Speaker 1: My next guest is a journalist that has covered the
Speaker 1: music industry for decades. He's also an author, podcaster, and
Speaker 1: television host. You can watch his show Rap Latte on
Speaker 1: YouTube and listen to The Tory Ray Show wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the
Speaker 1: show to one and only, to Ray, what's up Big Time?
Speaker 1: How are you man?
Speaker 2: Thank you Steve and Ay, thank you for that welcome.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that. Man.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's good to see you man. Thank
Speaker 1: you for taking time out of your busy schedule to
Speaker 1: do this. I really appreciate it. And I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: straight up with you. I'm as ignorant as they come
Speaker 1: with this kind of stuff. To Ray, this is that,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't cover hip hop. I listen to
Speaker 1: hip hop music, but I don't cover it at all.
Speaker 1: How big of a deal is it in your mind
Speaker 1: that Drake is actually clearly entertaining following a lawsuit with
Speaker 1: this r what is it called, this preaction petition? How
Speaker 1: big of a deal.
Speaker 2: Is it in your eyes?
Speaker 3: You know, I find it bizarre and kind of a
Speaker 3: big deal that one of the biggest artists in the
Speaker 3: world wants to have a public conversation about whether or
Speaker 3: not payola was used against him when certainly payola has
Speaker 3: been used to benefit him on multiple occasions. Right. I mean,
Speaker 3: like it is the case of where you accuse somebody
Speaker 3: of doing something because you know that's what you do, right,
Speaker 3: That's what I would do.
Speaker 2: If I was him.
Speaker 3: Right, Every major song has a massive expenditure behind it.
Speaker 3: Nothing goes pop by accident and it's just an organic
Speaker 3: success that had no help.
Speaker 2: There are bots, there is payola.
Speaker 3: There's all sorts of ways that radio stations and streamers
Speaker 3: and other ways that we get music to consumers are
Speaker 3: influenced by music industry money. And we have dealt with
Speaker 3: payola in large ways throughout our history and the fifties
Speaker 3: and the seventies, like it's been a huge issue. It
Speaker 3: is something the music industry never wants us to talk
Speaker 3: about because it's unseen. We don't want to think that
Speaker 3: somebody paid a million dollars to make that song number one.
Speaker 2: We want to think that the fans fell in love with.
Speaker 3: The song and it's a true representation of what the
Speaker 3: people want.
Speaker 2: This is not the case, and Drake.
Speaker 3: Is now saying that the company that he is a
Speaker 3: rainmaker for use its machine to help somebody else profit
Speaker 3: on his back, so on his image, because the song
Speaker 3: predicated on dissing Drake and it robs Drake of chances
Speaker 3: to get streams.
Speaker 2: So they pushed the song up, made.
Speaker 3: It large, it became gigantic, and this was personally damaging
Speaker 3: to Drake's business. This is the most unhip hop way
Speaker 3: of responding to a beef ever.
Speaker 2: But this is where we are, all right, So this
Speaker 2: is where we are.
Speaker 1: And why do you think Drake is doing this? Is
Speaker 1: it because he's excessively an ultra embarrassed. Is it because
Speaker 1: he's using it as a negotiating ploy against the company
Speaker 1: that he works with, or what have you? Or is
Speaker 1: it incentivized primarily in an effort to stop Kendrick Lamar
Speaker 1: from performing this song during halftime upcoming Super Bowl in February.
Speaker 3: We had a big conversation about this on rapp Latte
Speaker 3: by partner by co host King Green really thinks that
Speaker 3: this is part of him trying to renegotiate and perhaps
Speaker 3: even get out of the deal that he has with UMG.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's even possible.
Speaker 3: I think we're really seeing more of an angry, egotistical,
Speaker 3: wealthy man not wanting to admit loss and would rather
Speaker 3: say to the people there was a systemic reason why
Speaker 3: I lost. There was a machine that pumped up the song,
Speaker 3: that made it gigantic. That's why I lost, because the machine,
Speaker 3: the record company machine, made Not Like Us so huge.
