Tasha K and DJ Akademiks – two trash-talking Black gossip "influencers" – are having the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week that they both deserve.
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That either of them made it to the level in which they're popular enough to go viral is baffling to many. But whose fault is that…?
There's always been a market for salacious gossip – tabloid rags have sat at the cash register of every grocery store I've visited since I was a kid. But YouTube and social media have made it much easier for folks with time on their hands and a little bit of celebrity access to rack up followers and views by sharing and posting shit that'll make you scramble to take a shower after you consume it.
Why Do We Keep Listening to Them?
We probably wouldn't have that problem if mainstream media and "traditional" journalists didn't ignore issues surrounding controversial and powerful Black celebrities and their allege victims. Think about how many years it took for someone to take R. Kelly's rumors and allegations seriously when Black folk knew about them for years. The allegations against Diddy are nothing new either, but I don't remember the New York Times or Washington Post ever taking the time to investigate them.
And the #MeToo movement seemed to just skip over Black women — only now are the things we've been hearing about for years coming to the forefront. Unfortunately, those speaking about these issues now are the likes of Tasha K who is known to go to the absolute dungeon with her celebrity gossip content.
If other publications did their job, she wouldn't have more than 1.1 million subscribers to her YouTube page, "Unwine With Tasha K," and more than 500,000 to her Instagram account.
You'll never find her interviewing the likes of a Michelle Obama or Stacey Abrams on her page – she's talking to folks like Brother Bilaal, a close member of Will Smith's entourage who saw fit to spill all manner of intimate business about Smith's sex life and other details that were completely unnecessary for him to reveal. That interview has 1.3 million views as of Sunday morning.
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Content like this puts us in a moral quandary: Yes, we want to hear what this once-close friend of Smith's has to say about the behind-closed-doors workings of one of the biggest Black entertainers in history, but we know it's wrong. "Hey…what's wrong with a little click and listen?" we ask ourselves.
Well, every time you click, you line these "influencers'" pockets. You give them more space to create more content with higher production values and get access to more people to spread their foolishness. In the case of Akademiks, you're likely fueling more content that demeans Black women and — if you believe the reason he's trending on Saturday night and Sunday morning – lines the pockets of a sexual predator.
The moral quandary becomes even more complicated when you consider Black media personalities who have gone mainstream. The progenitor of the contemporary Black gossip era is likely Wendy Williams, who built a valuable brand spilling celebrity gossip with little regard for anyone's feelings. Williams started as a shock jock in New York radio in the mid-2000s before graduating to television with the "The Wendy Williams Show."
She became a celebrity in her own right by doing everything from saying Beyoncé sounds like she has a fifth-grade education to leaking the cancer diagnosis of Method Man's wife Tamika Smith, which led Meth to say "f*** Wendy Williams" in the full version of that video that went viral last week. (Williams' protégé, C harlamagne Tha God, has also become a star via messy celebrity interactions.)
Not that the opinion of white folks should ever matter to us, but Williams built a handsome career out of attacking our Black celebrities. She paved the way for folks like Tasha K to thrive.
The good thing is that Black celebrities are fighting back against this brand of noxious "journalism:" Cardi B sued Tasha K in 2019 for spreading "false and defamatory statements." Cardi won a total of $4.25 million in damages – an amount that Tasha couldn't get rid of in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and for which Cardi is still coming, having filed a new motion last week to check on Tasha's remaining assets so she can start collecting.
Also last week, Kevin Hart also sued Tasha K over an interview she conducted with Hart's former personal assistant Miesha Shakes, who made claims about her former boss cheating on his current wife in his office. The lawsuit claims Tasha's people extorted Hart for a quarter million bucks to not release the interview; Shakes is also named in the lawsuit, as granting the interview apparently violated an NDA.
There's nothing wrong with delivering news (or "news") unconventionally – we don't need major newspapers and publications to get our gossip. But the inconvenient truth is that we enjoy the mess and we're responsible for the ascendancy of these bad actors in the Black community: Akademiks became a millionaire bloviating from his computer chair about rappers and R&B singers. He might be a well-established chump, but he still has millions of followers across his several channels.
The only reason Jaguar Wright still makes headlines despite not having dropped a solo album in almost 19 years is that we sop her mess up like a biscuit. She went viral in November from an old interview basically accusing Diddy of murder thanks to the Cassie lawsuit and has gone semi-viral several times for seeming to know the intimate business of everyone from Mary J. Blige to Will and Jada Pinkett Smith like she has a microchip implanted in their thighs.
Also, reality television and gossip culture are two cogs on the same gear. Even the most buttoned-up, high-earning, code-switching, Ivy League-graduating Jack and Jill alumna will come home from a long day of dealing with The Whites™ at work to zone out on Real Hip-Hop Housewives of Whatever. It's no different from Hip-Hop music with terribly regressive lyrics: Escapist reality television and the gossip economy make some Black folks look ridiculous…but it has its place.
I believe that Black folks who make a business out of picking apart members of the diaspora for money aren't just bad for the culture…they're trash for the universe. I wouldn't have a beer with any of them. But I can't criticize them without criticizing those of us who contribute to keeping their views up.
Perhaps these lawsuits will do the natural work of knocking a lot of these fools out of their nasty business: If bankruptcy filings tell the story, Tasha K doesn't have the wallet to play these reindeer games. But even if she and Akademiks go away forever, others will be along to replace those Hydra heads.
Will we continue to give them the views they don't deserve?
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