Russ is confident in his work after years rapping, singing, producing and generally doing things his own way — and he doesn’t hold back on letting his 3.4 million Instagram followers know. During a recent Instagram Live session, Russ boldly put himself and Drake in a league of their own.
“There’s one rapper who can fuck with me and it’s Drake,” he said. “That’s it. No rapper can give you ‘Losing Control,’ ‘MVP’ and also ‘Best on Earth’ except Drake. And the difference is, I produce this shit so that’s a whole new level.”
Just so his comments didn’t get misconstrued, Russ later clarified what he originally said on a post from DJ Akademiks.
“Never said nothin bout ‘best,'” he said. “Was talkin moreso about ability and versatility. And then yea, also producin some songs..drakes the [GOAT] tho duh lol. Also, you’re supposed to think you’re great lol if more people had my confidence more people might get what they want outta life too.”
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Russ spoke on the topic of streaming platforms “blackballing” artists in September, following Akademiks’ discussion about Tory Lanez and Tekashi 6ix9ine.
“Being ‘blackballed’ by DSP’s would mean your music is just simply not even on the platforms at all,” Russ wrote. “You don’t need playlists to let your fans know you dropped music. That’s what your social media with millions of followers is for lol how is not getting on editorial (opinion) based playlists but still being able to be on the actual platform itself blackballed?”
Ak argued 60-70 percent of artist streams come from playlisting, but Russ claimed 70 percent came from his profile and listeners’ own playlists, 28 percent from Spotify playlists and 2 percent other.
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In June, Russ revealed his financial records from music between 2013 and 2017 in order to show artists the importance of owning their releases.
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“For inspirational purposes,” he said. “My come up. OWNERSHIP. Ups and downs is all part of the journey. STICK WITH IT. The big dip in fall of 2016 is when I partnered and moved my main earners over to Columbia cuz I wanted them on my debut album. I stopped it at 2017 cuz I don’t need y’all fully in my pockets like that but also, every dollar on this I kept (except taxes) cuz as some have liked to laugh at, I produced mixed mastered engineered and wrote all of this. I been laughing the whole time!!!”
