Scru Face Jean Talks Coming Up In Nebraska, Balancing Rap & YouTube, And Becoming A Focal Point Of The Drake & Kendrick Lamar Beef

If you were on YouTube during the peak of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, you probably came across at least a couple Scru Face Jean videos. Overall, the Nebraska-born MC is part of a large community on YouTube that is known for reacting to new music as well as hot button topics within the culture. Creators like No Life Shaq, Zias & B Lou, and ImDontai are some of the biggest names in the scene. However, what sets Scru apart from his contemporaries is that he is a true student of battle rap. While speaking with him, it's clear that he has an encyclopedia's worth of knowledge about the scene. This knowledge seeps into his reactions, as he is immediately able to call out double entendres, rhyme schemes, and even strategic wins and losses.

Ultimately, this knack for hip-hop commentary served Scru Face Jean well during the last week of April and first week of May, when Drake and Kendrick Lamar were taking each other to hell and back. The rapper was a must-watch personality during this time as diss songs were released at breakneck speeds. Like all of us, Scru was stunned by the direction the beef went in. However, the beef itself is something that he had predicted would happen, years ago.

And yet amidst all of this, Scru still finds time to pursue his first passion which is music. Growing up, hip-hop was played constantly in his home and it made a huge impression on his life. His brother was a rapper and Scru Face Jean eventually followed suit. In 2010, he dropped his first album The Man and the Myth which helped him building a following in the Nebraska rap scene. Subsequently, Scru got to perform at local shows and even headline his own tours. A big break would come in 2013 thanks to Kendrick Lamar as he opened for the artist on the Good Kid m.A.A.d City tour.

Eventually, Scru would break into YouTube which opened him up to a whole new audience. While speaking with HotNewHipHop, Scru Face Jean explained how his YouTube career has served as one of the biggest evolutionary points of his music. We also got to talk at length about his role in the Kendrick and Drake beef, and inspiration for his new song "Opp List." Scru has big plans for 2025, and there's no doubt that his future in both YouTube and rap are exciting.

**This interview has been edited for length and clarity**

HNHH: In 2010, you started dropping music with your project The Man And The Myth. Take me through how you got started making music in the first place.

Scru Face Jean: It was back when I was in Nebraska. That was right when I graduated. My older brother was an artist, in the underground scene there. I looked up to him so much that he really was the reason I started rapping and stuff. And once after a few years he stopped rapping like he retired, I decided to keep it going. And that was really what got me started to have a little name locally. Around that 2010 is when I dropped the The Man And The Myth and I think that was the year I also opened up for Young Jeezy when he came to the Persian auditorium. And I had just graduated a few months before that at the same venue. That's really what started my buzz locally and then it just went on for that from there.  

People don’t necessarily look at Nebraska as a hub for hip-hop like they would the South, New York, or the West Coast. What was the rap scene like there when you got started?

It's definitely not like a hub but there was a pretty decent scene there. It was something that was thriving a little bit but it was still a newer scene. It was still being created as we were doing it. Some of the things I had did, I was the first person to do it. It wasn't like a super old scene. As the years progressed, people, fell off, started doing other things. But I realized that there was clearly obviously a ceiling from being the biggest local artist there. That didn't really mean something as much on the national stage as it did back home.

I realized that if I wanted to go beyond that, I had to break from just being focused on the local scene. So I started doing shows and touring stuff more outside of the city. I toured with Chevy Woods on the Taylor Gang Tour. I think that was my first major tour. And then I started doing other tours like that. Then I eventually started doing my own tour and then that's when I started first getting fans outside of just being in Nebraska. That was really where that started from and that was before even I started doing YouTube heavy.

Being the first from your city to do a lot of these things, you maybe didn’t have the people to lean on for access or connections. How were you able to navigate that on your own and forge a path for yourself?

I had a pretty solid team at the time and also a drive. Not to say that other people didn't have a drive, but just speaking on my own. My drive is just to be more. I always want more, I didn't like to settle for nothing and my drive was bigger and my vision was bigger than what I was seeing. It was really do-it-yourself at the time.

Being in somewhere like Nebraska, and I bet a lot of the artists will probably tell you the same thing, since there's not a lot of resources there, you got to get creative. And if you don't really have a passion for it, you're going to not do it for a while because there isn't a lot to fall back on. All the people who are doing it it means a little bit more than certain cities that have a bit more resources because they had to create something out of nothing really.

