DJ Akademiks has a history of being loud and wrong and angering many artists in the rap world. It looks like he’s ruffled the feathers of LL Cool J with his remarks on the pioneers of hip-hop being “broke” and “dusty.”
LL took to Instagram to respond to Ak, calling him out for relating the amount of money hip-hop pioneers made to their impact on the culture.
“It came to my attention that a DJ — and I’m not gonna say any names ’cause I don’t think it’s necessary — a DJ basically said that a lot of the pioneers in Hip Hop, they’re dusty or how can they be the person that invented Hip Hop if they don’t have a lot of money, or if they don’t represent like they have a lot of dough,” LL Cool J began.
He continued, saying “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. 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 went on to say how Ak was “misinformed” and spoke on how the state of hip hop was different back then compared to now.
“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,” he said.
“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?”
LL concluded by saying: “So just because [these pioneers] 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!”
You can check out his full message below.
