I've listened to two interviews this week - one with Ryan Adams on Marc Maron's podcast WTF and one with Vince Staples on Tyler the Creator's show - and I was blown away at the honesty and matter-of-fact voice that these two guys had with their hosts.

I've written a ton about my love of Vince Staples over the years, and his insight into his world and rap and artistry is very interesting and certainly worth your time. It's a little hard to hear some of Tyler's questions because apparently he forgot how a microphone works or can't listen to the headphones on his head, BUT Staples' answers almost barely need a question because whatever he says is compelling. I did not feel like watching all 33 minutes at 1130 at night, but I couldn't turn it off. Needless to say, I'm very interested to hear his next album as it was apparently inspired by incessantly watching American History X, one of my favorite movies of all time, and trying to provide a landscape based on the feelings he got from that movie. I imagine it'll be pretty dark with maybe a little light at the end of the tunnel. So take a look below if you're so inclined.

There's a strange parallel here with all the "fake news" bullshit that's getting peddled by Agent Orange (who I will say brilliantly turned the actual fake news into a bad word to use against the liberals and succeeded in doing so): artists themselves seem to view the Pitchfork's of the world and all the blogs as fake news to a degree. I say this because they are barely ever forthright in interviews with these publications. I've never read an article on Vince Staples where he speaks as honestly as he does on Tyler's show. So why is that?

I assume it's about trust and manipulation. I assume Vince trusts Tyler since they've known each other for a while and Vince assumes that Tyler is not trying to manipulate what he says to exploit him for page clicks and money. Instead, he's doing it to create a dialogue.

I can't chastise the Pitchfork's and Stereogum's for trying to make money, but any music fan can clearly see that the good articles on artists are those artists that have no publicity and therefore need a platform to speak so they'll speak honestly. Otherwise, people don't want to be used as headline bait to turn a thousand bloggers into pissed off Twitter trolls who turn the popular consensus against the artist. It's not worth it and many times it will happen beyond their control.

Pitchfork and Stereogum (and almost every other blog for that matter, so please don't think I'm just trying to pick on them AND YES I KNOW ALERT - I am aware that all I do is repost shit for people to see, read, and hear, but I am getting paid nothing for any of this and do it purely because of my love for art and joy of doing it all and the small bit of hope that I get thinking a few of you enjoy listening and reading this blog, AND I get a few brownie points because I do have some original writing and pictures so it's not ALL plagiarized) have turned into regurgitated news that they aren't creating but instead reposting from other sources with click-baity headlines.

Every once in a while we'll get a long form article which can be great. And I have no idea about the economics of this all, but I imagine the writers get paid barely nothing and a few people at the top are making good money and doing so because they've pushed out artistry and demanded clicks and shit that most of the writers feel terrible having to write about. People got to make a living, but i think the lesson is it hurts the artist from helping create a dialogue - like the things Staples is saying here - to a wider audience. Granted, this Staples interview has 400k views so the message is getting across, but I still think if the trust was there between artists and music blogs/publishers, the dialogue would be better.

SO instead of revealing themselves to fake music news blogs, these artists turn to their own mediums and people of trust to speak honestly. At least that's what I'm gathering because I was blown away with the uncensored stuff Vince Staples was saying. And I was amazed at how open and easygoing Ryan Adams was about his whole life in his interview with Marc Maron.

So with all that being said, yes, Agent Orange, fake news is real.

Enjoy: