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Life Through The Lens of Hip Hop.
Justin Hunte's expansive resume covers banking, journalism, television, and music marketing. His career began in investment banking where he was a VP at Bank Of America Merrill Lynch. He later became HipHopDX’s editor-in-chief, served as Director of Content & Strategic Marking at EMPIRE, and produced three seasons of A&E's Court Cam.
Hunte's amassed over 87M views and 267,000 subscribers on his personal RU-vid channel. His thought-provoking videos attract millions, prompting branding partnerships with Brisk Bodega, Simple Mobile, Honda, and Lexus. He also debated at the prestigious Oxford Union, arguing that William Shakespeare is more culturally relevant than Kanye West. Hunte consults several premiere artists and brands in tech and entertainment. Iin his spare time, he is an LA Mission Ambassador where he dedicates hours to helping the houseless community.
Has no one heard of Von. I couldn’t disagree with Jabari defense, I think it’s idiotic and self serving. He is an example of what’s wrong with hip hop. This proves one thing, just because one has a title, it doesn’t mean they have the intelligence
Wayne.. you a GOAT.... but Drake is his cosign and there was the expectation that you carry burden of vouching. This would be the time for him to finally use his voice.
Dr Evans is wrong. If a rapper raps or posts about killing someone then someone ends up dead and they are involved then they shouldn’t be able to hide behind artistic expression to evade responsibility for those words….connected to actions. As if people didn’t die around lyrics in drill rap. Him saying it’s all a created persona assumes that everyone is pretending when the bodies say otherwise.
Not really a Drake fan, but strategy-wise, looking back at his movements since this video aired, can’t help but think he might’ve fared better as an artist by taking some of the kind of advice offered in this video (or similar such advice). Maybe there’s a bigger plan, but what he’s done since the beef ended has seemed desperate and random. Of course, for these artists, there’s a whole world behind the scenes to which none of us fans is privy. So who knows?
Maybe I’m just misinterpreting, but it seems like Knowledge basically excused all of these clowns out here lying about who they are in their music. There’s no scenario in which that should be accepted as just a common practice and necessity in the music industry. We all know that happens, but to be cool with it and justify it is fuckin bullshit. The whole thing that was supposed to differentiate the music industry from other art forms is its authenticity. Just throw away hiphop then. If you want to act like a gangster and rap about being a gangster, you can’t just say you play one on tv. This is why we hate Drake as a culture. People like him set a precedent and made it ok to be a fake caricature of the actual impoverished urban conditions. Something we shouldn’t even be perpetuating in the first place. Fuck the industry for real.
Respectfully, you keep trying to intellectualize street sh*t. Top 5 is only a representation of the same idea as What's The Dirt, only you can't get out of your head and out of the way. Drake created this and he's going to get someone hurt. Spare us the breakdown of what led to it, you were there reporting on and making truces who people who mean not but ill will to Black culture.
11:42 it’s “killies/killy” which is the Jamaican version of killas….. the part speaking on the “bun skin” is very accurate. Bun is the Jamaican word for burn, so they are saying “you will bun their skin” is basically saying the bullets that hit you will be so hot they will burn your skin
saying top 5 is a big deal in Toronto must be a joke he's a 5 foot 3 120 pound Somalian who tries to speak Jamaican and lives with 10 people in a 1 bedroom apartment and nobody has ever heard a song from him
apparently Top5 posted LA on his instagram story and thats what gave him up 🤦♂ i remember the days where he was basically telling on himself on Akademiks streams
19:35 I'm not familiar with Friday, but I felt so sad listening to him talk about how he supported and believed in Top 5. Hearing genuine disappointment from elders with sense and wisdom hits different. I didn't even do anything wrong and that had me feeling guilty. I feel like I need to apologize to my elders and community, and I'm not even involved with any conflicts.
AK is a clown who loves to cosplay as a street dude. He’s encouraging this reckless behavior and when shit goes wrong he’ll be the first one testifying and pointing fingers.
If Kendrick so much as breaks a sweat because of top5 AKs whole career is over. And unfortunately Top5 life might be. Kendrick is definitely the most beloved rapper currently. If top5 hurt Kendrick they would need Marshall law to stop the get back. Ak is lighting a fire under a guy that doesn't have anything going for him.
I hear what this interview is saying. My issue is is that it slaps in the face of intelligence. I know DJ akademiks it's not a rapper I know he's not that much in the entertainment industry because I most of the time see him in his home on a computer screen. But some of these drill rappers are about that life. So to the fact that aw man most of this is faking and kayfabe. Gave the court complete car Blanche to say we will never look into this individual any further than surface level. And with a blind eye you can't see cats like top five sneaking up on you.