Speaker 3: I don't know if there's really any way that Drake
Speaker 3: could stop Kendrick from performing Not Like Us at the
Speaker 3: super Bowl.
Speaker 2: That's gonna happen, but.
Speaker 3: The song has already been one of, if not the
Speaker 3: biggest smash of the last ten years, certainly within hip
Speaker 3: hop culture. The only thing I could think of closes
Speaker 3: and words in Paris that was this gigantic of a smash.
Speaker 3: But I think Not Like Us was bigger, which is unwittingly,
Speaker 3: Drake is all reminding us of how much we loved
Speaker 3: Not Like Us at its height. So you see all
Speaker 3: these tiktoks where people are saying, well, I've played the
Speaker 3: song a million times myself, so I can believe it
Speaker 3: got to a billion streams. It felt organic, it felt
Speaker 3: like it was everywhere, So of course we understand, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we can know why the record was big.
Speaker 2: We made it big.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, how do you feel this will affect Drake's
Speaker 1: credibility in the hip hop industry, and how do you
Speaker 1: think it will affect him business wise overall.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that we see as
Speaker 3: this situation overlaps to sports. We respect a graceful loser.
Speaker 3: You get knocked out, you get beat at home, whatever,
Speaker 3: you hold your head up and say good job to
Speaker 3: the other team, and you walk off without tears, and
Speaker 3: we're like.
Speaker 2: We respect you. And maybe steven A will go.
Speaker 3: On first take and call you a dog, but you
Speaker 3: still respect him as a man because he dealt with
Speaker 3: the loss like a gentleman.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Drake seemed to be dealing with the loss like a
Speaker 3: gentleman right, and like taking on the chin, and he
Speaker 3: lost big battles before and kept it moving, and the
Speaker 3: feeling was like, Wow, Drake is so big that he
Speaker 3: can lose a battle. This makes him seem like the
Speaker 3: whiniest cry baby. Richie Rich went off and deployed his
Speaker 3: money to try to get back at you, and it
Speaker 3: really does say I'm not like you.
Speaker 2: I am not hip hop.
Speaker 3: I did something in response to losing a battle that
Speaker 3: no rapper would ever do. I felt like he's gonna survive,
Speaker 3: not like us, He's gonna survive. You know, a billion
Speaker 3: people screaming a minor all summer long. But this brings
Speaker 3: it to a different place where I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people have to start to be like some if
Speaker 3: I really like the guy, and like for some people,
Speaker 3: they want to like the person. Right, And what we're
Speaker 3: talking about with Drake is not being part of the
Speaker 3: hip hop culture.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: That was really Kendrick's main thing, and this is pushing
Speaker 3: that notion.
Speaker 2: If you don't like the guy because you're like, he's
Speaker 2: a whiney.
Speaker 3: Cry baby and he handled it like a loser when
Speaker 3: he lost, that sours you on the records because his vibe,
Speaker 3: who you think he is as a person is critical
Speaker 3: to your relationship with him, your parasocial relationship with him
Speaker 3: as a listener.
Speaker 2: You got you gotta like him.
Speaker 3: If you don't like Drake, if you think he's corny,
Speaker 3: the music doesn't work.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter how slick the raps are and how
Speaker 2: good the beat is.
Speaker 3: If I think he's cordy, I'm not gonna be able
Speaker 3: to rock with him. And this is like taking a
Speaker 3: big stamp in life boo boom.
Speaker 1: I am Cordy, like, what are we doing here? But
Speaker 1: listen read it from the article. Man, here's one thing
Speaker 1: he said. I want to read these two paragraphs to you.
Speaker 2: They say.
