The hip-hop panel in New York City featuring no Black media members has been canceled after mass public criticism.
The panel, hosted by Kids Take Over, originally featured Arshan, a Canadian man and the founder of KTO; Gabe P, the founder of “On The Radar”; Annabelle Kline, founder of That Good S—; and Jack and Trent, the co-founders of “Sidetalk.” The panel was scheduled to have a discussion with New York rapper and actor Joey Bada$$.
A post on X from user @LovedByBraylon took a screenshot of the panel’s flyer with the caption, “Hip-Hop media panel with no Black people. Make it make sense.” The post garnered nearly 900,000 views on the platform.
“The word[s] ‘hip-hop media’ hold a lot of weight,” Arshan posted in a social media statement. “It wasn’t something I (a South Asian/non-Black person) should’ve thrown around lightly. If someone Black sees that flyer and doesn’t see a Black person on the bill, aside from Joey Bada$$, I fully see why they’d be offended off the bat. So, I understand everyone and their frustration. No excuses. I should have just dug even deeper and maybe found a smaller Black media company founder.”
Arshan said the panel focused on media founders and entrepreneurs, so that excluded high-profile young Black hip-hop journalists like Speedy Morman and Nadeska Alexis. Morman has his own social media presence outside of his work, with over 400,000 followers on TikTok and over 200,000 followers on Instagram. Nyla Symone looked like another obvious option, not only as a prominent Black journalist and DJ based in New York, but as someone who has a platform with “We Need To Talk.”
Also in his statement, Arshan said he reached out to Plaqueboymax and Kerwin Frost but was unable to get a “yes” from either of them.
Plaqueboymax is a Twitch streamer who is now part of the FaZe Clan. Max is known for hosting song wars, where a group of artists create songs live on stream and present them to a panel of judges. His most recent song wars was his biggest yet, featuring Trippie Redd, DC The Don, LAZER DIM 700, Jace and Summrs. Max is from New Jersey and is currently bi-coastal in the FaZe houses in Miami and Los Angeles.
Frost is a fashion designer based in New York who has done high-profiled sitdown interviews with John Mayer, Mac Demarco, Jerry Lorenzo, Luka Sabbat, Lil Yachty, Jeremy Scott, Hood By Air, A$AP Rocky, SZA, Lil Nas X, Diplo, Post Malone, Chief Keef and Tyler, The Creator.
Arshan said that large New York-based media entrepreneurs like Joe Budden and Akademiks were too inaccessible for him.
“My initial response [to the criticism] was confusion because my intention was never to be malicious,” Arshan’s statement read. “But after speaking to some Black industry friends about it, I got more clarity on people’s frustration.”
Following up to say that Kids Take Over released the following statement cancelling the event due to the backlash over this hip-hop panel.
They say that they will reformat the whole event and “start from scratch”. https://t.co/XUs0s1LKJh pic.twitter.com/9Qnxo8lTWn
— Nicolas-Tyrell Scott (@iamntyrell) August 19, 2024
Arshan said with the cancellation of the event, he’s going back to the drawing board to return with a more diverse panel.
Kline also provided a public statement.
“We absolutely should be centering Black voices in discussions on hip-hop and I should’ve taken this into consideration when accepting my invitation to be on this panel,” Kline posted on X. “[I’m] currently putting lots of thought into what the best move is from here. I hope y’all know how much I love music, how deeply I respect all of my peers in the hip-hop and music media space, and how important it is to me that I navigate the hip-hop space as mindfully and respectfully as I can.”