Speaking on that, how did you end up getting the opportunity to perform on the GOOD KID m.A.A.d CITY tour in 2013?

It was crazy because [GKMC] had dropped and it was like when I had listened that album it really kind of changed my life because it felt like a movie when I watched it and that was the exact kind of rap I felt like that was missing. When the show happened, at the time, I'm a pretty big local name at the time. When I was just going to go there as a fan, originally I was just going to go regardless, I was going to watch it and they had called my team and my team had reached back out to me. I'm like, "Yeah, we about to be all there and we'll mob up there."

They're like, "Bro, they want you to open up." And it was crazy because we really didn't have that much time to get everything together, honestly. I freaked out. I was like, "my gosh." And it was just me and Kendrick. We were the only two performers. We got there during soundcheck and stuff like that, we were just walking around and looking at everything, but then before the performances happened, I ran into Kendrick and we had a quick little conversation. It wasn't super long, but it wasn't super short. But at the time as I'm having the conversation, I don't even remember the full conversation.

The only thing I remember was the end of it. Kendrick was like, "Alright, I'll see you at the top." That was not really something I had heard from other artists and stuff like that. And it went back to randomly getting the call and stuff and I was like, "Wow, that was dope." But at the time, I didn't think too much of it. I was more like, man, I just met Kendrick.

Now after the whole Drake and Kendrick battle, I know we'll get more into that, but those words that Kendrick told me when he said, "I'll see you at the top," resonate even more because really when this battle happened, I got way bigger from it. It changed things on every level, financially, whether it's just like my career, whether it's my music, everything. And I got to shout out everybody involved in it.

But really what it feels like, especially from, Kendrick being one of my favorites, is that it's like he saw something and it's just ironically the poetry of it. It came 360 and that was a really dope moment for me because he was right. And I'm not saying I'm at the top of it, but compared to where I was, I'm up there.  It was just like a poetic moment. In the immediate aftermath of the show, what I learned was that it was more, how do I put this? I was being acknowledged from people that I was just listening to as a fan. It was real and it could be real. And this was before, I'm even doing YouTube. Even though I'm known locally, people don't really know who I was.

But that was one of the biggest motivating moments because getting that call wasn't random, and running into Kendrick wasn't random. All those things happened for a reason. And in hindsight, it feels like I kind of understand that reason a bit more. But what I learned right after that show was keep grinding or keep doing exactly what I'm doing because there's more to this.

And in 2016, you did eventually start your YouTube channel. What made you want to go down that route in the first place?

When I was doing just the local music stuff, I had a YouTube channel.  It wasn't nothing crazy, but I had music and stuff on there and it got deleted and it was a crazy moment when it got deleted. I started a new channel because at the time I started the channel, I was in really a more darker place in my life because I didn't know what was next. I felt like I was still stuck in the local scene. Which is crazy that it was only three years after the Kendrick thing because it felt like more but now that you say that that is true but it felt like that moment wasn't coming like not that I was losing faith but I was like whatever.

I think my first upload was actually a song but I just wanted to talk to people about music. It's funny because when I started doing reactions, I wasn't even listening to the song. I would read the lyrics out just to have conversations because I had conversations with people like that back home.

So, I started doing it just to, really be in the comments and I really didn't know who would watch it and stuff. And I remember when I started doing reactions, I've been doing reactions for eight years now. But when I started doing reactions, just to show you how far it's grown, people were like, "Wait, you're going to be a rapper and do reactions? I don't get it." But that was just seeing how quickly that this thing’s grown. They didn't understand the concept of creating content and stuff like that because back then it wasn't super common for artists to do that. But I was like it's really more just so I could talk to the people.

I did that and then it started taking off more and more and more and throughout the whole time I was still dropping music and I would incorporate it with what I was doing and really there was on the YouTube rap side there was a scene that I was really tapped into. I would like to say I was kind of not the beginning of YouTube rap because that's been a thing since KSI and Rice Gum and stuff, but I mean there was another generation coming that was more serious about the music too and we were still doing reactions and stuff like that. I did that and that's when it started really taking off. And then that's when I got into my little situation with Dax and I dropped “I'm not Dax” and that was the first song that I dropped.

