Montell puts Triple J on blast

Andrew Montell, the man behind Out4Fame, Acclaim Magazine and Solid State Recordings is mad as hell, and he isn’t going to take it any more. The problem is that Triple J has refused to add the new single from Justice & Kaos, “Turn It On”, and Montell has put JJJ music director Richard Kingsmill on blast in his MySpace blog.

The problem is the attitude of the programming manager who seems to add hip hop music based on a completely ignorant knowledge or taste for the genre. Or perhaps its the Triple J art-fag mentality of supporting the “underdog”. From where i stand you have to make hip hop that sounds like it was produced twenty years ago to get Triple J love. Make a record of an international standard and god forbid have an affiliation with a major label and you can almost certainly count yourself out of high rotation airplay.

Triple J’s playlisting of hip hop is certainly patchy and picky, but is Montell bashing his head against a brick wall? Justice and Kaos’ sound would fit better amidst the nighttime playlists on Nova (in some cities, at least), Sydney’s The Edge 96.1 and Perth’s Groove FM. Triple J clearly favours a specific sound, and it’s possible that Montell is overestimating the national youth broadcaster’s ability to influence sales anyway. Sure, the national exposure of a medium rotation slot on the Js isn’t going to hurt an artist, but it’s far from a free pass to mad loot.

Brad Strut – “Monopoly” video

With almost 3000 views on YouTube in less than two weeks, chances are you’ve already seen this clip for the lead track from Brad Strut’s Legend: Official. Produced by Prowla, the beat’s got an early-RZA lilt to it and the flows show that Brad is one of the country’s most assured spitters. The album drops on 9 June.