one is a pedo and rides for other pedos. the other is white.

this isn’t even a debate—it’s a tragic misunderstanding of what "culture" truly means. DJ Akademiks? A glorified gossip columnist masquerading as a hip-hop commentator, thriving on drama and sensationalism. He’s the TMZ of rap, a court jester for clout chasers.

Fantano, on the other hand, is at least attempting some form of cultural criticism, even if his opinions are often reductive and his scoring system a bit of a joke. But compared to Akademiks? He’s practically the Criterion Collection of music commentary. So, if we must choose, I suppose the answer is clear—Fantano is the one with any semblance of actual cultural discourse, while Akademiks is just noise pollution.

We are past cooked

Idk about Face of The Culture but Akademiks absolutely is the perfect descendant to the role a say Funk Flex played to describe this f***in era when the history is said and done lmao

Well ak is a fat pedo who knows nothing about music, fantano isnt just listening to hip hop, yes he likes kendrick etc but his fav stuff is tribe called quest. And he loves albums of other genres. Hipster albums. Hes at heart one of them 2010's hipsters

peter rosenberg?

they both faces of different sides of internet culture, depends how much stock you want to put on internet culture being representative of rap culture overall though

i see them as different things. rap as a genre has become so mainstream and ubiquitous, that it’s hard to have a singular face/gatekeeper for the whole genre. aswell as there being way more subcultures within the massive umbrella hip hop has evolved to become

Its ak even if you hate him cant deny the impact

AK started off as a "Chiraq" sensationalist no different from Trap Lore Ross.

Then, he started posing as a hip hop historian on Everyday Struggle despite him having very surface level knowledge of hip hop(which was constantly exposed by Budden and even Nadeska).

Then, he shifted into more drama content that happens to involve rap, riding the wave of many other hip hop and gossip platforms at the time like VladTV, Say Cheese, ShadeRoom, and the post Rory/Mal Joe Budden show.

He's basically a wave rider and a d***rider who wasn't even a Drake fan like that until Drake started breaking records with Scorpion.

Fantano has his issues. He often downplays Southern Rap and Gangster Rap, literally implying that GRODT isn't a classic which is blasphemous. His reviews of NWTS and Yeezus were awful too. But he's at least very knowledgeable of alternative and underground Hip Hop which is better than many of the forced hot takes AK pushes.

Basically, these 2 are in 2 different lanes and represent different aspects of the "culture."

Carti is the face of the culture

traploreross

he talking about bootleg kev and he might not be wrong. bruh has interviewed everybody before fame and at peak

I am a 46 year old Black man. Neither of these f***ing bozos.

in just the last 2 weeks buddy interviewed Davido, Pardison Fontaine, Nelly, Baby Kia, DDG, and thatMexicanOT

and that’s just the last 2 weeks lol. his catalog deep

the literal embodiement of the hipster archetype vs a rapist that got his start mocking and encouraging the deaths of young black men lol

interesting question. I’d say it’s fantano

it is still incredibly baffling to me that anyone would consider a 40 year old white man that is the physical embodiement of the hipster archetype who stands firmly in traditional rockist ideas of good music THE prime critic of hip hop music lol

Yeah him

Knowledge on what exactly

If we're talking purely about online hip-hop culture than akademiks is that. No jumper and fantano are for white hip hop fans

So what? At least he isn't actually getting niggas locked up like Adam and Vlad. Talk about akademiks all you want but he moved on from that s***. Meanwhile the white YouTubers will break no morale barrier for views

s*** vs ass

A racist who hates black people and fantano oh brother

Rosenberg from Hot97? He’s a cornball but atleast he has fair takes and no skeletons in the closet