I was also in Epic Rap Battles of History. I played Mansa Musa in one of the battles and that really helped me too. That was a huge moment for me. But that's how much I was tapped into battle rap.  And it felt like the Kendrick and Drake battle was just the stars aligned perfectly because I've always been a big Kendrick fan. I always rock with Drake and it was the battle and the Cold War.

I've made videos about hip-hop's cold war before the battle even happened. So it was something that I've been saying and if you're like a real hip-hop person, that was like the forbidden battle that was supposed to take place. And when it happened, that's everything just everything from there because I think people already know that I'm somebody who breaks down lyrics and battles a lot. And I'm also a rapper who is very in tapped in with this I've gone to Smack events.

When you were getting into YouTube, the RiceGums and the Jake Pauls of the world were doing diss tracks to one another. As someone who was deep in the culture, did you ever take issue with how they went about it?

In the beginning, I absolutely took issue with it and I think it makes more sense now when people get to know me more. I took a little issue with it because it really didn't feel like rap as much as it felt like parody music.  And at that time I just was not having that, just everything that I've gone through for everything that rap is to me. I am hip-hop and I learned a lot of English through rap because I was born in Kearny, Nebraska, but I only spent a few months there. Then we flew to Nigeria.

Then I spent the first five years of my life there. And then we came back to Nebraska and America and stuff. So I spoke English. But I learned a lot of English through listening to hip-hop, which is just always been, my thing. Even when we were in America, when I was born here, my parents have always been hip-hop people. Always grew up listening to Doggystyle and stuff like that. That's always been in my house.

So, I was such a purist that I felt like, it felt like a little mockery at the time and I fully didn't understand YouTube as much as I do now back then. I wasn't a big fan of it.  And I think that's why when I said there was a second generation of YouTube rap that I feel like a lot of people felt that way in that second generation because I think the difference between us and the group of people before us is we took music a lot more seriously.

Previously you mentioned that you had a run-in with Dax, you also made a track about DJ Akademiks recently. What is your writing process like when you go into these tracks?

I would say I'm known for my music, but I'm really known for my diss tracks, my remixes, and I have no problem with that. I look at it like I'm about to go into a Smack URL battle. I've watched so many of them and I got the URL app and that I kind of treat it like that. But I also know that I'm on a different platform where people aren't going to fully get certain things, especially from before.

With the Akademiks stuff, I'm more on a bigger just regular platform so people can see it. So I do them like battle raps. When I go into writing it, I start thinking of different things I can say about the different things that I know. It's really like if you've been listening to hip-hop or watching hip-hop through YouTube or through anything, you know who Akademiks is, especially throughout the years. A lot of the stuff that I was saying about him was stuff that I've just always known, I've always had in the back of my head.

The reason why I even dropped the diss track was because he pulled one of my tweets up on one of his streams and he was going in on me for a little bit and he kept trying to call me just like a fan. "He's just a fan." That's stupid. He's saying how stupid I am. All kinds of stuff. And I did a video reacting to it. But me as a rapper, let me make music about this too because that's what I usually do.  And I've always wanted to have that conversation about Akademiks and stuff like that. I also do a thing too where if I got to make more stuff because URL battles are usually broke up into three rounds. So there's certain things where I go okay I'm gonna hold that off just in case.

There's certain things where I go, "Okay, I'm gonna say this here for this certain reason." And I kind of just try to write like I am a battle rapper, I'm about to go in the URL battle. But I also know that we do it in more of a song form, more of just on record. I also know there's a big difference in formatting a battle that's on a URL battle or a Smack battle.

When it came to Drake and Kendrick Lamar, it felt like because Drake’s life is so much more public, it gave Kendrick more ammo. DJ Akademiks, his whole adult life is online. Do you find it is easier to write disses about people who live that way, or is it even harder because you’re forced to condense your thoughts?

It depends on who because in the writing process it's definitely a bit easier because it's easier just in the research portion. It's because there's stuff already about these people curated things where you can go in and see certain things and formulate them in your own way and stuff like that where as to other people that aren't as known. You got to literally do a lot of research. You got to do the same amount of research, but it's just like you have no sources with somebody else like that. And the more known you are, the easier it is. The problem with that is though, the more known you are, the easier of a way for bias to come out.

The less it's probably going to be about what is actually said or the quality of the diss tracks or the songs as it is the narratives that could be created because then it becomes just who has the louder megaphone and it really doesn't matter. There's pros and cons in both ways. It really just depends on who the person is I would say.

