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Something Wrong With The Podcast
SWWP #42 - Is Hip-Hop Over?, Another Drake Lawsuit, & AI Charting Artists
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Nothing wrong with the pussy. Nothing wrong with the pussy. Nothing wrong with the pussy. Hey hey, hey everybody. Welcome back. It's your boy Julian. Welcome to episode 42 of Something Wrong with the Podcast. Before we get into today's music heavy episode, I do want to first start by saying today is Election Day. If you're listening to this on Tuesday, go out and vote. And I'm not even here to coach you in sway or vote in any which way. It is your right to to vote. Exercise your right to vote. Because it seems like democracy is crumbling a little bit and quaking beneath our feet. So you might as well hold on to what we have left. Use your vote, use your voice, and partake in the beautiful system that we do our best to uphold. That's all I have to say about that. For now, let's jump into what I think is the most interesting story of the of today's docket. Here is the for the first time in 40 years they said since 1990 on Wednesday, Billboard reported for the first time since 1990 when Biz Markey signature song Just A friend was number 41 on February 2nd, there was no rap song in the Billboard Hot 100 after Kendrick Lamar and SZ's as Luther was deemed recurrent and removed due to recent changes to charts methodology, effectively ending a 35 year streak. Recurrent songs will now be removed if they have been on the chart for a certain amount of time while simultaneously falling under circum under certain chart thresholds. Luther had fallen under 25 to 28 the previous week during its 46th week. So this as everything does when it revolves Hip Hop and News and Metrics call caused a stir online and led a bunch of people to have this very, I think, ludicrous, no rap pun intended discourse that is it over for Hip hop? Are we seeing the end of hip hop as we know it? No rap on the charts? Is it over for the genre? Has the world moved on? And I saw Alchemist even had a quote, he said quote no rap in the top 40 has nothing to do with music being good or bad, which he did not further elaborate on, which is interesting and can be pulled in many different directions in terms of what the hell he meant by that. But I do want to say that I'm here to defend hip hop and not only defend hip hop as a genre that has without a doubt, firmly planted its flag in what has become music, and in particular American music, and has obviously since had a huge global reach. I think we can't ignore the hip hop blending with Afrobeats over the last few summers. And obviously, like. I'm not saying American hip hop. Yeah, I guess I kind of am. You can say that without. I mean, hip hop here wouldn't happen internationally. So, yes, the case can be made. But obviously with UK drill rap, we're seeing so much so that the UK artists are also bleeding into American pop culture. Like, obviously an older gentleman, but like someone that's been doing it from the jump who's like an early pioneer gigs. But then we're seeing younger guys like Central Cee, Skepta as well, and Dave as well. Central Cee and Dave had that amazing EP that they put out a few summers ago. So hip hop's alive and well. And I'll take us through the history of music as a whole, and we can even see the patterns of it over time. So we know in like the 60s, we had the rock and roll and the British invasion. So we're talking like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys. And this was like global pop rock. We're looking at like psychedelic music, super rock inspired, a lot of guitar solos, a lot of like free love and just expression. And that kind of carries into what evolves into the 70s, which is still holding on to classic rock, but now disco, because now everything's super funky. And we're seeing like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac. A lot of amazing instruments, but heading into like a more of electronic sound, not just purely instrumental. The. I forget what the instruments called the tube that you put in your mouth and you play that. I know, Stevie. The talk box, I believe is what we call it. But that lends itself into the 80s, which now we're looking at pop synth music. And notice here, each of these areas is connected. It's like one in, ushering in the other. So the bridge between that talk box into the. What officially became like synthesizers in like synth keys in the 80s. So like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston, obviously a Prince, a multi instrumentalist who is like a pioneer during that decade. And then we're seeing also the rise of MTV and videos becoming a central and key part to the music itself. Boom, here comes hip hop. And we're first seeing hip hop's immediate meteoric rise in the 90s. We have obviously Tupac, Biggie, but at the same time, alternative rock is at its peak. We're seeing Pearl Jam, we're seeing Nirvana. So now we're still. Rock is holding onto its strong suit. But now we have a new genre being introduced, which is hip hop in itself. And hip hop started in the early half of the decade, chart topping for sure. But by the end of the 90s, we're seeing really a. A culture shift in terms of value on the Billboard charting. Now we're seeing a lot of hip hop and a lot more R and B as well on those charts. So now we're fully into the 2000s. And guess what? It's