Speaker 1: In one particularly eye catching claim, the petition claims that
Speaker 1: UMG paid Apple to have its voice assistant features Siri
Speaker 1: purposely misdirect users to Kendrick's song. Online sources reported that
Speaker 1: when users ask Siri to play the album Certified lover
Speaker 1: Boy by Drake, SyRI instead played not Like Us, which
Speaker 1: contains the lyric certified Pedophile and allegation against Drake.
Speaker 2: This is what the rappers lawyer said. What I'm asking
Speaker 2: also contains the line certified lover Boy. Right, so that's right.
Speaker 2: That light's in there too, so so. But here's what I'm.
Speaker 1: Asking is, do you believe that's the primary motivation for
Speaker 1: Drake going to this point to stop that from circulating
Speaker 1: out there any more than it already has because he
Speaker 1: was accused of being a pedophile.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that serie thing happened, but if
Speaker 3: it did, or any sort of manipulation as I said,
Speaker 3: has surely been deployed on behalf of Drake multiple times
Speaker 3: throughout his career. So you know, whatever Kendrick has benefited
Speaker 3: from this situation, Drake has benefited from it many, many,
Speaker 3: many times.
Speaker 2: You know. I mean like this would be like the Yankees.
Speaker 3: Crying about the Dodgers having bigger pockets, Like what are
Speaker 3: you telling you about?
Speaker 2: Like you have been the big pocket a baseball for
Speaker 2: forty years? Like what are we talking about right now?
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's very trumpion in that when
Speaker 3: Trump lost.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty, he was like, hmm.
Speaker 3: It's the numbers, it's the counters, it's the machines. And
Speaker 3: that's what Drake is he lost and he's like, Oh,
Speaker 3: they miscounted all the machines, that's.
Speaker 2: What really happened here. Well, no, dude, Tury, what do
Speaker 2: you think about this?
Speaker 1: Because you when you think about umg right, I got
Speaker 1: some notes in front of me. According to a Business
Speaker 1: Inside An article from twenty and sixteen, these are the
Speaker 1: top ten biggest record label deals record deals rather of
Speaker 1: all time, ranked before Drake's four hundred million dollar deal.
Speaker 1: This is before Drake's four hundred million dollar deal in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Michael Jackson at two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million in twenty ten U two at two hundred million
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three, Lil Wayne at one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty million and twenty twelve. Jay Z had one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty million in two thousand and eight, Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 1: at one hundred and fifty million in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: A Dell at one hundred and thirty million in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Robbie Williams at one hundred and twenty five million in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, Madonna at one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: million in twenty twelve, Whitney Houston at one hundred million
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, and Prints at one hundred
Speaker 1: million in nineteen ninety two. When you considered Drake's four
Speaker 1: hundred million dollar Universal deal, which was reported as being
Speaker 1: one of the biggest deals of not the biggest deal
Speaker 1: in music history, is it possible that UMG and others
Speaker 1: may be guilty of what he is asserting and because
Speaker 1: of the money he gets from them and the money
Speaker 1: he was in line to get from them that indeed
Speaker 1: nego it was a negotiating ploy on their part which
Speaker 1: forced Drake's hand. Is that is that a sensible argument
Speaker 1: for Drake to try and make.
Speaker 2: I don't I really don't know. I really don't know.
Speaker 3: You are gone beyond by understanding of the legal parameters
Speaker 3: of all this to be able to assess something like that.
Speaker 3: I think part of what we see with Drake's deal
Speaker 3: is two things. One thing is inflation, right, it's a
Speaker 3: different time. But also there are fewer superstars in the
Speaker 3: music world than there have been in the past. So
Speaker 3: somebody like Drake is even more valuable to a UMG
Speaker 3: than he would have been ten or twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: There are fewer people who can move gigantic units, and.
Speaker 2: He's basically taken care of the company. Right.
Speaker 3: He is the big rain maker. I mean, like, they
Speaker 3: aren't going broke on the salary. So if they're paying
Speaker 3: Drake five hundred million, how much are they profiting off
Speaker 3: of Drake?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Like, it's gotta be a multiple above that. And everybody
Speaker 3: in the music business gets fleeced nobody because this is how.
