Drinkchamps Is Not Your Negro
What the Ye interview says about “platforms”
After starting a podcast three months ago, I got obsessed with YouTube. That’s how I get when I launch a project. I learn how the process works and remake it with my style. But I’m lucky enough to have some background on the platform through work.
Companies building a presence on social media say the word “platform” a lot. It makes them feel big, like Olympic divers somersaulting their brands into relevance.
Platform is another word we’ve repeated into meaninglessness. But YouTube is a powerful platform in the truest sense of the word. It raises the voices and messages of the individual, even the most fringe of us. I don’t know whether that’s good. Or helpful.
Drinkchamps is a show on YouTube that brings rappers on to reminisce about careers since eclipsed. In a culture that values youth over all, it’s good to see the honorific treatment of former icons and supporting characters. As with other platforms though, the temptation to grow at the expense of everything cuts the show off at the knees.
Host N.O.R.E. vaunts a lovable simpleton act but boosts the room’s credibility with his heyday stories. He isn’t a journalist and doesn’t purport to be one. In most environments, that’s okay. Ye appeared earlier this year on…
