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Dec 12, 2018, 01:00 PM

Flex Rabanyan tries to expose payola at Metro FM

Weird Flex, but okay.

Flex Rabanyan, the winner of season two of Vuzu’s The Hustle, looked to ruffle feathers in the music industry on Wednesday morning when he threatened to expose payola shenanigans at Metro FM. 

It hasn’t been an easy start to Flex Rabanyan’s career since winning the hip hop reality show. While his album, The Born Frees, was described as one of 2018’s “Projects you must Hear” by Slikour on Life, the rest of his career has been relatively modest. 

Whether or not he was looking to stir up the pot, the rapper became a talking topic on Wednesday when he decided to tackle one of the most contentious issues in South African music right now: payola. 

Payola is illegal, and involves paying money to have your material played on radio. While many artists have too much integrity for their art to ever pay to have it played, others (if you believe the many rumours) don’t mind cutting the corners if it means that their singles will blow up. 

The rapper took to Twitter where he threatened to call out an individual at Metro FM who allegedly facilitates payola.
Whatever reaction he was looking for with these tweets, it backfired. Firstly, some of his peers in the game did not respect his conditional admission that he was willing to engage in payola.
While others were trying to point out that payola is a corrupt form of business, although Flex saw it as an "investment".
If anyone takes the L for this week, it’s FLex Rabanyan. Hade, bro. While we’re here, let’s help the brother by supporting his music.
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Main image credit: Instagram/@flexrabanyan
Written by

Tinashe Venge

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