I used to know Vlad a little bit. I met him in 1991. I introduced him to Sac rap back then. Later, he ended up living in Orangevale for a quick minute. He would later move to NYC and gain notoriety.
I have mixed feelings about Vlad. He can definitely come off as a culture vulture at times. On the other hand, he gets some good stories out of ppl, and gets interviews with ppl that generally don't give them. In general he is fairly knowledgable about hip-hop history, especially 90's west coast rap, which most of us here can relate to.
I don’t know that he is a culture vulture, but he’s definitely not from the streets. He is from San Mateo, and when I met him, he was a computer science major at Berkeley. The reason he was in orangevale is because he had an internship at Intel.
Better late than never. I just wish that X-Raided could get his own podcast or some type of progress/profit from this. I know it's a reach. DJ Vlad blew up Lord Jamar.
Vlad is a square, he probably never bumped the underground rap back in the day, that’s the reason he mispronounced the names. I bet he mostly bumps the mainstream rap.