Hey everyone, Anthony Fantano here, internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well.

Because honestly, I'm not. I'm stressed, and frankly, I'm concerned. Concerned for the well-being of the number one hip-hop journalist in America, Mr. DJ Akademiks.

Because after watching this guy put in years and years and years of hard work in front of the camera and behind the scenes, I've personally found it to be inspirational to see him finally getting his flowers. A chain from his most favorite rapper in the world, Drizzy Drake.

The guy is riding a high right now and on an incredible winning streak that just can't be stopped. Even posting to show the world that he slept with 50 Cent's ex, and proudly posted to the world he needed to take some gas station drugs to make his wiener hard.

He's clearly maturing in terms of taste and personality as people who have grown beyond their teen years. And consensual relations are now his thing.

Akademiks: And to keep it real, if you think about it in the bigger scheme of things, there's not much difference between a 20 or a 17 or a 21 and a 17. Just kind of mean one's a minor and one's not a minor. But I will say, listen, I adopted this rule, which I think was fine. I said, listen, man, as long as the chick got a college ID, she's getting fucked.

I don't care if she's 17. I don't care if she's 17 and a half. I don't care if she just turned 17 and I'm 21. She's gonna get this dick. But that's just being honest. Everybody keep pointing out it's legal in other places of the world.

Well, they live in fucking California. It's not legal there. But if you think about it, is it that big of a deal? And don't act like people don't do it all the time.

But even with all these good things going for Ak right now, there is one thing keeping this man awake at night, and that's Jay-Z. Jay-Z and Roc Nation, which if you look at Ak's social media feeds, you would be led to believe that they are in fact a threat to his very existence. Like if Jay and Roc Nation had their way, Ack would be six feet underground right now.

And these feelings are pretty much confirmed in a new conversation that was uploaded to the internet – three hours long, by the way – an interview, some discourse between Ak and Charlamagne tha God, where they go over a myriad of topics, of course, including some of the weird associations Ak has with guys like Grand Wizard.

Charlamagne: Which brings us finally to the man behind the curtain, who you genuinely cannot make this up, goes by Grand Wizard. George Nguyen, an Australian named as a defendant, allegedly runs the Akademiks TV account and operates in chat under that handle. The guy who converts the Stake crypto to cash lies on with the bot vendors and coordinates narratives. The paid clips, the manufactured praise, the slander of rival artists, the synthetic chat hype that makes a stage moment feel organic. Per the leaked chat logs, the complaints lean on, the wizard wasn't freelancing, he was allegedly taking his marching orders straight from Drake and DJ Akademiks.

Akademiks: Okay, can I respond to that?

Charlamagne: Please.

Akademiks: Okay. Now, this is why I said you're doing a media sleight of hand.

Charlamagne: I'm just reading what they wrote!

But really the prime topic throughout this conversation is Jay-Z and Roc Nation. I believe Roc Nation comes up as a topic maybe a hundred times or something. And Ak's paranoia is so extreme that he even believes that by virtue of not being a totally blind Jay-Z hater himself that Charlemagne, in some degree, is a threat to Ak.

Akademiks: So you think Roc Nation's...I'm not the only person saying it. Okay, I'm fine. I'm am manic. But if I am, Bobby Shmurda is too.

Charlamagne: Bobby ain't on Instagram like, 'yo, they trying to take me out! They trying to destroy me! They want me gone! You... I saw you post... I'm bringing mad security to sit down with Charlemagne because they might have me killed!

Akademiks: Bobby Shmurda...

Charlamagne: No, acknowledge that. Acknowledge that. Nobody's online saying Roc Nation wants them dead except for you.

Akademiks: Show me. I don't think you tapped in.

I want to sidestep really quick and say that Roc Nation is by no means a perfect organization and Jay-Z himself is by no means a perfect figure. Somebody who, in fact, is very worthy of criticism. I mean, even in his recent string of Yankee Stadium performances, which seemingly went off without a hitch, had a star-studded list of guests.

He was dropping some freestyle retorts about how people have been taking him to task for putting the Reasonable Doubt anniversary reissue release in Target stores after the way the company rolled back DEI initiatives leading to an open black community boycott. And Jay's response to that criticism was essentially, "Well, a lot of you guys shop at Amazon and these other companies that are, not so good."

It's really a false equivalence out of the gate. There's a difference in culpability between a billionaire doing a whole-ass business deal with a retailer versus a single person buying some products at that retailer. Plus, as someone who historically has a lot of control over his own music, Jay-Z gets to pick and choose where reissues and streaming availability for his records shows up. The guy is also a billionaire.

We, as music fans who actually care about the legacy of Jay-Z's work and the substance of his words deserve a robust discourse where we can actually have a real conversation about the validity of not just Jay-Z's music and words, but the way that he frames himself as hip-hop culture's man on the inside since he sort of broke that mainstream glass ceiling for the genre and now is in power positions at institutions like the NFL.

But it's kind of difficult to have those conversations when a bulk of the discourse around Jay-Z is being soaked up by complete psychos like Akademiks, whose only prerogative seemingly is not to critique Jay-Z from a materialist perspective, but instead to paint him as the boogeyman who's a danger to everybody who dares cross him.

