Still in LA, Erica Banks from Texas is our guest today. She joins Akademiks on a Spotify Live for a new episode where she discusses her comeup in the industry and how she got her big break. She talks meeting Carl Crawford and signing to 1501 and also making her breakout single 'Buss It'. 

Chase The Money is our guest today. He's a 21 Year old Producer from St Louis who got his big break working with Valee and later on Smokepurpp. He explains how he first got his big break by going to Chicago and even how he ran into Lil Durk in a basement working on music. He explains how then moving to Atlanta helped his career excel and also explained why Atlanta is so influential in a producers career these days. 

Tariq Nasheed is our guest today. He's a well decorated author, film maker and content creator who has been a pillar and a voice for the black community. Recently he's been pushing the agenda of  Foundational Black Americans (FBA's) which he hopes to unify and organize to be able to leverage against lawmakers to help get progress for his people. He sits with Akademiks who was born in Jamaica and wouldn't be considered as a 'FBA' to discuss one of our recent podcast episodes with Candace Owens and also speak on the difference bewteen FBA's and non FBA's. This is surely to be one of the most entertaining and explosive episodes of Off the Record... and of course as usual... THERE AINT NO EDITS!

DDG is our podcast guest today and he's here to talk about everything. We recap on his career to this point and how he got here and touch on his huge hit, 'Moonwalking in Calabasas' that featured a remix with Blueface. He talks about how the record came about by leaking it independently and how his label caught up. He then talks about how life has changed for him over the years and also his thoughts on being the 10th spot on the XXL Freshman list. He talks about how he was caught up with the police with a gun charge over him trying to be honest and how he ended up beating the case. 

Candace Owens is our guest today in whats surely to be our most explosive episode yet. We talk everything from TI, BLM, Pro Choice, the LGBTQIA community, politics and even why she's seen as a sellout by some in the black community. She backed down from absolutely no question and gave reasoning to all her answers. Akademiks tried to be a good buffer for her on most topics offering challenges to some of her school of thought. Enjoy... but this episode is probably the reason we're gonna get cancelled !

Mr. Vegas is our guest for today. Ironically one of Akademiks' first interviews ever was with Mr. Vegas and they reunite on this episode. They talk about how Mr. Vegas career has spanned 25 years and how he ended up blowing up back in Jamaica in the 90's. He also touches on why he's outspoken for other artists in the culture and also why he spoke up against Drake at a time. He speaks on his lawsuit with VP Records and also breaks down how artists in music were uneducated about the industry and the business and allowed artists to be ripped off. He talks about what still keeps him going and why he still think he is one hit away. We also break down another artist, Shenseaa, career and what advice would he give her to survive in this hip hop climate.

Yung Bleu is our Guest for today. We talk about his comeup, how he first got into music and eventually landing a record deal with a major. He speaks on his decision to go independent and how things fell into place. He talks about leveraging the fact that he had a song with Drake to help himself. He talks about being signed to Boosie and talks about why he loves being a independent rapper on Empire. Also he speaks about his name change from Yung Bleu to BLEU

This is the second part of our new DJ Vlad episode where he this time around he gets into discussing why he wouldn't sitdown with Joe Budden after it was a possibility that both Joe Budden and DJ Vlad could appear on a episode of Off The Record to hash things out. We talk about Bandman Kevo, Soulja Boy and even NLE Choppa having issues with Vlad.

DJ Vlad is back in New york and of course stopped by to check in with Akademiks. This episode is a masterclass in media and building a successful independent brand. They talk about how the business of  podcasting has changed the game and also how some of the earlier choices each independent companies have made also were anticipating the ever changing ecosystem. Conversation gets to go through some of the guests that were interesting as well as Vlad coming around to the idea of interviewing 6ix9ine one day.

Our guests today join us for our Mid Season Awards episode. We chat with Annoying TV, Ace (Cordae's manager) and Giuseppe (Lil Tecca Manager). We talk abotu the current state of the industry and also try to give out awards for MVP, Rookie of The Year and also Most Improved. We Talk a lot.. I mean a lot about Carti and try to get a idea of what acts like YEAT will be. Plus you know we had to throw in a lil Drake in there too. Overall entertaining episode if you love the screaming 4 mics and 4 strong personality kinda pod.