Julian (0:07)

All right, welcome Back to episode 25 of Something Wrong with the Podcast. It's your boy, Julian. Before I go anywhere, call in at 877-557-SWWP to get in contact with me, your intrusive thought therapist. There are so many calls that I have to get up to and up to speed with which we will maybe today I'll get to a call, but there's a lot happening in and I really want to get to Drake because he drops this single called what Did I Miss? And it's difficult to claim that you've missed something when you in fact haven't gone anywhere to begin with. So this is my hypothesis when it comes to Drake. I truly believe Drake is addicted to being Drake and I don't think he knows what it is to not be this character. And what comes with being this character. It comes with being a number one chat tarping artist. It comes with, you know, the perceived love and adoration from millions of people internationally, domestically, everywhere he goes, everyone loves and has known Drake forever. He's seeing a new version of this character that he's created and it isn't well received, it's not universally loved, and for the first time he's had to fight against the public perception that has been casted upon him. So after Drake recorded her loss, he did explicitly say, look, I'm going to take away time away from music. I want to be with my family. I just, you know, have been putting out so much content, I just need time to debrief. Totally respected, put out a fucking classic album that her Lost album is incredible. And then what does Drake do? In classic Drake Matter follows up with another six track EP because he just can't stay away. So now we're looking at more Drake music and then it's becoming this thing where we're slowly seeing that he can't commit to not being the character that he is. So on the ongoing summer, we see the, the Kendrick beef play out in real time. Not here to discuss how that bode, but that win or loss for Drake, that it doesn't matter. The point is it changed the perception of Drake to the public, to the media, and just even casuals at large. So then what does Drake do? He has to change that perception because often what happens when Drake gets into the booth, he's setting the sound of the summer, he's creating that next best sound. He's creating, you know, a song that's going to be number one until he creates the next number one. He's so used to Having the expectation of whatever I put out is going to be the standard for this next, you know, few months. In this instance, for the first time in Drake's career, he's going in there having to dig himself out of a hole. How to having to dig himself out of a rut. And it's not that the music's bad. It's not like Drake's putting out bad music and he needs to get out of a creative funk. It's that he currently has been the unfortunate, the latest artist with the Stink. This is a conversation I was having with my buddy Jordan over from Complex over the weekend. We hung out quite a bit, spent the fourth of July together, shout outs to Jordan, great people. And I actually wanted him to have this conversation with me on this episode, which I hope to still have with him. Probably maybe next episode, pending our schedules. But we were having this conversation of artists that have been the misfortune of being artists that have. Have the stink. And what does that mean? Let's define the stink. The stink is something that can be caused by many things. It can be caused by an embarrassing video of you going out like Meek Mill, when he's like, always, you know, falling or going down, you know, stairs. It can be caused. It can be by your own doing. It can be like Chance the Rapper putting out his last album and then having to cancel his last tour. And the music is one thing, but the My Wife thing is what stuck with it. And then that became. When you think of Chance, you always think of my wife. My wife, my wife. And then subsequently, the lack of success from that album amplifies the message that all he cares about is his wife. His wife, his wife. We've seen it with Lil Baby, everyone. There's the. There's been a wave on the timeline of, you know, oh, shit, another Lil Baby feature. Another, like, no one asked for this. All that stuff. We've seen it with him. We've seen it with Big Sean. The narrative with Big Sean, meaning, like, you know, he's. He's got outpaced by his peers of his time. He drops, you know, anytime. It's like, what's the corniest bar in rap? You see the Big Sean photo pop up and it's like any lyric by this guy. So what sucks about the Stink is more often than not, it's not something that the artist has inherently done to themselves. It's something that has been placed on the artist by the. Perceived. By the public perception, really, by Black Twitter. And what Black Twitter can do is really Just make or break your damn career. And I was having this conversation with Jordan and we were trying to determine what artist has gotten themselves out of the stink who has successfully unstunk themself. We discussed Roddy Ricch Meteoric Rise. We're seeing, you know, the Box becoming a smash hit. That first album that he put out is just certified hit after hit after hit. And then we see, you know, the subsequential following songs aren't as great, but. But then we see the public perception turn on him and now we're seeing the stink become the narrative. Right. So what this pertains to Drake is Drake's stink isn't for lack of quality music. His stink is for the, you know, arguably the loss to Kendrick in the Beef. So now people are judging him because it's like now they're perceiving what Kendrick said to be true, that you're not from this culture, a guest in the culture. You're. You know, there's that narrative of everything Kendrick said about Drake being a PDF and all these things. Like there's. People are just living that now as who. What Drake is in their mind, which of course I'm not here to debate what's facts and what's not. That's not the point. The point is there's enough new narrative and negative narrative out there about Drake that it can just overshadow any music he's put out. So even leading up to what Did I Miss? He drops that hundred gigs ep, the songs with like Young Thug, I Believe it was Lotto and 21 Savage. What else did he