ENTERTAINMENT: Austin Daboh’s Hip-Hop Excellence Advice, Kojey Radical

According to Music Week, Atlantic EVP Austin Daboh believes Kojey Radical’s Reason To Smile will be “the most important hip-hop album of 2022.”

Reason To Smile is Kojey Radical’s first full-length album, and it comes after a successful period for the previously independent rapper since signing with Atlantic Records in 2019. In yesterday’s Midweek Sales Flash, it was ranked in the top ten.

Daboh praised the East London MC in an interview with Music Week for its March issue, alongside Radical, his management John Woolf, and Asylum Records A&R Kevin Christian-Blair.

“Hip-hop is the oppressed’s genre,” Daboh said. “The best anti-oppression music comes from oppression.” When you consider what’s going on in the globe and all of the social inequalities and racism that exist, you can see that Kojey represents a generation that wants things to be different. He gives the wordless a voice.”

Kojey Radical has an increasing profile and 850,000 monthly Spotify listeners, with the rapper signing records and CDs and meeting fans at a pop-up in Shoreditch during release week. Daboh talked about the team’s success criteria.

No one else in hip-hop is expressing anything about class and identity like him.

Austin Daboh.

“Of course, we have commercial goals, and we work with Kojey as both a partner and a business,” Daboh explained. “However, top ten albums and singles aren’t how we measure success here. In a year, I’d like to sit down and have this record played as a cultural bookmark in schools across the country. That’s a lot more intriguing.”

“In 10 to 15 years, you might be talking to him about his new fashion line or a big movie,” Daboh said, describing Kojey as a “long-term artist” capable of transcending beyond music.

Further discussing the 15-track album, which features Wretch 32, Knucks, Kelis, Tiana Major9, and others, Daboh stated that Kojey Radical is a one-of-a-kind concept.

“Hip-hop is a protest genre, steeped in getting an opinion across and pointing out injustices, and it’s using whatever platform is available to do so,” added Daboh. “Maybe people stereotypically think of young teenage girls and pop music when they see TikTok, but scratch under the surface and there is a complex ecosystem of opinions and the analysis of deep lyrics.”