Jermaine Dupri seems to think so. Check out his opinon here. Big shout outs to Crate Kings for getting the video out.
I could take a reactionary response and say “f#$k Jermaine Dupri he should be thankful for all the dj’s who’ve helped him out.” But since I have another side of my brain that kicks in with some cognitive sense, it’ll probably be best to take a deeper look into this situation.
I think what JD is describing is a “new market.” Just like hip hop is ever changing, so is the market for songs and making songs available to the public via Dj’s and promoters.
9th Wonder mentioned in an interview about “young folks hip hop” and “grown folks hip hop.” Young folks hip hop is stuff that you hear today on the radio that kids like (simple pop cRap type stuff). Grown folks stuff is what you don’t hear on the radio and are the classic hip hop stuff dating back pre “bling” era.
My opinion is that it is all in the perspective of the artist to relate to which ever audience he/she is trying to reach.
JD recently tends to reach the “young folks hip hop” crowd. To market songs to his crowd it currently requires networking with all the people who have access to mass media. The radio/media outlets have been consolidating since the Bush administration which means that less people are owning the major media outlets. JD doesn’t really have to go through major DJ’s because those DJ’s don’t get the huge wold wide fan-base he needs to sell millions of albums. So to JD, the DJ’s are “dead” and he negotiates with the right winged major media conglomerates.
On the other hand, if as an artist your target audience isn’t the mass media, then you work the game at a different angle. These artists are super hungry and use any means to distribute their work (myspace, websites, downloads, limewire, youtube, DJ’s, college radio, etc.).
I think that JD’s approach in this video was to get some buzz going about old ways producers used to get songs on the radio and how that have changed. I really doubt that JD is hating on DJ’s because he didn’t completely expand on why he thinks DJ’s are dead and never mentioned his position on how he currently gets his music heard to a massive audience.
JD produces some dope stuff, but at the end of the day his managers and everyone else giving him deals need to suck money out where they can. In order to do that they have to sell records to people who still go to the store and buy them.