Jermaine Dupri wants credit for Southern rappers prospering on East Coast radio.
During a recent appearance on The Gauds Show, Jermaine Dupri discussed his upcoming Verzuz battle against Diddy, leading to a conversation about New York radio. According to JD, he broke down the doors for Southern acts to get representation on NYC’s radio circuit.
“The reason New York plays down south music on the radio is because of me,” Dupri said. “Bone Crusher and the YoungBloodZ were all over Hot 97 in a way that like nobody could ever imagine. And I hired DJ Envy to work for me.”
JD explained that he set a precedent for Southerners to land on East Coast radio that many have benefited from ever since.
“My attack on New York radio and the New York streets from the south is like no other. Nobody, no other company, nothing,” he said. “Not as far as back then, now everybody else moving forward, that door opened cause I was out there beating the streets.”
His latest comments come shortly after he sparked a whole debate online surrounding the inception of 106 & Park. The So So Def executive explained that he created the platform as a means to propel Bow Wow’s career.
“I was watching MTV and MTV had TRL. And they was catering to N’Sync, they was catering to the Backstreet Boys,” he also stated. “Anything white that was coming out that was Pop, they was allowing these kids to scream and holler. I’m like, ‘Yo, we don’t have nothin’ for Black people. Like, where’s the Black kids that love music. Why don’t they have a show like this?’”
He added, “So, I called Stephen Hill and I said, ‘Yo, I got [an] artist, we need to make a show just like TRL. He said, ‘What’s the artist?’ And I said, ‘His name is Bow Wow.’ Of course, he was like, I don’t know. Everybody challenges what I’m saying.”
However, Bow Wow quickly refuted these claims before former BET president Stephen Hill called JD’s claims an “overstep.”
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