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Doja Cat
10K80 April 18, 2022
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Doja Cat retiring? A look into the rap nursing home

Many are speculating whether or not Doja Cat is serious about retiring from the rap game.

Throughout the years Doja has been killing the game, writing songs true to herself and her audience, however, that soon may end. Doja Cat’s retirement announcement was made on March 25 following several heated back and forths between her fans.

Many of her followers demanded an apology.

Fans accused Doja of being rude, and aggressive in response to the replies on Twitter. Following her performance at the Asunciónico music festival being canceled due to a major storm, Doja took to Twitter heated.

A week after her announcement she received her Grammy for “Kiss Me More” with SZA. In an exclusive with Entertainment Tonight, Doja Cat briefly addressed retiring from music. Focusing solely on having a good night, she dodged the question as best she could.

Is Doja Cat Retiring? She dodged the question in the interview

Doja Cat’s retirement from music says a lot about the relationship between fans and celebrities. Is she done for good or does she need a break for her mental health?

Many rappers before her claimed to retire and even showed signs of how terrible their mental health has developed from the music industry. However, for many emcees, it’s hard to stay away from rap.

What could other rappers who said the same thing can tell us about Doja Cats’ retirement?

1. Lil Wayne: how music can defeat artists like Doja Cat

The exact date for Weezy’s retirement is up in the air. On multiple occasions, due to the controversy behind The Carter V, the rap superstar has announced his retirement.

Weezy’s first retirement announcement came in 2012 with MTV. His commitment to retiring became more serious as he was facing a legal battle with the label Cash Money in 2016.

In a tweet, Weezy has expressed the defeated mental health the music industry caused him.

The Carter V was finally released in 2018, however, this wasn’t the end of Weezy’s music career. He would soon be featured on artist tracks such as Kendrick Lamar and DJ Khaled.

Notably, you can keep track of Lil Wayne’s retirement on islilwayneretired.com

2. Jay Z: Came back more powerful than ever

Jay-Z’s retirement story is interesting but not much can be said about the Godfather of rap in this case. Jay-Z retired back in 2003, after releasing The Black Album. This however was a marketing tactic.

Three years later he would drop Kingdom Come and many more. He found “retiring” at the peak of his career would only make his next few albums more popular.

Jay-Z would end up dropping back-to-back hits, making that 3-year retirement worth it. His fame wasn’t just limited to rap after his return. The Carters would be a household name after marrying Beyonce.

3. Logic: Could Twitch be a new route for Doja Cat in retirement?

Logic is probably the most recent rapper to step out of retirement. His retirement story is also pretty strange. After the release of No Pressure, he left his rap career and became a pro streamer on Twitch.

His personality attracted a wide audience and was a refreshing change from music. With an ecstatic personality, herself could Twitch be a new route for Doja Cat in retirement?

In less than a year he came out of retirement. His announcement came as a nod to Micheal Jordan. Logic’s unretirement letter posted on Twitter is a duplicate of Jordans, modeling the same format and similarly released by their respective lawyers

4. 50 Cent: Found a place in TV

Via @50cent

50 Cent’s retirement came unexpectedly after a chart battle with Kanye West in 2007. Leading up to Kanye’s iconic album Graduation and 50’s Curtis, the duo would have heated exchanges where he said he would stop putting out solo albums if Graduation sold more records.

The feud between the two was great for marketing, and fans loved the beef, however, in the end, Kanye’s Graduation topped Curtis.

The rapper never really intended to retire. Losing the chart battle with Kanye didn’t exactly do him any favors in the music industry. In 2009 he came out of retirement and released Before I Self Destruct, which wasn’t exactly competing well with others.

Thankfully he found a place in entertainment as an executive producer for Power. Could TV be a lane for Doja Cat after retiring?

5. Nicki Minaj icon for women in rap

Via @nickiminaj

Nicki Minaj is one of the most controversial rappers who retired and unretired. In 2019, Nicki tweeted she was retiring from music, to focus on her family. She left her fanbase the “barbies” freaked out all over Twitter.

