Your Favorite White Boy

The internets is abuzz with the on-air debate between Joey Jump Off and video entrepreneur/self-professed journalist DJ Vlad that took place in studio on Angela Yee’s show over at Hot 97. Here’s the video courtesy of 2DopeBoyz :

For my A-D-D fam, Joey basically states that Vlad is peddling ignorance and that its all good to create a forum for general fukery until it escalates and someone gets hurt/killed. Vlad tried to defend himself by saying that what he does is journalism and he is merely “reporting” on what is going on.

Although Joey smashed him on-air/on video and made an excellent point that Vlad is just contributing to the problem by being a willing host to stupidity, I wanted to try and come to Vlad’s defense.

Fukery exists. I think its a little steep to place the weight of online nonsense on the shoulders of dudes like Vlad. There is a sharp difference between creating a forum for individuals (rappers) to air their opinions and/or statements and using the power of your position to provoke a confrontation or incident.

From what I’ve seen – and granted I haven’t watched every video – Vlad does not use his editorial control to specifically create controversy. It would be different if Vlad was a Kay Slay or a Wendy Williams type personality that cooks beef on the regular and deliberately manufactures controversy to boost their ratings/popularity/dough.

I’m not saying that Vlad doesn’t profit off of video beef or controversial material – of course he does. But its a question of intent: did Vlad start it, or did he cover it? The actual promotion of the product (hosting it on a website, sending it out) becomes the subject of the old causality/chicken & egg argument: do people do stupid things to get attention and we watch, or does creating a stage cause people to do dumb ish? If a rapper acted a fool in a forest and no one heard it, does he still make noise?

Further, Joey’s comments raise a wider point about what responsibility the media/journalist/blogger/flipcam promoter has in the events that they cover. I get that there is a potential for dudes spouting off to escalate into some real ish quick fast. But who’s responsibility is it to dial it down? Vlad’s? Nah.

No one told Ransom to go off, or told Joey to respond. Now, Budden came to his senses and acted like a grown-ass man, but that was on him , as it should be. Its not a blogger/reporter’s responsibility to tell adults what to do. Blaming Vlad is like reading a stupid-ass letter to the editor and blaming the newspaper that printed it.

Yes, I understand that if you give a clown an audience, he’s going to put on a show. And that the attention and comments will only push them further. But if that is the case, then it is the audience that is to blame, not those who report it. If everyone viewed beefing and dudes spouting off in negative terms, it would stop immediately. But as sites like Vlad prove, people love the excitement of controversy.

Broken down to its essence, Budden’s argument is that if there were no forums for promoting stupid ish, people would stop doing dumb things. Further, if there were no forums for viewers/readers to access this kind of content, it would go away. While a laudable objective, we all know that there is no reality in that. People will always act stupid, especially if its in their nature.

As long as Vlad isn’t acting reckless by creating controversy that puts people at risk, I strongly support his right to cover whatever is happening in the streets. Of course, it is my hope that eventually heads will look upon stupid things rappers do and tell them to cut that ish out, but that’s a tall order.

While its not nearly as righteous a position as Budden’s, you cannot and should not spaz on Vlad for merely offering a forum.

Tags: Dj Vlad, Joe Budden, Rap Beef, Videos