hip hop and pop. We're gonna give pop some space because we also saw the likeness of like Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, all that type of music. But then also we're seeing Usher, Beyonce, Kanye, Jay Z. So we're seeing now the pioneers of what are still considered the pioneers of. Not the pioneers in terms of that they founded it, but like the titans of hip hop. The guys that once they were introduced, they stuck and they stuck around forever. And hip hop became at this point by far the most commercially successful genre. And pop music even leaned into R and B notes and electronic themes that they were also borrowing from the 80s and 90s, which is pretty interesting. Two thousand and tens. Now we're talking extremely experimental. Now we're in like our pop trap EDM era, but still with like a hip hop element to it. We saw a lot of collaborative efforts between cross genre blending with hip hop as the base of that. We saw a lot of pop artists bleeding into hip hop. So come to mind, collaborations like Juicy J and Miley Cyrus weren't such an oddity at the time. Or Ariana Grande singing vocals on a Big Sean record. Like we're seeing a lot of genre blending because still hip hop is the root and carries the torch from the previous two decades, but now is being kind of infiltrated from these other genres as well. But now we're seeing an artist like Taylor Swift come out who's straying not so much into the pop. The. She's far more into the pop scene. I believe at this point. She may have had a verse by Kendrick by now, but point is, she's still very pop. Rihanna, who's fucking genre bends the whole thing, can sing, can croon, but also can get her rap shit off. Post Malone, which introduced then. Now we're seeing the archetype of the white boy that starts off rap and then kind of abandons a genre, but dips his toe in every once in a while. Very interesting. EDM very much peaked during this time. Heavily. We're talking during the Mali Pure Molly days. This was the years that I was in school. So I remember all of this music coming out at that time. And now we're in the 2000s and it's still very much rap and pop. We're seeing a big, big resurgence of pop with the new pop girlies and then Afrobeats as well. We're seeing really, I'd say this is the decade of the global reach of Afrobeats tapping into this. This audience in international music as a whole. So artists like Bad Bunny, obviously, Drake, Billie, Eilish, Burna Boy, Taylor Swift again. But global sound is what's dominating the charts and including mainly, like, when we're speaking global sounds, the two that come to mind the most are Latin and Afrobeats. And I think that's beautiful because now music is so much more than regional and the reach spans so far beyond. So much so that it has tapped into our. The great American game. You know, it's technically baseball, but of football. Now we have a man that is fluent and sings in Spanish doing the American football halftime show, which is pretty awesome.
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So my point is hip hop, this is. First of all, the music has always evolved. It's always changing. It's always borrowing from the past and evolving as it happens. And we're seeing now for fucking 40 years over four decades, hip hop has been in that evolutionary phase, but still we're holding its top spot throughout all of those. I don't think hip hop's getting worse. I think what could be a cause of this is the rise of pop stars, that we're seeing younger pop stars really get their moment. First one that comes to mind. Sabrina Carpenter is of that next ushering, ushering that next wave of female pop stars. Not here to call Taylor Swift old, but she's been around. She's been established. This girl Sabrina is the new face of pop. Charli xcx New Faces of Pop even though she's been around for a minute. But we're seeing this wave of younger artists that are now getting the shot that are challenging the hip hop people that are also occupying the charts at this time. Right? So luckily that rant and the absence of hip hop did not last long because rap is back after only a two week absence thanks to none other than Megan Thee Stallion. So let's read this here for back to back Billboard Hot 100 charts this year dated October 25th November 1st. No rap song appeared in the top 40 markings. First time. Yep, we know that since February 1990 the two week drought comes to an end thanks to Megan Thee Stallion. Megan's new song Lover girl debuts at 38 and the number eight Hot 100 on the November 8th, pardon me, Hot 100, marking the first rap song defined by Billboard as a song deemed eligible for the ranking on the Hop Rap Songs listing to reach the charts top 40 since Kendrick and Lamar's Luther, which spends its 44th end to date final week on the listing dated October 18th. Following the chart, the song fell into recurrent status in the chart and as a result recently introduced rules updating and speeding up the Hot one hundreds recurrent policy. Interesting. Okay, so the policy honestly does play a big part in this as well. But point is, this whole uproar and crises lasted a matter of two weeks. I think it's crazy to think that hip hop is slipping. I think every genre or everything at some point has its peak and we've seen, I believe in what was it in 2021? Was it. What's the exact date here in 2018? Pardon me. Hip hop compromises 68% of the Hot 100, which I believe