Why Is DJ Akademiks Famously Controversial
How DJ Akademiks presence on different platforms affects the public’s perception of him.
His success on many different social media platforms has come with alot of strong opinions towards him and his work.
To paraphrse Atkinson people are not seeking reasons but rather excuses for following their own feelings. Below I take a look at the prevailing feelings and opinions that are discussed on some of the platforms he is on whilst trying to offer an explaination regarding his presence on them.
On the visually based platform, he is somewhat derided as a hack whose claim to fame comes from stealing. Or to be exact reposting content from more famous celebrities mostly its comes from popular rappers.
Though Akademiks has come to define his instagram page as more of an aggregator, collecting all the news from your favourites artists on one easily accessible page. One thing to note is that he is essentially just tapping into a hidden truth of humans. That when we consume news of our favourite subject we are essentially lazy. We prefer to do least amount of work in getting the news we want.
In business, its called brand loyalty, but lets call a spade a spade its laziness pure and simple. There is no problem it in exploiting that fact for your own benefit.
Youtube
This is where the majority of his brand is built from. On one hand his critics come at him for his at times somewhat insensitive coverage of the chicago rap scene. The divisiveness is so great it resulted in a major label star threatening him on his show regarding the content.
On the other hand, his coverage of the chicago rap has drawn praise, even from some famous rap stars. This is as he made mythologised their music and actions, helping to be seen as a heroes in the eyes of their fans. The content from the “War in Chiraq” channel will probably stick with him forever.
Above all, the perception from this platform is his relentless work ethic. Despite your opinions on his taste in music, his drive to cover so much in hip hop made him into the star we seem today. His main channel as of present has gained an impressive 1.5 million subscribers. For a youtuber who is covering hip hop news that in itself is a massive achievement.
His critics though will still hate him no matter what, because we as humans will always have a spare excuse ready masked in reason to explain our feelings.
For the most part, his account here seems to be an extension of his Instagram.
Here he is derided as an annoying aspect of hip hop culture, always promoting the lowest common denominator of artists over more talented artists. Once he became a part of “Everyday Struggle”, this point of view became amplified as his influence started to cross paths with the older generation of hip hop fans who came with their own strong opinions. This is mostly because of his association with rap icon, ex-reality tv star and frequent podcaster Joe Budden.
You can debate his actions regarding him pushing certain acts over others. However what you cannot do is look at his actions in complete isolation. We as rap fans need to look at ourselves especially as we rap fans have been complicit in celebrating N.W.A, Biggie Smalls and Tupac to name a few. These are artists that have had a bad history regarding the treatment and potrayal of women and have occasion been proud of such behaviour. For him to change, we as rap fans must also change. That probably wont happen, because we humans are lazy.
Despite his many controversies, rap actualyy needs someone like DJ Akademiks. Rap requires a strong voice that is under 30 years old, as well as someone who unabashadly appeals to the younger fans. He ticks those two boxes. Rap has to allow those younger voices like Akademiks to make mistakes. They are after all learning and growing up in the public eye, a very painful thing to do. Let’s be patient with them whilst they are doing that.