draw? I mean, he. The thing what makes me laugh about Drake, he's operating on a level of tone deaf, which is like. It's comically. It's very amusing to me. So we saw the. The album with part pnd, you know, the audacity to put out an ep, an album. And he probably did about three other singles and litany of features. Remember, he was doing the features like the Gordo and then he did that Camila Caballo because he was hooking up with her for a few months or so. So he tossed her a couple features like the audacity of Drake to put out, you know, a very healthy amount of music, including an album and an episode to come back and ask people, what did I miss? You miss shit, because you never went away. If Drake really took the time to go away and, you know, bring it into the camp, figure out what his next move is and roll this single out for the moment, it could have been Then maybe I would feel differently about the song. I'm not a big fan of the song because I think, again, like, I think it's incredibly tone deaf down to the. You know, that this new moniker that he's. He's calling himself, the Iceman, which is, you know, there's all these. You could do the deep dive on the Marvel character that was. You know, this character that was closeted gay and hooking up with. With men. And then also, like, there's the double entendre of, like, why would you go by Ice, knowing what Ice is doing to people here and deporting people here in the United States? I don't even want to go that far. It's just like. It all makes sense. It's just very much. It falls in line with who Drake is at the moment. But what did I miss? To me falls extremely flat. Because really, what I've learned through this is Kendrick has seemingly altered this man's pen for the foreseeable future. So let's go through. And what I mean by that, let's go through the lyrics here. I don't give a fuck if you love me I don't give a fuck if you like me asking how did it feel? Can't say it didn't surprise me Last time I looked to my right you niggas were standing beside me so that's the hook. Like, Drake's entire personality now is how everybody in his life has betrayed him and he's lost his friends. It has severely altered the course of his penmanship. Following this beef, which is like, I don't need. Selfishly, I'm speaking for personally, I don't want more songs from you. Talking about how more people betrayed you, about how over the last two years you learned who really wasn't riding with you, who really isn't, you know, your guy. After you thought they were even like, you know, some of these guys you literally have tatted on your body and turns out that they weren't riding for you and they're not your family. So let's continue. Let's. Let's find some more lyrics for that, kind of raise this point. It's love for my brothers in death to the trade. Let's go. She decided to say no, but she says yes to me later. I mean, all right. Questionable her ass. And I like. I mean, to be honest, he's not saying much. I think it's less about the verse here, because the verse is whatever. The beats, it's a beat's okay. The beats, fine. But The. It's just what it. First of all, claiming what you missed when you've been here the whole time is really what bothers me the most. But it's just, you know, I love hanging around pussies who trying to try me. It's like he's just peacocking and like, you know, it's this whole effort to be like, I didn't lose. Everybody I know is just a hater. Like, I'm not the bad guy. Everybody I thought was great is just like, fuck you, I thought you were my brother. It's like the man is clearly hurt. And I don't think the fix for someone that is this hurt is to dig yourself out by publicly putting out more music to then be chastised and judged by people currently Drake aren't like, unless they're your stand, which are in plentiful. Yeah, I mean, the guy had the truck driving around Toronto, besides that one guy that called him a bitch. Whatever. People are gonna do that because people love the attention. You have a level of standmanship that is unlike any other. But where I do think that that has bled into is your. Is your camp and the people that you're creating these music with or the people that if you do at all, I don't know if you do this, the people that you turn to to ask what your next move should be or how you should create your next sound or what, you know, how you should respond to certain things. Because quite frankly, every move you'd made since this beef I think has been a pretty bad mistake and has just inherently increased Kendrick's standing, all things considered. And I know you're thinking, bro the Beast, none of this is about the beef. This is about. I'm just. My solo career I don't give a fuck about. But you don't have the luxury of pretending like that summer didn't happen. And you also don't have the luxury of pretending like every move you make isn't going to be looked at through the lens of that beef. I think the best thing Drake did after the Beef is the. The record with pnd because it's all right here. I'm collaborating with my long term, like my long standing guy. He's been in my corner forever. We make great music. This music has nothing to do with the beef. Yeah, sure, I'm sure there's like there were some subtle jabs or whatever, but it's very much a PND sound album and Nokia came out of it. So not only did you make a great collaborative album with A good friend of yours and long term partner. You made a fucking hit. You got the smash record that you've been waiting for. I don't know why Drake did this. This is what bothers me. It's like if we're pushing the solo album, if this is the lead single, I'm nervous because I feel like this album is going to just be. If this is the tone of it, if the tone of it is nothing you can say hurts me or nothing you say affects me. And fuck all my brothers that were with me at one point and left me to the wayside. If that's the general gist of this album, then it's not the sound that I want from Drake. I was listening to Middle of the Ocean the other day. What my. My personal favorite record off. Off Her Loss and it's just Savage isn't even on it. It's just Drake. And it's just like just some of the best penmanship that I've seen from Drake in a while. And then. And then