was the peak, which is absolutely insane to expect something that if not more, I think is crazy. But now I think it's leveling out. And I think it's leveling out to a place where hip hop and pop are going to just be splitting back and forth and sharing that chart space and sharing the the sound of this decade, which is fine. But to say hip hop's over, I think is egregious and very hip hop in nature. To speak so definitively and irrationally in a space where this genre has worked so hard to evolve and adapt so much so that other genres want to become into our space and experiment and get a fun feature and work with Hip Hop artists. One of the most beautiful things about Hip Hop is how accepting as a genre it has been over the years and how we've seen unlikely collaborations time and time again. Soft top, I mean again, just thinking of like James Blake and Travis Scott, the work that they've done on a few albums. Even adjacent to Hip hop, we can also throw R and B in here, the Weeknd in Geffelstein or the Weeknd in Daft Punk. It's just really cool to see how artists are comfortable experimenting with sounds of like from other genres, especially those well established greats. So I think that'll continue to be the case. And to say hip Hop is going anywhere I think is a very hip Hop response, but it is not in fact true whatsoever. At least by history's sake and also by the current state of the music industry. So let's continue what is talking about Hip hop without talking about Drake. And once again, Drake finds himself at the center of a new Spotify lawsuit claiming billions of his streams were from bots. Oh no, not Drake doing bot streams. Oh no. Let's read the Here Spotify is facing a class action lawsuit with Drake at the center as the company is accused of turning a quote, blind eye to massive scale fraudulent streaming which allegedly resulted in bot streaming the Canadian rapper's music in the billions. No. In a new report from Rolling Stone, the outlet details the lawsuit. Which lists rapper. Which lists. Okay, whoever, cousin of Snoop Dogg. Okay, fine. Long beach rbx, who is the cousin of Snoop Dogg as a plaintiff in the case, both individually and quote, on behalf of other members of the general public similarly situated, quote, every month under Spotify watchful eye, billions of fraudulent streams are generated from fake, illegitimate or illegal methods. The lawsuit claims then going on to accuse Spotify of, quote, massive financial harm to legitimate artists, songwriters, producers and any other right holders. To refer to Drake as anything other than legitimate is ridiculous. Let's continue. The lawsuit states that Spotify has been paying out royalties through a stream share model which groups all stream collectively. The payment amounts are calculated by a determining percentage of each artist share on those collective streams. Yes, we know that the lawsuit argues that fake streams would devalue payouts for smaller artists. I understand the case here. I just don't think that. I think it's really lame to single out Drake for this. I don't think. Well, I know every label has paid for streams in some way. I'm not Saying this is something that they do for all artists or something that's done even every day. But paying for streams is something that. That does occur for mainstream artists, independent, smaller artists, et cetera, et cetera. To try to pin this on one person, it's like, I'm honestly trying to think of a. It's like the system. If you're here to critique the system, then critique the system. Don't come at the one person. It's like, it's like saying the. The. This. The NYPD is corrupt. This one cop arrested an innocent black man. Well, it's like, yeah, like, that's. The whole system is corrupt. What. Attacking that one guy. Like, they all do that. Like, that's a. That's what they're trained to do. This is their thing. So to single out Drake, like, no. Like, this is what the. Also, Drake isn't the person at the helm, like, in these meetings and in the, you know, at Universal, having people, you know, here's 10 grand from steak, fucking Buy More streams. Like, I think the level of delusion that people think artists are involved with, with what happens once their music get out in terms of marketing, that's what people like me at the label used to do. The digital marketers, I'm not saying buy streams, even though I'm sure some of them do, but, like, it's our job to work a record once it's out, to continue building momentum once a record's out. Like, I don't see so much of this coming from the artists themselves, but to think that Drake is the only person doing something like this. I get it. Snoop Dogg, west coast, all that shit. His cousin obviously feels the same way. But to seek compensary, to seek, like, money and, like, punitive damages, it's insane. And they're accusing. Here is a quote of hundreds of millions of dollars. What, like you're suing Drake for hundreds of millions of dollars because of this? That. I think this is, like. I think this is a little ridiculous. Not a little. This is ridiculous. And I'm not. The. The lawsuit game is getting a little too loosey goosey and corny when it comes to hip hop. I don't get why. I mean, I guess it doesn't take that much of a logic leap, but to do this makes little to no sense when. If you know anything about the music industry, this is just a practice that's done and it's not anything specific to just this man.
