histories of Hip-Hop.
HHW: In terms of dealing with academia and trying to have this conversation through the culture and the machinations of Hip-Hop, has there been any kind of pushback that you’ve experienced on a social level, not necessarily administrative, in terms of trying to sanitize the work that you do?
Carson: I think that there’s been pressure – I don’t know if you’re familiar with the professor watch list that exists, basically unmasking radical professors?
HHW: I’m familiar with that, yes.
Carson: So that kind of thing – but what they call radical is the fact that I make music. (Laughs) They don’t even understand the content of the music, but on their websites, they’ve got screenshots of lyrics. I realized that this is a very real thing in these cases, where people are having their lyrics used against them in court. And people are explaining what the lyrics mean, like police officers. That definitely means the system is like gamed against you, because like the people who arrested me, and in the system that’s trying to use my lyrics, also illegally against me, to convict me, are having people who work for them, tell the jury what the lyrics mean? This is also why getting tenure is important, because then you have at least the supposed protections of job security and academic freedom
I did write one album where one of my colleagues was like “Yeah, it’s been good knowing you”, thinking I’d get fired. And my response to that was like, “if this is the kind of thing that gets me fired, then they’re not serious about what the professor of Hip-Hop, not in the way that I choose to do the work.” I’m not pulling punches, because how do they know what I shouldn’t be saying and how I should be saying it? They trusted me enough to put me in the position. Trust me to do my work, I’ll trust the people whom I trust in that regard. And then that means that I have to have mentorship, collaborators, and people whose opinions I trust. In a real way, some of this is supposed to make you uncomfortable, right? I mean, I’m not making this up. I am not creating controversy, when I talk about the fact that Black folks are being erased from history, and having our lives taken from us for that. People don’t believe that rappers deserve to be treated as human beings. I’m not making that s–t up.
HHW: In terms of being a notable figure, creating In this space within academia to have these conversations through the media and the culture of hip hop, and then confronting newer problems like AI and technology, has it posed any obstacles for you?
Carson: A part of it is – maybe the fancy word to say is legibility, but it’s like, “How do you get the message out?” I’ve talked to people at NPR, or writing for Rolling Stone or whoever else but that’s not really my target demographic. That’s not gonna get to the people at home in Decatur. So it’s, “How do I most effectively speak to black communities?”And this might also mean t places like The Breakfast Club, Sway in the Morning, or Black media where you don’t have to explain the concerns before you launch into ways we might think about them. But that means that you have to get past the hurdle of folks believing that because you work at a university, the thing that you’re doing is not for them or directed toward things that they might be interested in.
The thing about AI thinking about that – I’m not worried about somebody cloning Tupac’s voice or cloning Drake’s voice or Kendrick (Lamar’s) or Jay Z, because all of these people with their estates have the power to be able to be like, cease and desist with the s—s immediately. They can fight that because they got money, but what about like the dude like one of my cousins or anybody that you know from your hometown, who is incredibly gifted, but nobody knows them? And then they put their work online on SoundCloud, or Spotify or Bandcamp, something like that. And then one of these companies gets it. What I think we should be thinking about more is what happened to regular people in blues clubs, and juke joints across the country, whenever white folks were able to export Black music or cordon it off to these particular kinds of places, including academia, where working-class Black folks didn’t have any kind of access. So that’s not a problem where I need to say “Hey, white folks, make sure that whenever you decide to exploit us, that you have like some kind of ethics when you do it.”
This is why I appreciate you talking to me, because who are the people in HipHop media who talk to the people who are dealing heavily with Hip-Hop regularly to bring these issues to the fore, rather than only the things that are being puppeted by these media machines that are pushing out particular kinds of stories. The conversations about how rappers are being utilized in this particular election cycle is something that we absolutely need to be talking about, right? But who’s gonna host that conversation, Ari Melber? If we’re dependent on NBC, to like, talk about how Hip-Hop intersects with politics, then I think that we f——d up. I’m just saying it’s important to get the word out and to challenge us to think differently about all of these things that are going on. And part of my doing that is of course, making the music and teaching the classes, but the other component is commentary.