even on for all the dogs, 8am in Charlotte, another one where it's just like, that's the. That's the level of bars, the level of writing, the level of just. I mean, that's that flow state where he's just operating on a different level. It's not angry music. It's not music that's supposed to, you know, target anybody. And I know that's just a matter of my opinion, but to say, what did I miss? Could not be, though. That's the worst thing you could say at this point in your career, when in fact, you're. Bro, you've been here the entire time. You've probably been more present now than ever. You've been not only on the music side that I touched on earlier, but you've been doing streams with Aiden Ross. You were gonna do a stream with Kai that just ended up getting canceled. Like you've been seen, bro. Like, you didn't go anywhere. You've been here. I want to stay on music, but pivot to something far more serious than the Drake stuff. The artist Bobby Villain had a performance over at Glastonbury Festival. For those that don't know, it's the biggest festival in Europe. It spans over the course of five days, and I'm sure you've seen it on your timeline. But Bobby Villain went viral after getting the crowd to chant death, death to the IDF over and over and over again during the stage of Glastonbury. And during the course of that, multiple flags, Palestinian flags, are waving in the crowd. It was like a very interesting moment in like an important outward level of protest, certainly at that scale, especially in a country like the uk. And he has been getting, you know, I believe Trump said he's not welcome in the United States. And he's been getting public media backlash, obviously support from the creators and just people. He's getting support from the community. But when it comes to the media, he's become a villain. And they're vilifying him and revoking his ability to travel across the world and basically theoretically trying to kill his career, to no surprise. And stuff like this reminds me in school, I focused a lot about how music has always mirrored the current culture and how they are far more similar than they are dissimilar. And even further, the through line of how the artist more often than not is speaking for the. It's funny, the artists that are the people that have the platform, the people that are successful in their own right, are often those that are most willing to speak for they're the voice of the voiceless. Which is a song by Rage against the Machine, a song by Rage against the Machine which addresses these things as well. But this theme is in Glastonbury was very prevalent. And I just kind of wanted to run through the history of these moments. In particular, we started the Vietnam War. When Bob Dylan has a song, he says, and this is kind of where the start of this whole thing is. He says, come mothers and fathers throughout the land and don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapid, Your old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand for the times, they are a changing meaning. Like the beliefs and the philosophies that our parents and their parents believed in. The newer generation isn't buying the lies. We're not buying the. The bullshit that we've been spoon fed by, you know, big media, politicians, the extreme wave of Islamophobia and how certain people were painted across the course of history. Obviously in the Vietnam era. Different grouping of people here. But even in that same era, Jimi Hendrix famously played, you know, a really eerie and dark rendition of Star Spangled Banner on his electric guitar in 1969 during Woodstock. That was a pivotal moment. And then even move forward in terms of history into the Cold war, into the 80s and 90s. And we've seen Bruce Springsteen protest and U2 often spoke out and condemned the war crimes that were going on in that era and then more when I was a kid, when I was a child, we would see during the Afghan and Iraq wars in the 2000s through 2010s Green Day, their American Idiot tour was steeped in a lot of anti Bush and anti war rhetoric. And they really went out on the ledge and Rage against the Machine, whom I mentioned earlier, in 2007, they performed at Coachella and they gave like an extremely fiery, like anti war speech which led into a performance of Bulls on Parade which targeted the military industrial complex. And now even in the present stance, you know, now we're up to today looking at protests for, you know, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza and you know, Sudan and any anti war genocide, even, even Kendrick, you know, has spoken up. System of a Down has spoken up. A lot of people, a lot of artists are willing to take that chance. And it's just really difficult when we're seeing because wars, the information we're getting from war. As much as Israel has done their best to control who is telling the stories from what's going on in Gaza. And by that I mean they're just not allowing journalists in. So they're, it's, it's a, it's a war torn zone that they are purely controlling who is allowed in and out. And they're actively avoiding journalism to get in. Because what a journalist seek to do, tell the truth. And the truth of the matter is it would really hurt their public perception more than they've already done unto themselves if they let in journalists to tell the truths of that story. So even, you know, last week when Bobby Villain is chanting at glastonbury that day 72 Palestinians were killed. The day before that another 72 Palestinians were killed. And the day before that 48. The day before that, 62. And the day before that, I believe it was about to be 79 rumored or so. 79. And the reason why I did those five days is because Glastonbury spans five days. So we're looking at hundreds of deaths. And these aren't Hamas death. These aren't, you know, taking down the enemy. These are civilian Palestinian children, women in people that are just trying to live any semblance of a normal life. At this point, it's not even about living a life. It's purely a matter of just how to survive in an area where it seems like death is inevitable. And there is a outrage and concerted effort to take down this man in his career. There's more outrage towards him than there is for the hundreds of