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.
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.