When it comes to writing music for your regular single and albums that are released outside of the context of YouTube, how has being a content creator help change your approach to music?

It affected it massively because before I was on YouTube or had any kind of audience outside of regionally or just locally, I was writing so local where references where it's only going to be people around me or where I'm from who understand it. Writing from that position, just a real small pigeon hole where you don't even realize you're pigeon holeing yourself or you are pigeon hole because you just haven't seen a lot of stuff. Once I moved out of Nebraska and I started doing YouTube it instantly opened my eyes to all new worlds, all new perspectives, all new different things.

And in one given comment section, I could drop a video, there's so many different walks of life and so many different things that just immediately when you tap into that you see that you got to make bigger music and then that's not even talking about the other creators themselves that are from different places. So, you just start seeing more things and when I start doing the shows I've done since I've been doing YouTube, more people from different places have been coming and it made me know that I had to start writing bigger and influenced me to want to start writing bigger because not everybody's going to understand these streets and these buildings from where I'm at.  

You mentioned that the Drake and Kendrick beef was one that you saw coming. What was your initial reaction to finding out Kendrick was on “Like That” and that it was a diss?

I don't ever listen to a song before I react to it unless something happens and my computer shuts down or something that's a rare event. But I'm pretty sure I knew Kendrick was on the song and that's why I was racing to it because we haven't had Kendrick music in so long. And whenever Kendrick drops it's a big thing. I did the Mr. Morale album. I did all that. And so when he dropped I didn't know the disses were coming though.

What do you do when you’re out somewhere and you can’t react to something in the moment? Do you have to stay off social media to avoid spoilers or do you stop everything and go to the computer?

It's crazy because content creation and music is my full-time career and I've been blessed with a great career.  I've basically made my life and molded my life where I can never be in that position because I always have something if I get a certain amount of miles away from my home, then I have something to record with. That's always the rule. So, I'm always in a situation where I can record.

There's been times where if something drops, we end what we're doing. If it's a big enough situation, we end what we're doing and I got to get to the computer. But I could travel with my laptop and stuff. So I'm always in a position where I'm going to react to something or if I'm in a position where I can't get to it, right? Then, I'm getting to it immediately because I'm not going to social media. 

I might drop a tweet. As soon as the Kendrick tweet would go off, I would just put a meme of me running to my computer, but that would be it. Then I'd go react to it. But once the battle started, once that dropped and then “Push Ups” dropped, I knew to be home just for the rest of the week. I was a few feet away from my computer at all times during that.

That was actually something I was going to follow-up and ask. Do you tell your family beforehand “hey, this week is going to be a bit crazy I need to be on call’?

Yeah. Yeah. They know exactly what it is. My wife be on the ball with it, too. She don't play that. She's not trying to have me miss none of that. She is the greatest because she makes it so much easier for me because when it's time, the way she watches our kid and stuff like that, without her it probably be even harder for me to get everything done. But she makes sure everything is right for that. So during that week, she knew what it was. Even with my kid, there'll be times where I'm playing with him because I know that something is gonna drop, so I'm gonna get this in now. But what was the back-to-back songs? I can't remember.

Friday morning was “6:16 in LA.” Then that night, “Family Matters” dropped and then 45 minutes later it was “Meet the Grahams.”

Basically the whole time there would be times where I'd be editing my reaction and then the other one would drop and I’d just have to do my thing. It was a hectic week.

Rewinding back to when “Push-Ups” came out, he also released "Taylor Made Freestyle" with the AI Snoop Dogg and Tupac verses. Did you think that was his first misstep in all of this?

There's two ways that I always look at everything. I am such a battle rap person. And in battle rap, man, it gets dark.  So when I'm going in my battle mind, I always go all is fair. Whatever is the most disrespectful thing, that's what you're supposed to do. That's how you get it. But when I listened to “Taylor Made” and I reacted to it, I actually enjoyed the pettiness of him doing it.

I get what he's doing because of how Kendrick's tied to Pac and all that stuff like that. But when I extrapolate it more and I look at it, it was the first time where I go now as a strategist going back in battle rap, this was your first misstep.

I'm the wrong person to ask about certain things like that cuz I'm always like, "Yeah, I'mma try to find the best parts of a battle because that's how I'm just a battle rap nerd at the end of the day." But yeah, that was a bad business move and that was a bad strategic move because that was the first backtrack he had to do. 

