What’s Driving Hip-Hop?

My analysis of what's moving the culture each week.

My mind is living on cloud nine and this nine is never on vacation/
Start up that Maserati and VROOM VROOM! I'm racing

Welcome to the Backseat Freestyle newsletter by me, Jayson Rodriguez.

Inspired by Kendrick Lamar’s record of the same name, “Backseat Freestyle,” this is a space for me to gather my darts and drop my version of a 16 on what’s driving hip-hop.

I’ll share: What I’m listening to, music videos that move me, podcasts and writings that are noteworthy and anything else that impresses me during the week.

And I’ll go deep with an original essay on one thing a week that I think is in the driver seat for the preceding 7 days.

Of course, I’ll also shamelessly plug anything I’ve worked on, either present or past, that’s relevant. (And speaking of shameless, my resume, if you don’t know — Sr. hip-hop writer at MTV News [1515 Boys, Hottest MC’s, Mixtape Monday], Executive Editor at XXL, Editorial Director at Revolt, a producer on “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story” and producer at Vevo [host of Live at Vevo] — now you know….)

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