Jelly Roll ‘Learned About How Slimy The Music Business Is’
Jelly Roll had an eventful weekend; he joined with a number of heavy metal legends to pay tribute to Ozzy Osbourne at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. But before that, he posted some thoughts about the music industry, which got quite a bit of attention.
What Did Jelly Roll Say?
On Friday, he posted to X (formerly Twitter): “Learned a lot about how slimy the music business is this week, don’t worry yall know I’m going to expose it soon. This whole thing is smoke and mirrors yall. All that s— Russ be talking about is REAL!” See the NSFW post here. It’s likely that this was inspired by the fact that his new album Beautifully Broken is in a tight race to be the #1 album in the country with pop singer Charli XCX’s brat. brat was released over the summer but probably got a boost from the release of a new remix album, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. Industry publication Hits Daily Double reports that each artist’s label “is making a concerted effort to scrub the other’s claims and get numbers thrown out.”
“Russ,” who Jelly Roll references in his tweet, is an independent rapper. Before he moved into country, Jelly Roll started his career as an independent rapper as well, and the two artists have collaborated. In a podcast interview earlier this year, Russ explained how record labels artificially boost the chart standings of their artists’ albums and songs. Watch the NSFW clip here.
There were a lot of comments on the tweet, many of which seemed to misinterpret what Jelly was talking about. So, on Saturday, he responded to his own tweet, saying, “Man yall made a mountain out of a molehill with this one. All these weirdly over dramatic comments about selling souls and satanic weird s— is just weird . lol. I’ll be talking about all this on my wife’s podcast soon.” See that NSFW tweet here.
Jelly Roll: His Heavy Metal Weekend
In more positive news, Jelly Roll had the opportunity of a lifetime over the weekend when he participated in a tribute to heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne at the latter’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Backed by a band that included Ozzy’s longtime guitarist Zakk Wylde, guitarist Andrew Watt, bassist Rob Trujillo of Metallica and drummer Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jelly sang “Mama, I’m Coming Home” as Ozzy watched. Watch part of the performance here.
He also posted a backstage photo with some of the artists who took part in the tribute including guitarist Wolfgang Van Halen, singer Maynard James Keenan from the band Tool, and Jack Black. See that photo here.
Jelly Roll: Will He Leave X, Formerly Known As Twitter?
On Sunday, Jelly Roll posted that he might leave the social media platform known as X. He wrote, “This is for sure the most toxic negative app to exist ever — PERIOD. lol. This place is different man, I always heard it was the Wild West on here but man it’s insane . It’s a safe place for everyone to say mean s— to each other with no consequences. I’m out lol.” See that NSFW post here.
X, or Twitter as most people still refer to the app, has always had its share of what users perceive to be toxicity. However, this seems to have increased since Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased the app in 2022. Time reported in July of 2023 that “Hateful Content Has Surged On Twitter, Keeping Advertisers Away.” Earlier this year, The Guardian posted a story called “The demise of Twitter: how a ‘utopian vision’ for social media became a ‘toxic mess.'” At press time, Jelly Roll’s X account is still active, but he may decline to use the app personally and leave it to his management team to post messages to his fanbase, which is what many celebrities do.
