LL Cool J had a whole lot to say after DJ Akademiks made some disparaging remarks about the forefathers of Hip Hop. [Jump to the 16:23 mark]
“Them old rappers, man. Have you seen any of these old rappers who be like, yo, they’re the foundation of Hip Hop really living good?” said Akademiks on Twitch, who also got into a major disagreement with The Game over Hip Hop in July. "Them n*ggas be looking really dusty, I kid you not," he went on. "And none of y’all try to come for me ’cause I don’t f*ck with y’all n*ggas either, so I’m just telling y’all the truth ... Every time there be like an old, old n*gga talking about Hip Hop, you be like, ‘Yo, bro. You sure you invented this? ‘Cause everybody else is looking better than you.’ Facts.”
LL responded on Wednesday, September 21, in an Instagram video.
[Instagram post not found]"Let me explain something to you: Don’t think just because somebody knows how to get money — or fails to get money — that they didn’t make a contribution to the culture," said the legendary rapper. "No one discusses Miles Davis’ bank account. We don’t talk about John Coltrane’s bank account. A lot of even rock musicians … a lot of great country artists, we don’t talk about their bank accounts ... This idea that you have to have money or else you don’t have any value is a bad idea and it’s a misinformed way of looking at the world and the culture."
He continued. “Today, you can come up with your five-year plan, your 10-year plan, your 20-year plan. You can go find a manager, you can find an accountant, you can find a team that helps your career go to the next level ... When Hip Hop first started, there were no managers, there were no accountants that believed in it. Record companies didn’t even believe in it. Nobody believed in it. How can you make a five-year plan or a 10-year plan on something that doesn’t even exist yet?”
“So just because [the founders of Hip Hop] didn’t get rich, just because they weren’t able to pile up millions or billions of dollars, does not mean that they didn’t make a contribution to this culture. They created an industry that we all ate off of! They created an industry that you eat off of."
Who are you siding with on this?