With countless records sold and nearly 40 years in music as a producer, record executive, rapper, and more, it’s safe to say Jermaine Dupri has made an indelible impact on the industry – a status that makes him a more-than-qualified and often sought-after voice when questions about the state of Hip-Hop come up.
As a guest of the 2024 United Masters’ SelectCon conference in his hometown of Atlanta over the weekend, Dupri dished on everything from his humble beginnings to rising to dizzying heights of fame and more.
When quizzed on the state of Hip-Hop, however, J.D. didn’t bite his tongue with his disappointment in how little the genre has evolved over the years.
Hear him sound off inside.
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During an enlightening chat with UnitedMasters’ CEO Steve Toute, J.D. weighed in on the current condition of Hip-Hop and used the commercial response to ‘In Sexyy We Trust‘ – the latest EP from hit rapper Sexyy Red – to support his argument.
“The industry still tries to make you believe that if you a hot artist and you got a single, that selling albums don’t matter…Akademiks posted today about Sexyy Red album only doing 28,000 copies,” he said before later relaying, “In the era that I came in the music industry, if you sold 28,000 copies, you didn’t get no other chance to walk in the building again. N-ggas was not talking to you if you sold 28,000 records. It’s such a disconnect between people understanding the streaming situation and actually what you looking at.”
Released May 24 (with little forewarning), ‘Trust’ was delivered after Red’s biggest solo hit to date – the Soulja Boy-sampling ‘Get It Sexyy.’
According to Dupri, the success of the single followed by the nonperformance of its parent project underscores the inflated importance of streaming.
“It’s such a disconnect between people understanding the streaming situation and then actually what you’re looking at because if we should only be paying attention to the streaming numbers then I don’t understand why the blogs always try to post what people are selling as the album,” he said to Stoute. “For people that look at music the way I look at it, [28,000 in sales] feels like a failure. I came from an era where the numbers were 80,000, 100, 200, 800, 900 (pure sales); this feels like it’s going backwards to me.”
Click PLAY to see the full interview below.
This isn’t the first time J.D. has earned side eyes for using a femcee to weigh in on the state of Hip-Hop.
Previously, the 51-year-old made headlines for saying that today’s female rappers are “just strippers.” Click here to revisit that controversial take.
2 different Eras
28k units today is like 100k in his era.
Stop lying.
Flop is a flop.
Thats true its a diffrent era it is how it is
28k is still 28k boo. The fact that musty red has so much hype and promo and only managed to sell 28k is a kii.
As he said “Stop Lying”
She’s trash. Cant rap. Ain’t Sexxy. And millions more talented than her. She’d never be famous if it wasn’t for being planted to make blacks look like bafoons.
That part. Both her and that Ice Spice clown both planted for the same reason.
I mean, he could’ve chosen a better example than S*** Redd whose a relatively new artist whose music appeals to kids.
TGJ ignoring the female rap billboard list. Proves everything to me about this site.
She’s 🗑️🗑️🗑️ that’s why she ain’t selling
basically the new khia but at least she’s funny
That’s more than Normani will sell
Hip hop and Rap are dead
💯
Her music a mixtape. Also, her music is not very broad.
GloRilla only sold 33k with a top 30 hit. The rap girls don’t sell. Megs new album will sell less than 100k again. Cardi scared to drop. Theres only one rap queen that can move units. 😉
Always good to hear insight about what is really going on in the industry.
Very few artists in rap/rnb are moving significant units in pure sales these days, but Sexxy Red is just garbage. Let’s not even talk about longevity. What bothers me is that these kinds of female rappers just KEEP coming. It makes you wonder WHO wants this stuff on the streets when artists like Rapsody have cohesive projects but struggle to be heard.
She is a Trump supporter. So CLEARLY, she is a Republican plant that’s being used to draw the dumbest of the dumb to vote for him. No talent, just disgusting behavior.
She is trash. Ten pounds of bloody vomit in a one pound bag.
You’re literally retåřded
and you’re a n+gger
He’s not wrong. Hip hop and talent have left the building. If s*** red is the best you got? Don’t even bother.
I don’t know what he is saying. During his era, streaming didn’t exist. Hell the internet didn’t exist. Now you can pay 10 dollars a month to any giving platform, and get access to full catalogs. My point, most of her music is being download for free. They call it streaming but it’s basically stilling from the artist in the form of illegal downloading. Instead of you searching sites like limewire to download music and make a playlist, these platform do it for you. If she dropped before the internet, her sales would be through the roof. I don’t know why they always trying to shade younger artist.