She would later clarify that tweet in an interview with The Shade Room. Nicki was only thinking about her future when she posted that tweet.

“So the retirement was kind of talking about my album, meaning like, ‘Do I want to go back and record my fifth album? Where do I stand with it now?’” she told the Shade Room.

Tekashi 6ix9ine
6ix9ine December 19, 2019
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No Cap: Is the Tekashi 69 court case ruling the best thing for his rap career?

Rapper 6ix9ine went to court on Dec. 18, with a strong possibility of being released from jail. Instead? He has been sentenced to two years in prison. Wahhh.

The rainbow-haired Brooklyn rapper has already been in jail for 13 months, and it is thought his time served will be included in the sentence, paving the way for him to be released November 2020.

6ix9ine was one of the biggest artists in the world for a year-and-a-half span before he was arrested on racketeering charges. His story was emblematic of the quick rise-and-fall in popularity of the music industry, and more generally, the times we live in.

6ix9ine was done dirty by his team when they stole his money whereafter he proceeded to snitch on them in court, prompting memes and outcry from locals and celebrities alike.

With the memes and documentation of the court case and 69’s snitching, the curly-haired clown stayed in the public consciousness enough. Then December approached, and it was expected that due to his compliance and testimony, 69 would be released from prison.

Think of the intrigue, think of the jokes, think of the (both real and metaphorical) shots at 69 had he been walking the streets a free man today. 69 is about as polarizing an artist as I can remember; whether you hate him or love him, you definitely have an opinion.

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A post shared by DJ Akademiks (@akadmiks) on

There are so many questions about the circumstances surrounding 69 once released. Will he venture out into the public often, will he still be his loud, cocky self? Will he still rap about the things he once did, or will his flow sound completely different than what it was before?

Will he still talk shit and post-Instagram videos like this one?

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A post shared by 6ix9ine (@6ix9ine) on

For now, we don’t know. We can only wait and imagine. 69’s sentencing comes as a shocking blow to fans of his music, jokes, and fans of drama in general.

Whatever 69 has cooking up or ready to release when he gets out is going to be entertaining at the very least. But to not see it before the holidays? Sickkkk.

With Bobby Shmurda getting out this summer, and 69 being released a few months after him, 2020 is already looking crazy from the jump.

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What would have happened If Six Nine got out of jail 🤣 #justinrichburgmadeit Like, comment and share! #6ix9ine #djakademiks

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Russ
fuck russ April 23, 2018
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Why it’s so hard to like Russ: The Atlanta rapper who thinks he deserves it all

Russ has done it again — made himself seemingly impossible to vouch for.

The Atlanta resident rapper whose debut album, There’s Really A Wolf, went gold, happens to have just as much talent in rubbing people the wrong way as he does in his pen. And two days ago, Atlanta megaproducer Metro Boomin got a taste of that.

The Without Warning producer shared a photo of himself holding a card that reads “Russ Is Whack” on Twitter. Metro tagged Russ in the post then expounded later in a tweet, “and by whack I mean whack in spirit.. haven’t heard any music to come to that conclusion,” he wrote.

Thanks to context given by Montreal producer Kizzy, it was revealed that Metro was triggered by a tweet of a 2017 VladTV interview Russ did in which he blamed producers for the monotony of current rap.

https://twitter.com/ProducedByKizzy/status/987808155559219201

It clearly didn’t matter that Russ said in an interview last year, his opinion wasn’t appreciated by producers eating off what’s been suggested as a trite sound.

Along with Metro, producer Cardo also took to Twitter to voice his displeasure, tweeting, “Russ and those Walt Disney bars he be spitting can get the fuck on. U can tell he still puts pizza rolls in the microwave.” “Don’t EVER downplay us music producers … EVER,” he continued.

Maybe in response, maybe not, but Russ shared his new single “Sore Losers” shortly after Metro’s tweet.

If you ask Russ, he’d be the first to say that it’s he who’s the victim, that the industry doesn’t like him and not the other way around. But his track record, just as we witnessed in the resurfacing of his Vlad interview, says otherwise.

