Awesome Wells
The Ghost of Jack Tripper
Lord Jamar looking extra funny in the light right about now
This here.
Lord Jamar looking extra funny in the light right about now
Actor Orlando Brown recently went at videographer DJ Vlad during an interview, railing at him for “exploiting Black people.” He noted that his videos with Vlad have reached four million views, but he hasn’t seen any money from it. While it’s not at all necessary for journalists to pay their subjects, it wasn’t the first time Vlad was accused of “exploiting” for his own self interest.
Vlad recently interviewed British MC Giggs on his channel. Per Vlad’s usual, he conducted the interview like a good cop on First 48–pretending to be a friend by asking Giggs about his upbringing, all the while fishing for a controversial nugget he could turn into viral content. Giggs didn’t bite the bait, and after asking Vlad when they were going to talk about his actual music, the burgeoning artist had to proclaim, “I’m not into showing [London’s] got gangs and guns and shyt…I wanna talk about getting’ away from that fukkin’ shyt.”
After Vlad’s nervous “he’s onto me” laughter, the clip ended. Vlad has since posted the more constructive portions of the interview, but why was the controversial clip the leadoff—or released at all? Who or what would that borderline combative clip serve but Vlad’s view count? It seems like since building his digital empire from the pockets of Rick Ross, it’s been his M.O. to rinse every modicum of currency–financial or social–from conflict.
Aside from exploiting the trainwreck that is Orlando Brown on multiple occasions, he’s done interviews with music artists speaking on doing copious amounts of drugs, committing acts of violence, and doing jail time. He interviewed the man who killed Bankroll Fresh—while the case is still being investigated. In 2009, he filmed and released footage of rapper Ransom punching a friend of Joe Budden.