My ex knew the man who was killed and it's honestly awful that someone, who for all intents and purposes, is the one of the most heinous, disrespectful, ignorant and toxic people I've ever seen has been protected by Drake, whether or not he was guilty. I'm fully aware that trials and cases are based upon the evidence presented, part of me is just baffled as to how this man is allowed to behave the way he does. Why shouldn't his social media be used as evidence? Maybe it was that there was no concrete evidence for the murder so his social media was irrelevant? Even so, you will never get me to think that some drill rappers, lying or not, are not incredibly detrimental to their audience. (Top5) Hassan's brother Said Ali was killed and less than three days before the shooting of Hashim Hashi he was on social media talking about getting revenge. Hashim Hashi had absolutely no ties to any criminal activity, this was likely a case of revenge and mistaken identity. They have CCTV footage of the shooting, I think it just wasn't clear enough to show the perpetrators. They said that Hassan was just an accomplice though. As far as I'm concerned whether or not he shot the gun he should be punished appropriately for what he did if that was indeed him which I think it was. I know that you don't have any emotional ties to this case Justin but it really isn't "dope" that Drake paid for his lawyer fees, whichever way you swing it. Either Drake paid the lawyer fees of a conspirator in a murder that took the life of an innocent man or Drake paid the lawyer fees of someone who promotes death, hedonist capitalism and gang violence that drives the cycle of death and destruction. Drake is a prime example of the negative power of this gang violence culture. Drake was never hard and that's okay, he doesn't have to be. Like Lil Wayne said he should've kept it to what he knew but thanks to fragile male egos we have to be the biggest and the baddest, helped along by this arms race of rap personalities. Now Drake really does have criminal ties. Drake, one of the biggest musicians in Canada and one of the biggest in the world. I'm not saying Drill/Trap/Gangsta Rap has hypnotic abilities and strips people of their autonomy or anything but it's not a positive force and we really need to start standing up and saying this isn't right. There's a big difference between recounting your own personal experiences and actively promoting death. I have no qualms with rap about crime as an idea but the balance isn't there, apparently nobody wants to hear the actual consequences of that kind of life and that's the problem. If we're really saying these are anecdotal pieces of art entertainment where are the atrocities, the horrors? Anything other than that seems extremely irresponsible to me. I used to think street raps were either anecdotal if true or like a horror/action film in song form if fictional but I'm genuinely seeing the negative effects of this kind of culture. If you watch Nightmare on Elm Street Freddy Krueger never says that he's going to kill anyone that actually exists in real life, it's ludicrous to me to imply that it's remotely the same thing. It's not just the music though, in my eyes it's a mixture of; the music, established gang culture, the fans with no criminal ties, capitalism and social media. The music began from the genuine expression of the disenfranchised, then came capitalism to snatch it up and commodify it, leading to suburban youth and outsiders gravitating to the hyper-masculine, violent Gangsta Rap being heavily marketed in the 90s. A big part of Hip-Hop is its competitive nature and focus on authenticity. All of this comes together in a gigantic cultural movement being adopted by outsiders who did not grow up in gangs emulating gang culture to show how "hard" they are and feeling like they have to back up their claims, resulting in them escalating their behaviour to either engage in it themselves or promote/support it. All because everything in our society says you must make as much money as possible or your life doesn't matter. You have to have the perfect life with money, women, cars, clothes, mansions, guns, chains or you're irrelevant. I understand that it's not as easy as just saying "Gang violence culture is bad guys, you need to stop", it's a symptom of something much bigger, but something that I feel like a lot of people can do is realise what they're actually listening to, buying and promoting. In our society people only want to hear the extremes, if it's not; immediate, extreme, vulgar, shocking or controversial it doesn't get engagement because of the way our brains are being wired by technology in capitalism. We need to distance ourselves from these cancerous sirens that lure us in and stimulate our brains but offer us no humanity or sustainable life.
I live in Detroit which borders Toronto Canada. The drive from downtown Detroit to Toronto is just across the bridge basically. I have never witnessed someone crossing the border from Canada whether by bridge or tunnel not go through border patrol and checked. I find it crazy suspicious that he was able to do so.
You guys should get to know Brazilian drill! Some events are just 5 hours of DJs doing some insane drill beats as like 14 guys and girls spit some heavy bars over it, in a really small room with 40 people as a crowd. It's insane
