Jermaine Dupri has a question for the Hip Hop community as he moves around with his artist Young Dylan – does Hip Hop actually care about young people?
The veteran rap exec posed the question while talking to HipHopDX backstage at the Lovers & Friends festival in Las Vegas on Saturday (May 6). While noting that his 14-year-old signee was not receiving the amount of media coverage that his older peers do, JD was confused as to how that could be.
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“My question is, because everybody tells me — I don’t know why they tell me — ‘Jermaine, this a young man’s game.’ And I’m like, ‘You telling me!'” JD began. “I’m the young man game giver. But everybody keeps saying it’s a young man’s game. So if it’s a young man’s game then why hasn’t — you know, if it is and all these different sites claim – like AllHipHop, they claim it’s all Hip Hop. But they ain’t posted a Dylan record. The Source is supposed to be the source of Hip Hop. They ain’t talked about the Dylan project.”
He continued: “Now some people could say, ‘Well Jermaine, it’s not good.’ Cool, you say that, that’s alright. But I grew up knowing about all kind of rap records, whether they was good or bad. It’s not about — you can pinpoint and tell me, ‘Jermaine, that’s not good.’ Cool, if you feel like that, that’s okay.”
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“But at the same time, it’s a young artist trying to rap in the rap game and these outlets claim they cover all Hip Hop; so I’m like, ‘Is rappers that start at 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 years old – is that not considered real rap in the rap world?’ That’s just my question … It don’t feel like it’s accepted. It feels like every time I’ve done it, I’ve had to overly push. And I mean, Kris Kross was the same. But it was cool with Kris Kross because it was the first time it ever happened. So I was cool with that. You know, I didn’t know what I was doing so I didn’t care.
“But then when it got to Bow Wow, it was like, ‘Okay this is 10 years after Kris Kross — has the rap game caught up to what I’m doing as far as like understanding that I’m starting these rappers at a 12, 13, 14, 15, 16?’ Like, Bow Wow has basically the longest rap career of any rapper in rap. He’s been rapping since he was 12!
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He continued: “But it seems like nobody cares about this. It seems like it’s not even, like a mention. So, you know, in going into do a new project — I’m not frustrated and I don’t want nobody think I am. I’m not thrown off by it, but I do have to question to see like, how is these outlets that claim they support all Hip Hop, trap, dance, whatever it is, you exclude young rap? And like I said, it ain’t for a 25 or a 30 year old person to comment on Young Dylan . I don’t expect you to like that. But I do expect for the outlets that claim they represent rap to give me thumbs down, tell me the project wack, whatever!”
Check out HipHopDX‘s interview with Jermaine Dupri below:
Young Dylan got his start on Nickelodeon with his own Tyler Perry-created show in 2020. Dylan’s character on the show is an aspiring rapper, and Jermaine Dupri saw the potential for a real life crossover and has been working with the young talent ever since.
In other JD news, his long-awaited Verzuz battle against Diddy has been confirmed with a date and venue.
In a video posted to Busta Rhymes‘ social media on Sunday (May 7), Puff Daddy revealed he’ll finally be going up against Dupri in a Verzuz on September 8 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
“We’re gon’ have you out the rafters flying out the sky,” Diddy told Busta as Fabolous stood alongside them.
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Despite Diddy’s comments, Verzuz co-founders Timbaland and Swizz Beatz have yet to formally announce the event.
