The new school of clout-chasing media has been called out by Van Lathan for robbing Hip Hop of authentic conversations with its leading artists.
He tackled the dicey subject of entertainers skirting around opportunities to discuss more hard-hitting issues within the culture to instead ride the wave of non-Hip Hop-related platforms who have turned emcees into viral topics and diluted the impact of veteran Hip Hop journalists. While on the “Bootleg Kev Podcast,” Lathan lamented that a disservice is being done to both parties — the artists and outlets whose mission it is to showcase the genre.
“It is incumbent upon Hip Hop artists to do interviews with Hip Hop media because that feeds the ecosystem,” said the former TMZ producer. “They have to do Hip Hop media. There’s no — I’m telling you, if you are a rap artist and you are a big rap artist, you have to do traditional Hip Hop media… You have to do it all the time.”
Lathan explained that artists have a “[cultural] responsibility to invest back into the media, and number two, they feed the ecosystem of Hip Hop because… the people who look like Bobbi (Althoff), they gon’ eat off Hip Hop regardless… The question is whether or not the Black people, and not just Black but the people in Hip Hop media, whether they’re going to eat off of it.”
Bobbi Althoff, host of “The Really Good Podcast,” came under fire when viral chats with Drake, Offset and Funny Marco were interpreted as her using a schtick to capitalize on Black Hip Hop fans’ viewership with no real investment in the community or interest in her Black guests.
In a direct criticism of those who seldom do press with genre-specific outlets, Lathan added, “As hard as they are, they are equally p**sy. And I say they [are] equally p**sy because everybody wanna be Hip Hop, but don’t nobody wanna be Hip Hop. Don’t nobody wanna sit down and answer questions in the way that Hip Hop interviewers ask them… Hip Hop is supposed to be this cultural art form where we don’t dance around, and we get straight to the point.”
He theorized that other artists’ public blunders may be a deterrent to their peers. “They’re afraid to have the conversation, so they would rather go sit down with someone that has a big platform that will treat them [in] a way, to me, that is not culturally authentic than actually have a culturally authentic and powerful conversation with someone that benefits… the entire Hip Hop ecosystem.”
Hear more of the conversation in the video below.