deaths that I just rattled off here. There are some videos and things coming out. And I haven't spoken on this in a while, but you're looking at aid pickup spots where people are. These are quote unquote, safe zones where people are going to pick up food and water just to survive. And you know how these are kind of set up with these fences and it's kind of, you know, once you're in there, you're. You're basically trapped. And now we're seeing videos of IDF soldiers just using that as target practice and just unloading and just shooting at people in these aid zones. People that are there to pick up a bag of rice, to then run back to a home that no longer exists and just. It's like they're just trying to get something to just survive. And they're getting shot. In those zones now we're seeing that they are contaminating the food. The food that's even being offered, the aid that. That is being shared with the Palestinian people is poisoned food or food that has gone bad and food that will make them sick, basically just making sure to speed up the process which has ultimately been rid that region of those people so they can then bulldoze it, pave over it, and just create and extend Greater Israel. So, and that's what the Zionist, I mean, that's the calling of the Zionists, you know, know, belief system is that Greater Israel, they even wear the patch, like on their military garb. It's not, you know, a photo that shows the current state of Israel. It's what Greater Israel is to become, which includes, you know, all of Gaza, parts of actually Lebanon as well, and just expands across that region in a way in which they were never intended to. So it's just really sad. And it's not that far from even the energy and rhetoric we're seeing now here with Zoran Mumdami, who I did. He was ranked number one in my poll for the mayoral Democratic nominee. And we'll see. I hope he has a chance in the general election, which I would think he does. But the powers would be. You just never know what can happen to somebody from here until then. But the outward Islamophobia in comfort with, you know, making fun of him or calling him a third world person for eating food with his hands, which is what an absurdity coming off the heels of Fourth of July where we're watching Joey Chestnut and like 15, you know, overweight, you know, men stuffing burger buns and hot dogs into cups of water and shoveling it, guzzling it down their throats on national television and we're calling Mum Dami a savage and an animal. Like there's just the lack of awareness. It's. Honestly, it's kind of similar to what I was critical about Drake for. It's like the ability to just chastise someone and throw stones at someone's culture. And if we just for a second look at what we do and look at what we reward and the behavior that we celebrate within our own culture, it's really astonishing how little self reflection and empathy people can have purely based off skin color and in an area in which they're born. God forbid. It's foreign. If it's foreign, it means it's beneath me because it's not. It's, it's fear of the unknown. That's all it is. It's. You don't know those cultures and because you don't know them, it can make you feel stupid and it can make you feel threatened. So then how do you communicate that when you don't know the words, when you lack the curiosity, you get to know those people. You vilify them. You, you, you know, you call them all types of different names when. It's crazy that the, the stigma of like when, when black people, when slaves were first coming into this country and they were looked at as like second class citizens because they, they smelled and they were, you know, they were a gross species. They were just, they're sub human beings. And a lot of the insults that the Americans, like the English were saying about these slaves in particular to the smell is something that was said about them for hundreds of years. Like they're, all they're doing is just moving. You're just, you're moving yourself up the ladder of the caste system. So it's like, okay, who's beneath me? These guys, okay, they're the ones that are actually stinky. They're the ones that are poor. You're just, you're just relieving yourself of being the lowest person on the totem pole. It's a really sad way of living. You shouldn't go about life looking for the person whose back you can kick in to uplift yourself because you're too afraid to actually work on yourself and address the very things that would make you a better person and by doing so would make you understand. And I'm not saying love thy neighbor, I'm not even going to that extent. But just don't be, don't vilify them and make them beneath you. How about just see them as Equal. Why don't we start with equality? That just seems to be a fair fucking place to operate from. Hey, everybody, it's that time of the episode. Let's do a voicemail. It's been far too long and like I said, I'm gonna start digging into voicemails more. I really apologize, but if you would like to get in contact with me, please call us. Number 877557SWWP. I do want to say this before I actually play this. I went to Everyday people at Pier 17 over the weekend and the amount of love and just people that wanted to, you know, talk or take a photo or just be like, hey, I appreciate what you're doing and I support you. And, you know, it's really great seeing you do your thing. It really puts everything into perspective and makes me super appreciative of all the people that take the time to listen to my content, consume my content, and have signed up for this journey with me. And I could not be more appreciative. And anytime I'm outside and things like that happen, it really makes me feel a lot better about taking this risk and going out there. Now, look, 25 weeks in, like, this is something that was never easy to do and the start of it, which you are all aware of, started on, you know, in a traumatic state. But thank you to everybody that I saw at Everyday People and congrats to them. I mean, MOMA there and Milhouse killed it. Those are. Those are my good people. My buddy Elliot shoots photography over there. I didn't see him, but I know he was on the ground doing great work. So thank you again, guys. All right, let's play his voicemail.