Shocking revelations. Meme-able quotes. Oh-so-tasty beefs. It’s easy to see why Power 105.1’s flagship show, The Breakfast Club, continues to be one of the hip-hop world’s most talked-out pop culture melting pots.
Featuring DJ Envy, Angela Yee and rap’s Troll-mander in Chief Charlamagne Tha God, the radio trio have become a beloved mainstay in the world of streaming video. With the full-length interviews garnering tens of millions of views in 2018, their in-depth chats gave us many memorable moments.
From high-profile rappers to movie stars, comedians and more – here are the 10 most interesting interviews from the past twelve months of Breakfast Club chatter.
Who was your favorite interview with the radio trio this year? Let us know.
The actor and noted hip-hop aficionado turned in a stellar interview with the BC fam during his promotional push for Mid90s, his directorial debut that is already generating some buzz in critical circles this awards season. A bearded Hill, clad in retro-style specs and a cool black tee, dove into all manner of topics, from Los Angeles skateboarding culture to his love of all things 90s, especially rap music.
One of the more interesting nuggets gleaned from the interview is that Hill, like many kids from his generation, aspired to break into the hip-hop scene as a DJ. While he admitted to lacking some skill in the rhyming department, the former Wolf of Wall Street cast member said he did try and make beats for a minute – some of which were apparently fire.
“It was bad,” he recalled during the interview. “I didn’t have a rap name, I didn’t have an MC name, but I made a lot of beats. And to be honest, at least my sample game — my diggin’ game — was tight … It’s really embarrassing: It’s Spindrome." A fittingly 90s-sounding gaffe for the Mid90s filmmaker.
Never one to shy away from laying all his cards on the table during any sort of interview, Vic Mensa had plenty to share with Envy, Yee and Charlamagne when he made an appearance on the show earlier in December. Front and center: The prickly topic of the backlash he faced following his now-infamous BET cypher.
The performance, which targeted the late XXXTentacion as one of rap culture’s main culprits in the glorification of domestic abuse, later became engulfed in a tsunami of internet backlash. While promoting his latest album, Mensa copped to at least a little backpedaling where his disses were concerned.
"I actually reached out to his mother personally,” the emcee said of the post-cypher maelstrom. “We pre-tape those things. I didn't know she would be there.” He did, however, stand firm on his belief that the issue at hand needs to be discussed in a serious way. “At the end of the day, I do think that the conversation that I was trying to bring up [is] a super necessary conversation,” he added.
His new LP, Hooligans, boasts a strong supporting cast that includes Ty Dolla $ign, G-Eazy and more.
One of the most divisive hip-hop moments in 2018 was the Eminem-Machine Gun Kelly beef. Although most people declared Slim Shady the victor in that public back-and-forth after “Killshot,” MGK used his length Breakfast Club interview to not only parse through the aftermath of that resounding diss track but also reveal that he had a response ready. Well, sort of.
"I had a clip ready," he relayed to DJ Envy. "I heard 'Killshot' and I put that sh*t back in the holster. I'm like, 'Oh word, aight, he called me a mumble rapper dog..." When pressed on why he wouldn’t fight fire with fire and drop his response anyways, Kelly responded by saying: "This wasn't even on my path anyway."
While MGK doesn’t fit the bill of a mumble rapper (he actually has some chops when it comes to spitting bars), this interview showcases the power of The Breakfast Club as a place where rappers can speak their minds. It’s also a forum for artists to tell the truth, even if it doesn’t register on the rumor mill’s Richter scale, behind some of pop culture’s most overblown stories. MGK definitely did a fair share of divuling through out this one, keeping it interesting for the length of it.
Oversaturation or not, there’s no denying that Cardi B is one of the culture’s most ubiquitous and consequently most sought-after interview subjects. You know when she makes an appearance alongside rap’s most popular radio trio, you’re in for a treat.
Bardi’s 45-minute chat from back in April remains one of the year’s best, in part because she had a lot to celebrate. Even with a platinum record in tow and what shaped up to be one of the summer’s biggest hits in “I Like It,” rap’s new empress was surprisingly open about what was on everyone’s mind at the time: her pregnancy
Though she admitted that having a child wasn’t in her short or long-term plans, she ultimately decided against an abortion. Judging by her rare social media poses with her Kulture, we think she made a good call. For those more concerned with her music, she breaks down plenty of details from her recent full-length release, including the rumor of ghostwriters aplenty feeding her bars behind the scenes.
It’s a refreshing and entertaining look at the biggest rapper in the game.
Sometimes a light roast is on the menu during a Breakfast Club chat, and Charlamagne Tha God’s exchange with actor Michael B. Jordan was no exception.