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You know like just it's so ridiculous to pin this on one single artist when in fact you should probably be going after the label. Not not even a streaming service. You should go at the label who's probably funding these streaming boosting campaigns. It's like you're attacking the wrong person anyway. Staying on Drake but pivoting to baseball. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but one of the best World Series I've ever watched. I think that universally goes without saying it was the get. Those last few games were incredible. Even game three was incredible. The 18 inning game. I'm not a crazy baseball fan, but I thoroughly enjoyed every second of this World Series. It is funny though that as soon as the LA and Toronto rap and LA wins is all the levers get pulled on Photoshop and it's just Drake crying and sulking while Kendrick is like riding off like in a, you know, in his car like down south central la. It's very funny how no matter what Drake the people just wait to pull that leverage. Just dunk on Drake. Any chance you get the song seconds after the before they even pop champagne. The Dodgers and Nike put out all these campaigns using Kendrick's music. It's like dude we get it. Like God man. Like let the guy just live. It's 2026. This beef was Jesus Christ how many years ago now? Two, three? Like this. Like it's just there's no break for this guy on the legal side and just on the cultural side like he he was at the game let the guys fucking from Toronto. I don't think Kendrick said a word about the Dodgers series. And yet of course he just throw him into the mix and bring him in. Because anything that has to do with Toronto and LA is forever going to be culturally a Kendrick vs Drake debate. Which honestly is this. This is the residual of Internet brain. When something so big happens you are forever associating it with that specific moment. So in this case la, Kendrick, Drake, Toronto, no matter what happens in the news, there could be a flash flood in Toronto and some guy would put Kendrick behind it with music Being like, got him. We're flooding out the PDFs, like, it's. No matter what happens in that city, it's always going to be an angle or some leverage for some idiot with a keyboard to jump down Drake's throat. So it's, it's not going away anytime soon. It's been years and it's continuing well into the. Seemingly into the new year as well. Something else that, that's currently continuing that needs to go the fuck away, if I'm being honest, is all these AI powered artists. I was saying this earlier, I was on a jumped in a little spaces with Danny and some folks and I said the AI artist thing. I don't know if Timbaland is behind this, but I wouldn't be surprised because to me, it's like any older statesman in hip hop tries to cling on to something that makes them young and cool and relevant. And it's very clear and obvious that Timbaland thinks there's a wave of AI artists in the AI production is something that is the cool young thing, when in fact young people fucking hate it and they think it's stupid and it's not cool. And it is kind of depreciating the genre as an art form. Tying back to the first fucking topic of today about hip hop in the Billboard charts. Tell you what's not going to help those charts nor soften people up to listening to hip hop music, is someone like Zinnia Monet, who is the first AI powered artist to debut on a Billboard quote, airplay chart. The fuck is an airplay chart? That's bullshit. But she likely won't be the last. See, this is clickbaity and head bait head. Whatever you call it, Clickbaity is shit. So here's the thing. Before this article came out, no one knows who the hell Zinnia Zinnia Monet is or was. Pardon me. I think this is the same tactic that Trump uses when he speaks about stuff to then make it a reality, when in fact it was never reality. So hear me out. So when Trump goes. When the reporters talk to Trump about who does he think should run in 2028? And he's like, a lot of people are saying I should run. And they're like, who? He's like, I don't know, just heard it. A lot of people. That's the same tactic I see with this. It's like you're not sharing news, you're creating the news by creating the lie. You're making a movement out of something that didn't exist by being the first to say it, but saying it on a platform that that will then be grabbed by other headline and other news reporters and then amplified. So it's the formula is believe the lie, say the lie. On a news network, they tell the story. So now the story has credibility. It has a truth because it was said on a news network. And then from there, boom, amplify it. I feel like that's what's happening here. No one knows who this artist is. No one knows what this song is. What the fuck is an airplay chart. Like, none of this stuff exists. It's just a stupid AI generated image of this girl in a studio with holding a. Holding a earpiece to a microphone. It's like none of this is real. This isn't real. No one knows what this song is is for. Here we go. So let's read this. So far, Monae has appeared on multiple Billboard chart songs since her first song in summer 2025, including hot gospel songs for her song quote, let Go, Let God get the out of here and her hot R and B chart song for her quote, unquote. How was I supposed to know? Bitch, you don't know anything. You're not sentient. You have no memory. You have no brain. What do you mean, how was I supposed to. You don't know shit. According to her publication now, she's been signed to a multi million dollar deal with Hallwood Media, which. Which after Billboard called a quote, a bidding war. Shut up. Like, I don't believe this. I think someone at