Hip-hop blogger Adam 22 has come under fire for numerous incidents in his past that have resurfaced, primarily claims that he raped a 16-year-old girl over a decade ago. He spoke with hip-hop media personality DJ Akademiks last night to further defend himself from the rape claims and clarify a controversial blog post. He told Akademiks that the sexual assault allegations are “absolutely 100% false.” He admits to having a romantic, sexual relationship with the woman who he met on a message forum, but he clarifies that the relationship only occurred after she had turned 19.
Adam alleges that when she initially told him she was 16, he ceased communication with her. A year later, he deleted the blog post that he had made about their correspondence because he felt “kinda sus(pect)” about its existence. Allegedly, he saw her three years later while he was on a business trip to Vancouver, where they began a sexual relationship that he says was never “anything besides consensual.”
Adam says the allegations, which arose after his influential No Jumper brand signed a deal with Atlantic Records, are “baffling.” He mentioned e-mails allegedly from the accuser, where “she’s not saying ‘oh, you beat me’ because none of that happened.” He surmises that the people who are accusing him are “taking the fact that I was talking openly on forums when I was 19” and combining them with the allegations. “Side-by-side it’s easy for people to say ‘he’s a scumbag,’ but this rape allegation came out a week ago,” he told Akademiks.
He also addressed allegations of a controversial blog post he made about allegedly beating up Black men. He says that he had no malicious intent with the blog (or the featured photo of Black men at what could be a food pantry), and was trying to “clickbait” with his “We Beat Up Black People” title.
The men were characterized as “definitely ‘poor’” in the blog post, which is archived here. He now says that “in retrospect, they were serious dudes” who “started screaming some sh*t about Crippin’” and “pulled out knives” after getting into an altercation with Adam and his friends. The post implies that Adam initiated the physical aspect of the confrontation by smashing his bike down on one of the men, but he alleges that he and his friends didn’t intentionally seek the men out to beat them up. In the blog post, he wrote, “I wasn’t really excited to see this situation turn physical, but y’know, whatever.”
He says the Black men had got into it with his friend Frank who had “visibly pissed” them off after a brief conversation. Adam and his friends “were all in agreement that none of us had punched a Black dude before and it felt racist and weird.” Hence the title, apparently. Atlantic has yet to comment on the controversies. Time will tell where it goes from here.