The leading man, coming off a stellar year with standout performances in box office behemoths like Black Panther and Creed II, touched on how he isolated himself from friends and family in order to play the Marvel villain Killmonger. This promoted Charlamagne to give him a hard time for living with his mom and meeting up with a university co-ed who slid into his DMs.
Jordan took the good-natured shots in stride and oozed confidence throughout the interview. He’s one of the world’s most popular actors right now and, with some big-ticket projects on the horizon for 2019, there’s little doubt that his next appearance on the show will be just as memorable as this one.
Never one to disappoint during a full-length interview, Nipsey Hussle’s appearance on The Breakfast Club this year should rank among one of the OG rapper’s best.
Dropping by the studio to promote his project Victory Lap, Hussle touched on a variety of subjects ranging from gang culture to his creative process to Cardi B. Of that first piece of subject matter, it turns out that Nipsey considers himself a bearer of wisdom to gang members out there.
"I wanted what I had to say to impact individuals like myself,” he said, “young people that was in these areas controlled by gangbanging. I didn't want to preach to the choir, but I wanted to say I'm one of you. Wherever I go, wherever I end up you gon' know that you can end up there too...I wasn't trying to be on no super tough guy sh*t." It’s just one of the many highlights of this enthralling interview.
The Breakfast Club has indeed diversified their list of guests over the year, and this year, they were especially in demand. Thus we were treated to some seeming-outsiders of the hip-hop industry, who gave us great conversation regardless. For those who haven’t been following, comedian Kathy Griffin’s triumphant comeback on the stand-up scene was one of the year’s most uplifting celebrity stories. Following her (ill-advised) photo shoot that featured her holding the severed head of U.S. President Donald Trump, Griffin was blacklisted from tons of venues and looked to be on a sharp career downswing.
She pulled the curtain back on her year of tumult and told the hosts exactly how everything went down, from being on the government’s “no-fly list” and being investigated for supposed terrorist leanings to the three people who called and supported her through the tough time, Griffin gets emotional more than once during the extended conversation.
As for her relationship with Trump, Griffin said she’s known him since the 90s but, ever since she “disrespected” him with the photo, she hasn’t stopped receiving death threats and was even accosted by a man waving a knife. Couple that topic with a lengthy dive into her angle on the #MeToo movement and props to Kathy for fighting the good fight.
Of all the rappers who graced the pop culture headlines this year, maybe none did so as bizarrely as Tekashi 6ix9ine.
The young hitmaker laid down one of the stranger and arguably most interesting chats of 2018. Among the highlights was an explanation of sorts as to why he axed his entire crew and cancelled his tour. Apparently, he was fearful of shady promoters and other figures who wanted to leech off his success. “There's so much money out there to be stolen,” he said at one point.
Maybe crazier still was the public fallout that took place after the interview aired, where the rapper’s life was in real danger after gang members supposedly threatened to “super violate” him (read: potentially murder him). Legal complication and controversy aside, if you’re looking for an off-the-wall experience in barely-there logic, this BC interview is something to behold, which is the reason we ranked it here.
Speaking of something to behold, there was the Azealia Banks interview.
Love her or hate her, there’s no denying that her willingness to say whatever’s on her mind, regardless of the social media heat she’ll face after the fact, makes her a compelling listen every time she’s on the show. This lengthy chat was no different, giving Banks the opportunity to drop off some hot takes about everyone from Donald Trump to Cardi B to, of course, her many haters.
Concerning her Cardi comments, Banks said that the “Bodak Yellow” emcee was a disappointing representation of black women in pop culture. “There was just this really, intelligent conversation going on nationally,” she said, referring to the post-Lemonade landscape “[Everything] just kind of changed and then it was like Cardi B […] I’m just talking about this caricature of a black woman that black women themselves would never be able to get away with.”
Cardi retaliated, using Instagram as her instrument for retaliation. “I'm from the hood, I speak how I speak, I am how I am. I did not choose to be famous, people choose me,” she exclaimed. The claws came out, as they usually do when Banks is involved.
Finally, we get to what was easily the most notorious Breakfast Club interview of the year, the Desus & Mero-DJ Envy walk out. The controversial late-night hosts were immediately on the offensive after a surly Envy took issue with several jokes they made about him on their show, particularly about how his wife is only with him for the money.
When the duo refused to give in and apologize on the air, they played the clip back and tensions flared even more. Eventually, Envy left the interview altogether, prompting other prominent hip-hop figures such as Ebro and Joe Budden to weigh in. The rumor at that moment, one that the BC host vehemently denied, was that the entire dust-up was staged in order to artificially produce a viral moment.
Regardless of whether the beef was real or not, seeing Desus & Mero get under DJ Envy’s skin like that was undoubtedly the most memorable moment in the year that was from rap culture’s most consistently entertaining radio show.
Which one was your favorite?