Hallwood Media has a great relationship with a writer at Billboard and they were feeding them this information and said, hey, look you. You grease us with this, we'll fucking make this a story and we'll make this a thing. Even though it's not a thing. I genuinely don't. I. I firmly believe enough in humanity that all of this is bullshit. Here we go. With more than 146,000 followers on Instagram alone, Monet is proof that consumers are increasingly open to the idea that the industry is ruled by AI no like that. That the industry is riled by AI no like, this isn't. It's we generative content in fake headlines like have affected our last few elections. We can't be this stupid and naive to fall for this shit again, even though the stakes in this are obviously extremely low compared to the election. But like, followers don't mean shit. Like, this stuff isn't real. These are vanity metrics for literally, for a person that does not exist. This isn't real. She isn't real. Her music isn't real. Like we can choose to ignore this and also ignore the stories about this that were being fed. Nobody gives. No one. There wasn't like a Mad Men esque scene with white men in gray hair smoking cigarettes, trying to figure out how to sign the AI black chick for fucking millions of dollars. Creating a quote, bidding war. Fuck out of here. Nobody wants this shit. It's not a bidding war. It's a bullshit war. It's not. It's nothing. It's two assholes with a lot of money that said, hey, we can grease the wheel on this. This is like the new crypto. It's a new nft. Like they're just, it's just a pump and dump. This bitch is gonna get like a three million dollar contract. The they're gonna put out two, three singles and then, oh, the fucking AI file got corrupted. Guess we can't create anymore. Cash out. Give us our money. Like, I don't believe in this. I don't think any of this is substantial. And if you are an artist and this is discouraging, you just continue to make music, continue to be a real person and continue to tell real stories. Don't let this dumb gospel AI bitch talk about God is good. Let go and God shut up. You had. You're not human. You don't know shit about dick. Like, you're not a actual thing. Don't let these things win. Please do not let this dumbass stuff win. You are better than this because you have a soul and you're a breathing human being. So if any artist is discouraged, others, which I have been seeing. I spoke to an artist over the weekend that I understand the hatred for AI, but to think that it's better than you or can be like steal in some way, spotlight from you, I think is ridiculous. Don't let this nonsense take your mind off of a what you believe to be is your life mission. Continue to fight for what you believe in for the sake of your happiness and your career. All right, that's all I got today. I gave you a couple of rants. I'm going to dive into the Knicks. We finally got a decent win against the Bulls. We're three and three. I think we're playing below our caliber. I think our rotations suck. We need to figure that out. And our bench needs to step their shit up. We're playing the Wizards right now. It's almost halftime here locally, currently. I'm gonna probably throw this on and then, and then get to bed. Playing basketball tomorrow. Shoulders getting better. Probably gonna stop going to pt. I've been going to get it taped, but coming to an end with my relationship with my physical therapist, which has been great. But I'm. I think I'm ready to just fully go back to my. Just on my own strength. Yeah. Again, just getting in a healthier routine. Eating a lot. I went to Trader Joe's and bought some bulgogi. I just cooked that john for lunch. It was fantastic. If you haven't had bulgogi, I didn't know that they sold it at the grocery store at that level. It's beautifully sauteed. It cooks really fast, really thinly sliced meat, really thoroughly. Enjoy that. But again, today is all about voting. And go out and vote because your voice matters. Whether you feel it does or not. You need to exercise your right to vote. This is a extremely important election here, and it can set the tone for what the people want versus what the party wants. It's very clear the Democratic Party feels extremely threatened by Zoron. And that is a good thing because what that means, what Zorron represents is. Doesn't fall within the standards and the norms of which the party has been operating in for so long. And what the party's been operating in for so long clearly has not been working for the people it's intended to serve. So why not give us something different? Why not switch it up? That being said, I think the government's gonna make it very hard for him to get anything done intentionally because they do not want him to succeed by any metric. Trump gave a very weird and alarming interview with CNN the other night in which he talked about testing nuclear weapons as well as just a bunch of. It's just tough to watch him speak. But when stuff like that, when it's a sit down, give it a look, stay informed. Again, lean into your community. Lean into those you love. The New York City Marathon was this weekend in New York. I was in bed all day. I didn't go, but it is still one of my favorite days in the city. A lot of love, a lot of community, and a lot of inspirational stories that come out of such an incredible event. It was the most runners ever. It was just shy of 60,000 finishers, which is pretty amazing and continues to be on a yearly basis, a beautiful, wowing story that shows that there's a lot of good here in the world. So hold on to that and do what you can to make it a better place. I love you all. I will talk to you soon. Peace.
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