Much like his critique of the “state of hip-hop,” — which is such a tired motif of the genre — Russ has a critique about everything. The once SoundCloud sensation who demanded a major deal off the strength of his following often comes off as pretentious, and it has never bode well for him.

In September of last year, he confronted Everyday Struggle host, Nadeska on claims that she lied about not having guest when he asked to come. It turned out that Russ was wrong, and that the email she sent never discouraged him from coming. He’s yet to apologize or come clean about this.

Piggy-backing off of that uncomfortable encounter, that same month Russ posted a tweet a short time after one of the shows that included an image of himself wearing a shirt that reads, “How much Xans and Lean do you have to do before you realize you’re a fucking loser.” In the tweet itself, he wrote, “After show. Message.”

The issue isn’t that what he’s saying is wrong, it’s the insensitivity and righteousness that comes with it. And who did it help?

Now deceased Chicago rapper, Fredo Santana, responded to his tweet, “Until I can stop thinking about my dead homies and the trauma that I been thru in my life that’s when I’ll stop.”

Similarly, just a few days after rapper Lil Peep died, Russ engaged in a 13-tweet rant expressing why he’s not cool with what he believes is rappers using a drug-addicted image for branding purposes.

The poor timing caused rapper Smokepurpp to call him out on Twitter.

The following month of that year, in an interview with Rap Radar’s Elliott Wilson and B. Dot, Russ made waves, again, by critiquing the music industry for rewarding “connections and fuck shit.” Russ said in the interview,

“I mean, if it rewards talent, feel me, I would be the biggest artist in the entire fucking world.”

The sense of entitlement and bravado in which he carries himself is really astonishing, especially given the fact that he is only popular with his core fans. And while that may garner him gold plaques with no features, it doesn’t make him global, cross-cultural or likable for that matter.

Discrediting everyone else’s talent due to the success he still yearns is telling to me, and while he wants to come off as the humble underdog SoundCloud success story, he presents himself as nothing more than a disgruntled artist trapped in the confines of his niche fanbase.

Russ is as talented as he is hard to like, and he has to thank himself for both.

hip-hop industry October 27, 2017
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Nicki Minaj calls out entire hip-hop industry for its sexist ways on Twitter

Two days ago, Nicki Minaj dropped some heavy tweets regarding sexism in the music industry.

“In any field, women must work TWICE as hard to even get HALF the respect her male counterparts get. When does this stop?” the hip-hop artist wrote.

This all started when rapper Russ tweeted this video:

He posted the video saying, “People needa put more respect on @NICKIMINAJ name.”

No doubt reflecting on the news out of Hollywood over the past couple of weeks, Minaj wrote out her feelings in a few tweets.

Nicki’s claims of sexism have hardly gone unnoticed. Twitter users showed their support for the rapper’s statement.

https://twitter.com/PageKennedy/status/923303429853679616

https://twitter.com/LOUIS_MARAJ/status/923306886916661254

https://twitter.com/PLZSAYDAPRINCE/status/923304366748073989

https://twitter.com/Drebae_/status/923316106554519552

Others had their own opinions to share:

https://twitter.com/onikasinterlude/status/923307089677766656

In a Time Magazine interview, Nicki spoke about the double standards of women and when it came down to women in positions of fame.

“You never know how much is too much — too much emotion, too much vulnerability, too much power. Everyone wants me to be something different. Women in the industry are judged more. If you speak up for yourself, you’re a bitch. If you party too much, you’re a whore. Men don’t get called these things.”

And she’s right. The double standard is real and puts a lot of strain on celebrities who put themselves out there, being judged while in the spotlight.

Nicki has been an advocate for feminist rights and equality for all sexes since her come up. Is she right in what she’s saying? Without a doubt in my mind.

Though these sentiments have long been hidden, Nicki is amongst the many women that are speaking up for equal rights, and exposure against those that want to silence their voices.

Nicki has been at the top of the hip-hop game for 10 years now, and putting respect on her name is the least anyone working alongside the starlet can do. Undoubtedly, she will continue to shine and rise to the top of her game.