After an interview with the site claiming that Kanye West is one of music’s best composers, a newly released VladTV segment finds Saigon touching on the subject of the marketing strategy behind Nicki Minaj’s commercial success. Later in the interview, Saigon goes on to offer his view of Jay Electronica’s career-path and the reasons behind his oft-delayed debut.
Speaking generally about a lack of responsibility in the messaging of many Hip Hop artists, Saigon stopped short of a full-out criticism of Nicki Minaj but did allude to disapproving of many of her lyrics.
“You gotta be a man before you a rapper,” he said before segueing into the topic of Minaj. “Nobody has a sense of responsibility. They go, ‘We getting this money.’ That’s always the excuse, ‘I’m getting money. I’m getting money.’ So money’s everything, that’s it? But look how many lives you’re destroying with your message to make this money my nigga. Look at how many people you’re destroying to make this money. A lot of these people know the impact of their music. They know it.
“I don’t blame an artist like Niki Minaj but it just confuses me why a lot of her lyrics are x-rated,” he continued. “‘Big fat pussy; Mufasa,’ a lot of it is negative and mean,” he added, referencing a Minaj lyric on the French Montana song “Freaks.” “Meanwhile they market her with Barbie. I got a five-year old daughter who loves Barbie. Then they use Barbie to market Nicki Minaj and Nicki Minaj is, not to bash—I don’t even want to finish that because it looks like I’m bashing. I think we understand man. I think people understand where I’m going with it. I don’t wanna bash no artists because some of these artists are like me. When they dangled the fame carrot in my face and the money carrot I just said, ‘No, I have a different agenda.’ I’m not gonna start blaming artists. Because [if] I make the mistake of blaming artists they be like, ‘You a hater.’ I know it ain’t the artists, it’s really the marketing person. It’s the person that’s gonna pump $2 million into putting you out there. That’s the real problem.”
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Saigon On Jay Electronica’s Career & Album Delays
When asked if Jay Electronica possibly represented the next “big conscious rapper,” Saigon said that he didn’t have enough material released to be considered.
“I didn’t hear enough of Jay Electronica to put him in that category,” he said. “I know he wasn’t ignorant but I don’t know where Jay Electronica was gonna go because I don’t think he put out enough music. But if that was his path, I think yeah, Jay Electronica had a huge buzz. He had a huge buzz. Then his buzz got deterred somehow by a rich woman with a lot of money who supposedly took him off his path. That’s the story of a lot of people. Because it was like everybody was anticipating him and then the next thing we know he’s dealing with a rich White woman and then we never hear from him again. It’s like Pootie Tang. You ever see the movie Pootie Tang? When they had the rich White woman drug Pootie Tang, next thing you know Pootie Tang is selling cereal and cigarettes. He was this big figure in the hood that everybody love and they found out his power was in his belt. The White woman sleeps with him and put him to sleep and then he becomes this foul figure. Chris Rock always has social commentary in his comedy but it be some real shit.”
Saigon’s mention of “a rich woman” in Jay Electronica’s life is presumably a reference to his romantic relationship with Kate Rothschild. Rothschild is an heiress to Amschel Rothschild’s banking dynasty. In 2003, Kate Rothschild married fellow heir Ben Goldsmith. In February of this year, The Daily Mail reported that Rothschild was serving as Jay Electronica’s manager and that her divorce from husband Ben Goldsmith was a product of a year-long affair with the rapper.
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“Me and Jay’s cool,” Saigon later said. “I fuck with Jay Electronica. He’s a fucking gifted lyricist. And he had that energy that you need coming in as a new artist. I want to hear the music. I’m anticipating his album just like I was my own. Last time I seen him was at J. Cole’s album release party which was a minute ago. We chopped it up. Jay Electronica, he’s smart. He’s very smart. I trust that wherever he is he’s providing for his seed and he’s okay.”
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