Speaker 2: Much an artist told me. This. This is how you
Speaker 2: can pay the music business.
Speaker 3: It's like your boss gets your check, you don't get
Speaker 3: to see it.
Speaker 2: Your boss tells you this is what you made and.
Speaker 3: Then pays you out of that because you could never
Speaker 3: ever see the actual accounting from the from the actual numbers,
Speaker 3: like you, that would never ever happen, So you never
Speaker 3: really know. One famous artist told me once the label
Speaker 3: owes me between five and ten million dollars, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: wait a.
Speaker 2: Minute, that is a giganton outrage.
Speaker 3: Between obi five or ten like, those are two entirely
Speaker 3: different conversations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, last couple of questions because I gotta get down
Speaker 1: of here, and I thank you so much for you
Speaker 1: Tom toy Ray. How does this all make Kendrick Lamar
Speaker 1: look at this particular moment in time and do you
Speaker 1: feel there's no way on earth that he cannot perform
Speaker 1: not like us at the super Bowl after this, of course.
Speaker 3: He's gonna perform not like us. It is the biggest
Speaker 3: song of the year. It's the biggest song he's ever had.
Speaker 3: You know, they might do it three or four times
Speaker 3: in a row like they did it the Pop Out.
Speaker 3: I think Kendrick thinks this is hysterical. He's got an
Speaker 3: album that was that's fresh out. The album is hot
Speaker 3: to death. Hip hop heads are like, this album is incredible.
Speaker 3: We're grinding on this album. We're doing the knowledge on
Speaker 3: this album. Because when Kendrick drops the project. You gotta
Speaker 3: like dive deep and pull out the dictionary and Google
Speaker 3: and try to figure out all these things to see
Speaker 3: like what he's doing, and like you gotta have it
Speaker 3: like a literature degree. So we're doing all that knowledge
Speaker 3: on Kendrick. Well, Drake is doing this. He's at a
Speaker 3: courthouse filing a suit. What are you doing, buddy? He
Speaker 3: could not have played this worse. It's you know, it's giving.
Speaker 3: I'd like to speak to the manager. It's giving.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna snitch on the corporation. I'm gonna call hr
Speaker 2: on Kendrick.
Speaker 3: Like it's just the corneiest move ever in the history
Speaker 3: of battling.
Speaker 1: And what kind of thing and what kind of consequences
Speaker 1: do you think Drake will pay for this? Last question,
Speaker 1: what kind of consequences do you think healing curve.
Speaker 2: For this in the hip hop community?
Speaker 1: From the hip hop community directly.
Speaker 3: I don't think you see it like right away, Like
Speaker 3: it doesn't happen like a lightning bolt, but it just
Speaker 3: erodes the fan base. It erodes the fan base and more,
Speaker 3: like you know, like a rock on the O, like
Speaker 3: it just erodes more and more over time. A famous
Speaker 3: rapper one said to me, you don't retire from hip hop,
Speaker 3: the audience retires you. And I imagine at some point
Speaker 3: it'll be like there just isn't the energy in the
Speaker 3: air for Drake anymore.
Speaker 2: He's still a big artist.
Speaker 3: He's gonna drop an album probably some point next year.
Speaker 3: It'll go platinum. He'll still be able to tour. But
Speaker 3: you know, it just starts to shrink a little bit,
Speaker 3: like you get the core fan base but not other
Speaker 3: people because they're like, yo.
Speaker 2: This this man is corny. Yeah, it was weak. There's weak. Torrey.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, my brother, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking time out of your schedule to hop on with
Speaker 1: me at the last moment. Notice man, really.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you taking you all right? Thank you peace all right.
Speaker 1: The one and Only tore right here with Steven A.
Speaker 2: Remember to check out
Speaker 1: Rap Latte on YouTube and The Torrey Show wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcast.