After Drake and Lil Yachty, Rap Show ‘On The Radar’ Plans to Keep the Hits Coming – Rolling Stone

This summer, hip-hop channel On The Radar was on everyone’s radar as it rose to become one of the internet’s finest purveyors of freestyle videos and interviews, reaching a new high with a Drake appearance featuring buzzing U.K. rap star Central Cee. Both traded bars at the show’s New York studio, shrouded in its signature green-means-go lights. Beyond producing the best music meme of the season (Drake slurring “combination” in one of his infamous accents during the song’s intro) it also produced one of the hottest rap songs of the summer. The internet moves quickly, though — in another life, the song would still be ringing off everywhere, but even On The Radar has kept it moving. Lil Yachty teased his own freestyle days ago and it arrived on October 6, meaning OTR snagged yet another hitmaker having a career-redefining moment, with Yachty still shapeshifting after a decade as one of rap’s most enthralling weirdos.

Rolling Stone named Gabe P, 27 —the host and founder and head of On The Radar with a background in radio and social media — to our list of 50 Innovators Shaping Rap’s Next 50 Years, but he doesn’t make the show nor its namesake independent label alone. He leads a small staff with Sony Music alum John Nurse, in his 30s, as their acting director of operations and writer Tobbylola, 25, as director of artist relations. In August, while passing through Atlanta after a week of filming in Miami, they talked to Rolling Stone about subverting music industry standards to build an artist-centered platform for a new generation of global music lovers.

Y’all are making such an impact among hip-hop fans, but people’s tastes are constantly expanding. I’m curious what your interests have been in hip-hop from Africa and African music generally?
Gabe P: The biggest African artist who has a video on our channel is Nasty C. It just hit a million. [Pheelz] did a performance of “Finesse” and then that trickled down into eventually Nasty C doing it. And then Nasty C’s one was a very — I didn’t expect it to do what it did, but it went amazing. And then we’ve gone on to do Oxlade. Lojay. But we’ve done a ton of African artists and we have a friend who, his name’s GQ. He’s been very instrumental in being our guide through all these artists and working with these artists and whatnot. He’s from Ghana, so he’s normally the one that they all run to when they come over here On The Radar. We actually just put out our first Afrobeats record under On The Radar records too with Fadí. She’s from Niger. When she came and did her performance, the name of the song was “Aban,” and that shit went to number one on the Apple Music charts in her home country. And then, yeah, so she really blew up off that.

I’d love to know more about the origins and goals of the label.
Gabe: I always wanted to put out music and we saw, I always credit Charlie Sloth and Fire in the Booth as being a big inspiration. And I noticed how they have put out their freestyles on DSPs and I’m like, oh, we could probably figure out a way to do this, too.

So it started off with us just going into our back catalog of freestyles, seeing who produced some of these records that were our friends, so we could easily get them to sign off on it. And then of course, the artists who we’re friends with that would easily sign off on it. The goal for the year was to drop 300 records on streaming. And we’ve done about maybe, I think I counted the other day, it’s around 125 to 130, but we’ve done a pretty good job of that so far. We’ve also used that opportunity to build and grow into live EPs, which we started off with our friend wolfacejoeyy, who’s blown up off our platform twice. So we did a whole live EP with him. My dad used to have the Nirvana MTV Unplugged Live DVD that we used to watch all the time. So it brought me back to that. 

Most of the time we do it with independent artists because dealing with clearances, dealing with labels, us trying to put out one song takes months. With an independent artist, it’s a lot quicker. The original music came about because we have a bunch of different producers who we work with. So we have Fritz, who’s one of John’s producers. I have a project coming up with Matthew Ali, who is one of the “Sexy Drill” producers. Him and Cash Cobain, they’re in the same vein. They work together. He’s one of the Slizzies.

So the goal is not necessarily to sign artists to contracts for projects, but to do singles, EPs, stuff like that?
Gabe: We do want to eventually sign artists down the line and then Tobby will one day move into more of a management position for artists. But right now we don’t have the necessary funds that we need to make that happen where it makes sense to sign artists. So until then, it’s just like, let’s just put out dope music and just let that ride and see what happens. The most music we ever dropped on a Friday was 14 singles.

John Nurse: The thing is we distribute through ourselves. So a lot of people been on our line stuff as far as distribution, like [proposing a joint venture with a major label] so we’re trying to look for the right situation, but right now we’re going to do it all ourselves.

Gabe P: And then everybody on my team gets a piece of the pie. Everybody gets a piece from Tobby to John, even Calvin who takes photos to Rob the engineer, which is unheard of in the industry. Everybody on my team gets to eat off of whatever we make for the rest of our lives off the music.

What would doing everything you’ve set out to do look like?
Gabe P: There’s no angle. It’s just like what’s next? Because if I set an angle for myself, then I’m limiting myself. You know what I’m saying? Drake was just a stepping stone. You could ask [Tobbylola and John], a week after the Drake thing went up, they’re like, “so are you feeling it?” And I’m like, “cool.” Oh, it’s number one on RapCaviar. I’m like, okay, that’s cool. We got shit to do.

With the Drake freestyle on DSPs, did your labels put that out together?
John: No. You don’t really tell Drake how to move, but there was good collaborative effort. We worked with the label to get it out there. We had some terms and demands. They told us what they could do and we met in the middle.

Tobbylola, tell me about your path.
Tobbylola: I was working in media since I graduated from high school. I was writing for my school’s newspaper. Then when I went onto college, I had the opportunity to start interning at Hot 97. Then at a point I started writing for The Source and then for Lyrical Lemonade. One day I started doing press runs to assist artists. I was working with Boston Richie at the time, and I wanted to bring him to Gabe’s platform. So I had hit up my friend Shauna James from Atlantic Records, and I was like, “Hey, can you connect me with him?” And she did. And I brought Richie over to him and I was like, “I see your set-up here. It is cool. I feel like I could bring some structure.” I felt like I got artists from writing for Lyrical, so I could probably bring them over there. And I was like, “let’s just cook up.” One day Gabe just called me and was like, “Hey, I got my studio now. So you said you want to help me with scheduling, let’s just try for a week.” And then we just tried for a week and then to now they’re obsessed. They haven’t let me go since. But really we just created a family. I just saw there was stuff that was missing there. And then I tried to just be that person to just come on board and really just connect the dots where it made sense

That’s beautiful because I think how Gabe prioritizes innovation in the music space. In some of the media industry, when you’re working in it, you think there’s a path: for example, staff writer, senior writer, editor, editor-in-chief. But there’s so many things that you could do if you’re given the opportunity and you know what your passions are, what your skills are. 
Tobbylola: At the top of the year, I always try to write down things that I want to do. And I really remember in 2022, one of the things that I wrote in my notepad was I really want a role at a big media company where I actually have the responsibility to make changes in the music culture and bring a lot of new things that haven’t been here. I really feel like this is the first role where I was able to really just think, cook up ideas. And the team trusted me to do stuff. This platform is really known for my Ladies Night Cypher we did where we had Lola Brooke on it, we had London Hill…That’s just another testimony of someone trusting you to do something that they’re so known for with their brand. 

John: A few people have asked me, “You don’t want to go back to the majors?” I’m like, yeah, no, because over there you have to do so much just to get recognized and just to move up, as opposed to now I’m at the head of an independent level and doing bigger things than I would’ve had responsibility for over there.

They’re very steeped in their tradition. It’s like, media publications are like that too, right?
John: Especially radio. I used to work in promotions. A lot of people that were there when I was there in 2013, ’14, they’re all still there now. And respectfully, it’s great to hold a job. I ain’t trying to take nobody out. But also there’s got to be some type of balance where you got a lot of young people and the old people to coincide.

Tobbylola: I think that’s what makes On The Radar so different is because really this is a team that was like, we’re all just coming together now, just trying to make things make sense. It’s really not no old head who’s on top of us [saying] “Do this, do this.” The old head really is Gabe.

Gabe P: The old head really is John.

Tobbylola: No, you know I didn’t want to say that. But if you saying whose brand, who calls the shots, obviously it’s Gabe’s brand.

Gabe P: And there’s no one who’s been this young who’s had this much impact on the culture in such a short period of time. You know what I’m saying? I’m not knocking anybody, but I’m saying that there hasn’t been someone who maybe since Angie Martinez or early days of Stretch and Bobbito — they was in college really when they were putting on with Wu-Tang and Biggie and all them, they were the youngest. But since that era of radio, Angie and Flex, no one this young has had this much of an impact on the culture in this type of period of time. And who has given you Drake, Ice Spice, all on the same platform all while maintaining…yeah, Drake was on the platform, but we’re someone dropping today on the platform who has 4,000 followers on the ‘Gram. Nobody does that. Nobody thinks to do that. 

Tobbylola: And what platform do you really know is supporting both emerging artists and big artists? When you think of artists coming to New York to do press runs, when you’re a small artist, really, if you don’t really have a team who knows who’s who, you’re very limited to what you can do because they’re really only catering to that big person, someone who they’re probably going to give more looks. On The Radar, we’re special because Gabe is literally picking people who — he’s not coming to you because “hey, you got a million followers on the Gram,” but instead, he’s coming to you because he feels like you can possibly one day get there because your talent is there. These other brands are not trying to cater to these emerging artists. And it’s the emerging ones who are going to one day become the number one.

Gabe: I found [Bronx drill rapper] Kay Flock, I did Kay Flock’s first interview. I found B Lovee and Dougie B, I did their first and only interview where all three of them are together. That was the start of everything. D’Thang, I brought people D’Thang [rapper and Lil Durk’s late brother], I brought people Ice Spice.

John: Literally broke Ice Spice.

Gabe: Literally broke Ice Spice, you know what I’m saying? I did GloRilla’s first-ever New York City interview, you know what I’m saying? So there’s a lot of things that we’ve done that have just paved the way for a lot of other things.

Tobbylola: And then we’re super humble on top of that. It’s so many platforms. For me, I personally feel like we have a team that’s so grateful.

I think y’all are interesting because there are performances, but then there are also interviews. What is the relationship between the two? Being a media platform that does journalistic work and performance work?
Gabe P: I mean, I came up under Angie Martinez and I feel like, I don’t really need to say more than that. I feel like hip-hop media right now is everybody wants clicks. Gabe:

I’m not disrespecting Vlad [of VladTV, which posts controversial interviews] because what Vlad has built is incredible. You know what I’m saying?  I would be remiss if I wasn’t like that’s also kind of the problem with why artists don’t trust going up to different interviews and things like that. 

John: And a lot of that also comes from the niche that we have at On The Radio. You catch somebody young and early, you build that relationship through time and trust through time. So they know what they getting into when they come to you. Like, oh no, that’s my mans, he wouldn’t do that to me. And that’s a fact. He wouldn’t do that to you.

Tobbylola: And let Drake’s previous press run in New York be a testimony that these artists, they want to hit these newer platforms. What y’all need to understand is the music industry is changing. The platforms that are catering to the artists are changing as well. And it’s your best bet to probably adapt to how this industry is changing, rather than hating on the new platforms that are creating their own thing.