In the immediate aftermath of the beef, there was a lot of misinformation flowing around. As someone reacting to all of that, did you ever find it difficult to weed through the BS so you could serve your audience properly? You may not see yourself as a journalist but some may describe it that way especially if some fans are learning about these updates through your videos.

I am a rapper just reacting to music. This would be the same way, like I said in the beginning, I started this just to have conversations about music. This would be the same way that I would be with just my friends. So, though what we could be doing it can be considered journalism. I don't necessarily consider myself like that. If you consider yourself like that and you do the same thing I do than more power to you. But the way I look at journalism now there are journalists who do this like The Company Man. I might get certain things wrong and come back in a different video and say it and I'm just coming from the hip-hop perspective. Now I'm trying to give historical hip-hop context as well as I can.  

One thing I wanted to talk about was your initial reaction to the petitions that were put out. The first one was about UMG and Drake’s career. The secone was for defamation. Which for many, was definitely the more egregious of the two filings. What was your initial reaction to Drake filing those legal documents?

So, I didn't like either of them, right? But the first one, I think they were both very insulting. There are certain people who tried to defend the first one, and they're like, "No, this is for the little man. He's doing this to be like, we're going to break the industry. Drake is really the savior of all the little men." And I was just like, I don't understand how people are seeing like that. I understand they're trying to protect Drake as a last ditch effort. But if you look at that petition, it was basically telling people that if you like “Not Like Us,” you don't really like “Not Like Us.” You were brainwashed into liking “Not Like Us.” And that is why that's very insulting.

I don't know how people didn't read that as just somebody kicking and screaming because they were upset. And maybe y'all don't play enough video games with people because that sounds like when you're getting smacked in 2K and you're like, "My controller is broke. You're not really beating me. They're cheating for you." That's what it felt like to me. And I was just like, I don't understand how people are reading this, but whatever.  The one that I got the maddest was the defamation one.

Do you know what kind of Pandora's box that could open up and once there's a legal precedent to that and I don't know why anybody would defend it because you're cutting your nose to spite your face.You don't see the problems in a rapper being able to sue somebody because they didn't like the things they said about them because they said it hurt their brand? You don't even have to be a rapper. You don't see the slippery slope of that. And I was just like, "This is the weakest thing I've ever seen a rapper do. This is literally hip-hop history." 

I also pointed out the hypocrisy and I said why is UMG the problem when your diss track “Family Matters”, which was also put out by UMG, and you're also saying things like Kendrick beats the mother of his children? Drake keeps making Kendrick's diss tracks more potent. When people come at him, I haven't seen him duck smoke. But then when this happened, that's when I lost the respect for him. Originally, when the battle was over, I said I had more respect for Drake. And then he started doing things like this and I said how much battle rap means to me, how much rap means to me, how much freedom of speech means to me. That to me is disgusting. And Drake somehow found a way for people to be on the record label side and not the artist side.

In the full lawsuit, Drake decided to mention YouTubers as part of his evidence. But do you think a part of it was maybe spite. Because for years he’s had the public on his side and that goes hand in hand with the reactors. But the one time it didn’t go his way, now he’s accusing you all of being in bed with UMG.

Like I said I grew up on Drake, a lot of moments in my life are scored by Drake. It's scored by Kendrick, too, but Drake has dropped way more stuff.  But I think what happened with Drake, if you've listened to Drake for a long time, Drake is very insecure. We're all insecure, but he leads with his insecurities.

In fact, I think that was a lot of the reason why we liked him to begin with because he was openly more insecure and he's been saying stuff his whole career he has a chip on his shoulder. If he lost, he'd self-destruct. He said stuff like that. He's always had that paranoid they're out to get me the powers have came together to collude against me. 

But what Drake did with Meek was he played the underdog role even though he was bigger than Meek numbers wise. It was the whole "you getting bodied by a singing n****" thing and it was the whole I'm going to play into my weaknesses. I'm going to use it against him. He's in the Meek battle, he didn't try to out tough Meek because strategically he was smart. He knew that wasn't the play. Now the Pusha T beef, he lost on that. He might have lost lyrically on that, but where he won was the narrative was, "you crossed the line." 

People were also just so ready for new music and he just dropped some of the hottest music of his career on Scorpion. The people allowed him to drown out the Pusha T loss. What happened though with the Kendrick thing is the stars aligned. I've always said that there's a thing where every four to eight years and it's specifically four to eight because of the presidential cycle, culture changes. It's gradual but then by that fourth to eighth year it's the opposite of whatever was respected before.

I think what has happened is Kendrick caught Drake not just lyrically and not just strategically, but he caught him right when the culture was shifting, right when the party side, the whole what Drake was relying on, people were getting very sick of openly. You got to think of it, it wasn't just Kendrick that did that. It was the Katt Williams interview and it was the Diddy situation.

It was like people were getting sick of the whole industry type thing. And I think it was just like to me we're coming in an back to an era where it's going to be really more about what you're saying. It seems more like a fight for the integrity of what is hip-hop. I'm seeing way more often now the comments of what is hip-hop, who is hip-hop, what is your lineage in hip-hop? Speaking about that, that's becoming more important again. And it almost is starting to feel Public Enemy era. Not saying that it's like that again, but it's trending more towards the battle of your soul. That's why Kendrick is winning so much with songs like “Watch the Party Die” and stuff like that.

One thing that was a huge part of his lawsuit was the allegation that UMG was purposefully clearing songs so that the reactors could make them more popular. But I know you also said on Twitter that "Push-Ups" was the first song that got cleared for you. How does the copyright strike system work exactly? Is that something that happens to you on every video?

There's this thing and I don't blame the non YouTuber because YouTubers do this and that the reason why non YouTubers do this is because YouTubers do this. There is a huge difference and this is YouTuber's fault between a copyright strike and a copyright claim. But for some reason us as YouTubers we like to use it interchangeably. They're not the same thing at all. A strike means they're doing a legal act. I guess they're both, but a strike is they're taking the video down and you're getting something on your channel. If you get three strikes, your channel is terminated.

A claim is when some company or somebody says, "Hey, you have copyrighted material." But I would say 90% of reactions are covered under the DMCA and they are fair use. I would say most reactions are and if you fight your claim and make your point out you can get your video but whatever so what usually happens is when you react to a universal music song they claim your video.

When Drake is putting this in the paperwork and saying that and kind of alluding that this is some sort of payola and that reactors are reacting the way that they're reacting because they're getting paid. Here's the thing that doesn't make sense with that. You don't know if your video is going to be claimed or not claimed until after you upload it. You’re probably going to just assume it's going to get claimed. So how can we be incentivized to react way before we know we're getting paid from it or not? Even if you want to go with that stuff he's saying.

But another thing that kills me is when you look at my reactions, especially me because I love battle rap. I was enjoying both of the songs. All the reactors he was listing had good reactions to his other songs also. It's not that we were biased towards you. It's just that we were nice to him. Like what are you saying?  Because it'd be one thing if everybody who enjoyed it were just reacting to your songs and being like, "Wack. We hate him. He's wack." It'd be one thing if it was like that, but if we're also enjoying it, then aren't you basically just saying, "No, be biased towards me. Just don't like his stuff." 

And another thing too is making it an issue that UMG is whitelisting anything is so whack to me as a content creator. We all as content creators should be championing that because at the end of the day for the longest time like I said I've been doing reactions for eight years and it only seemed like after this battle did people start respecting the impact and the power of reaction.  I mean, by the very nature of having them as trying to use them as evidence to show that there's some sort of collusion against you by one of the biggest record labels in the world lets me know that people are seeing the power.

We are big promoters of music. I'm an artist too. I just dropped the song “Opp List.” The reactors who react to my song are making the songs bigger. I know the impact being a reactor and a rapper. I see it with my own eyes and I know the importance of reactors. Love everybody who reacts to my stuff.

A few months ago, 50 Cent was on Big Boy’s Neighborhood and printed out the Drake “Opp List” which was fake but still created a lot of buzz. Now you have your song “Opp List.” How did that song come together especially with the shoutouts from Toure and The Company Man?

That list was written by one of those Drake Stan pages. So, I had already known about that list, but it went super viral. And 50 Cent's a super troll and he's very smart at trolling. So, he prints it off, right? And when he goes to Big Boy in the radio, he pulls it up and my name's on it. It went crazy. People were hitting me up crazy.  It was one of those moments that even my mom was like, "Wait, what is this?" It was a huge moment. So, I played into it and I laughed and I said, "if I drop a song called Opp List, don't get mad, cuz" and I was just joking and people were like, "drop it." That tweet went crazy, too. I was like, "people really want me to do it." 

