Welcome to the New York Times Popcast, your deep comment double tap of music news and criticism.

I'm your host, John Caramonica.

I've been thinking a lot about how we in the media and I mean that broadly construed all forms of media think about our musical stars these days.

And you know hip-hop media in particular is a much faster galaxy than it certainly was in the era that I came up in writing or the era that I came up in reading and the nature of celebrity in hip-hop and beyond is also very different in the digital era in like late digital era than it was ten fifteen twenty years ago.

And oftentimes I see coverage of the people that I'm really passionate about are curious about musically artistically but there's a lot of coverage that you know I would politely describe as extra musicals that's not to say there's no validity to the gossip ecosystem at the beginning of the show I was an old ply song called gossip.

I'm a huge fan of that ecosystem and I certainly checking on it multiple times a week but it does feel that the overall framework for how celebrity in hip-hop is talked about has changed with the advent of Instagram accounts that you know post multiple times a day about romance or beef.

Or some of what with the expansion of the podcast ecosystem with SEO optimize news coverage for websites it's growing a couple weeks ago I saw on Twitter two journalists who I go back with many years Jerry Barrow and Rob Markman talking about the tabloidification of hip-hop media and it got me thinking that we should really have a conversation about that because I do think

that if you just watch it happen and take it for granted there's no reflection upon the moral component moral dimension the ethical dimension and also just is this good or bad for music the music industry music is an art form.

And so joining me today look I've got three generations of folks who have been doing journalism doing hip-hop journalism on various rap internet over the years those of us who have been around for a long time know that the rap internet of 2022 is very very different even from the rap internet of 2017 or 18 and certainly 2012 2011 yeah so we're going to talk about that.

The long arc of of hip-hop journalism especially in the online era and how we arrived at this particular tabloidified moment first Rob Markman is here Rob what's good man chilling man I'm you know glad to be here I was waiting for you to call me I find that we had to we had to get the perfect topic for you play.

Yeah mama made it so Rob is the VP of content strategy at genius has been a genius a very long time and also was a writer for many years prior to that but you probably know Rob best from his long form interviews with folks over a genius and also just supervising how that content operation grew out Jerry Barrow is here Jerry what's good what's up how you doing John Jerry is from my generation I won't say how old you are but I will say you're from my generation.

How about that I remember stressing you turning in copy to me at the source one day on it was a deadline and you were like Jerry you know the copy is going to be clean when I get it I'm like all right okay you're right but you stressing me legendary

Derek Aramonica come back extremely legislative Jerry I might I might send you to a group therapy session with all the editors all the editors I have done that too over the years y'all might have to do like a group thing where you could all just work

through your trauma on that I hope it was clean though circuit 2000 I hope it was all right it was Jerry is the head of content a hip hop DX and obviously has been writing and editing for many many years

but there's the source scratch magazine so on so forth and finally Andre G is with us Andre's a staff writer complex the young bull in the room Andre what's good man I'm good I'm good good to be here which are established older generations I guess

so Andre just calling us old which I appreciate that thank you bra

Andre has been ready a complex and has been writing prior to complex as well but also if you read complex with regularity you know that Andre takes on a lot of the hot button topics of the day with more depth and nuance than just a quick response like trying to bring big picture ideas into hot button conversations which I think is the optimal way

I would hope that we would all want to deal with important things in this internet climate but it's not always the case the reason we're all gathered here

actually goes back a couple weeks to an exchange that Rob and Jerry that I saw y'all were having on Twitter about the tabletification of hip hop media I think this functions in two ways and I'm sort of curious to hear y'all expand on where the prompts for that thought were

to me on the one hand you have actual tablet content which is to say people's personal lives I G post who's liking what comment etc that's spilling back into coverage of wrappers

but then there's also even if you move out into the podcast space there's a lot of coverage that is not strictly musical but is becoming the dominant coverage that feels I don't want to say it's not substantive it does have gossipy elements to it

what we're y'all talking about Rob maybe start with you when you were sort of having that exchange where was your head out as far as the current climate

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