If that's the case, why is Akademiks the only person whose life is under threat in this scenario? Why not other people who have been taken to task over his associations with R. Kelly, which he has been eerily silent on? Why not dudes like Dam Dash, who are still very much here walking the planet, who Jay-Z has overtly referenced and has much more reason to be angry with than anyone on Akademiks's level?

Again, it's just difficult to have any meaningful conversation around Jay-Z, because as Charlemagne says, his biggest and loudest and most notable detractors are all the most psychotic losers on the planet.

Akademiks: How would I speak from my perspective if I'm manic. How would Dame speak from his perspective if he manic? How would Nikki speak from her perspective if she manic? Okay, do you think Drake is manic?

Charlamagne: I haven't heard Drake say nothing.

Akademiks: Okay, so, all right, so now you're backtracking.

Charlamagne: And I'm gonna be honest with you, you just named three people who sound manic as fuck.

Akademiks: Who?

Charlamagne: Nikki, Dame, and you?

Akademiks: I sound manic with that?

Charlamagne: You starting to sound a little manic, actually. I didn't see it in person. I see it online. So online, I'm like, 'yo, he performing.'

Akademiks: Yo, Charlamagne, yo, Charlamagne, yo, Charlamagne.

Charlamagne: And by the way, if you can ask Alex, I said to Alex,' I don't- I wanna talk to Ak and see if he really believes some of this shit.

Akademiks: Charlamagne, I'm gonna be honest with you. I think this is why we're in this new media landscape because this light gaslighting, just watch the comments.

Nikki Minaj going full MAGA and going on one crazy Twitter rant after another. Dame Dash looking like a completely foolish, desperate clown every time he tries to fire back at Jay. And Akademiks crying and sweating and coping live on stream about how much of a threat Roc Nation is to him.

Akademiks: Now, y'all should know me. When I'm really at war, I'm not above anything. I put a nigga's picture up there with his fucking kid at a playground. Didn't care. Not defending anyone who's associated with me, but to the level of doxxing where you're showing people's houses, addresses, and you're invasive into where they're sleeping, Y'all better not have kids. Because if I was them, I know how I play. I would like to not go that far. And I wouldn't go that far because I still have some fond memories. But remember this. I'm the only one that don't got no kids in this situation. I don't got no kids, no wife, no nothing. So I just want to tell y'all. Are we going down the route of having people in front of each other's houses? I don't have kids. I don't have kids because I love hip hop. You know why I love hip hop. You know why? I live this. And eventually I will. But this shit right here, I got niggas trying to kill me. I don't give two fucks. I'm glad I don't got kids right now. Or baby mama. They'd be targeted. But for the rest of y'all that live a nice little family life afterwards, be careful.

His motivations for engaging in this topic are very obvious and twofold.

One, he's obviously still pissed off about the Megan Thee Stallion lawsuit and legal tangles he's got himself caught in because Megan is obviously affiliated with Roc Nation, and Ak mercilessly slandered her again and again and again, knowingly so, for clout, money, and attention. And he didn't need to do that. Nobody was making his ass do that shit.

Then the second part of this is obviously the fact that Ak is now an acolyte of Drake at this point. Basically, any little bit or any little piece of propaganda that Drake wants to get out into the world comes out through Ak's mouth on his stream and on his YouTube channel.

With Iceman slowly melting off of the charts spare for a few tracks and Jay-Z getting ready for a new album cycle and making it very clear, there's probably going to be some shots at Drake in the mix on that album. And given how well they're likely to be written, they're probably going to hurt. So of course, Drake would like to get ahead of that by poisoning the well around Jay-Z via Akademiks.

Yeah, man, as much as like, Illuminati allegations tend to chase Jay-Z here and there. I don't think this plan is going to work. In addition to that, any allegations you could throw at Jay in terms of like being connected to weird people or doing shady shit or being involved in some strange opportunistic wheelings and dealings, you could multiply all of those two or three or four times and apply them to Drake and Akademiks and they would be true.

They are not just knee-deep, but balls-deep when it comes to crypto online gambling schemes. And when it comes to forcing and botting narratives around the internet, nobody goes harder than the Drake camp does currently.

Akademiks Nobody used Stake to bot music streams. That's a lie. That doesn't happen. I'm telling everybody in the world doesn't happen. That's a lie. So the context of acting like that's happening.

Charlamagne:Stake is a huge company.

Akademiks: Nobody used stake to bot music streams.

Charlamagne: You don't know that.

Akademiks: I'm telling you, I know. I work with him.

Charlamagne: Listen, the same way I can sit here and say, I can't sit here and say, 'Ak I don't know if Roc Nation is coming after you. I don't think so. All right.

Akademiks: So why don't you say the same thing about whatever they said about JC in them files? Like, I don't know.

Charlamagne: Because with that, I can actually read and see that it's a freaking hotline number that somebody randomly called in and the story don't make no fucking sense whatsoever.

Akademiks: So, so possibly who knows?

So again, Ak is acting very strange right now. And there's only two possible explanations. Via Drake, he is engaging in a scheme that is really fucking stupid and never going to work. Or he really truly is off of his rocker and suffering from some really extreme paranoid delusions. And apparently wakes out of a cold sweat at night after seeing visions of Jay-Z and his dreams.

Jay-Z, no. No, Jay-Z, no. No. Ah!