Initially I wasn't going to diss Drake or say anything about Drake. It was just going to be like a regular song about being on that or whatever. I wasn't even planning on dropping the song really, so I let it go.  When that paperwork came out and he put reactors in that paperwork, it was one of those moments. I was like, "Yeah, this is my opportunity to speak on wax about it because I always say, sometimes I want rappers to rap. I don't always want y'all to tweet about it. I'll take that too, but let me hear you rap about it, too." I hold myself to that same standard.

I wasn’t directly named in that thing but like I said he was being a hypocrite in it he was almost blatantly lying in it and the ramifications of what that could mean to my community is huge. Now you're going at my livelihood. There's some people in there that I directly know, and rock with. It's like when somebody starts saying that reactors were getting basically payola and throwing the names and the paperwork, you got to understand that now that community is going to speak back because that is to say that we were lying about our opinion is damn near a derogatory thing to say because all we are is our opinion.

So now if Drake gets his way, what's going to happen? UMG never allows us to get paid again. They start making it so we can't react and block it. Like I said, if you're a content creator, I don't know how you can defend this. Even if you're not, you just enjoy content, I don't know how you can defend this. When other companies try to silence content creators, people lose it all the time. So I said, "Okay, cool. I'm really going to make this Opp List song now." And I made it. But I said, I'm not going to just use this as a chance to just make a Drake diss track. I'm going to speak about the state of culture vultures, how hip-hop is used in it.

One thing that Kendrick did in this beef was really poison the well for Drake’s fanbase. He tried to appeal to people like LeBron, Steph Curry. But even kids now look hear Stranger Danger and think of Drake because of “Not Like Us.” I’ve seen so many anecdotes of teachers saying their students don’t think Drake is cool. That’s a huge problem for him going forward.

The crazy part about that is I have nieces and seeing how they look at Drake. It really is reminiscent to when 50 Cent came out and that Ja Rule wasn't cool. It was like: "are you listening to Ja Rule? 'No. No. No. Listen. No. No. I would never.'" That's what it feels like where Kendrick made it cool to not like Drake.

Drake is having a problem being a 40-year-old. I think he's 40 or he's about to be, but he's having a problem aging up in music. Kendrick also attacked that where it's like now Drake is almost forced to embrace his age. Anytime he does anything that's remotely childish, people kill him. Even the poster of his tour having the little cartoon kid, they're killing him for that. So it's one thing I underestimated from Kendrick even though Kendrick is an actual battle rapper. Drake is a fan of battle rap. I think he loves battle rap even though he's just doing the most un-battle rap stuff. But Kendrick literally has battles on YouTube. I didn't even know that until this battle started. 

As for your music, do you have any singles or projects planned moving forward?

I say this every year but I'm really going to do it. Now that I said it here, I got to. I'm going to drop more music.  I'm going to try to drop more music this year because I love being a reactor and a musician. But it's two disciplines they ask for a lot. I really don't have a team it's really just like me doing everything. So I'm going to try to focus more on dropping music.

One thing that my “Wacced out Murals” remix, DJ Akademiks diss, and my “Opp List” song reminded me is how awesome it is for people to talk about your music. To break down your music, and how awesome reactions are. If I wasn't a reactor, I would still love reactions. Watching reactions to my music for once instead of reacting to other people, it gives just another reverence. It actually fuels me to do it more because there's an appreciation you feel. I watch all the reactions. You can have a 100 subscribers if you react to my music, I've watched it. I try to comment on everyone and stuff. I also love when I drop a song and I see a reactor react to it. The artist side of me loves watching them listen to it. What they take from it and what they break down. 

I just hope it motivates me to keep dropping stuff for them. To just feed their pages, too, because, I've been fed so much from this community. What I'm going to be doing is dropping a lot more music. I hate saying the album is coming at this time. I like to just make my music about what's going on and drop more singles at a time and then eventually when it's album time, I'll create a bunch more songs and then put them together as an album. All I know right now is my project will be named Hip Hop is a Sport. So far I think I'm going to put the “WaKKed out Murals” freestyle. The DJ Akademiks Diss and “Opp List” on it. I'm just going to be making more music.