Glasses Malone on “Banned from Vlad TV,” Kendrick Lamar, and Why the Genre Was on the Line

Glasses Malone came onto The GAUDS Show focused on music, even as Ray Daniels opened by telling him he sees “a huge future in podcasting” for him. Glasses said he is staying centered on records, but added he has learned “to use stream to my benefit” for marketing and to keep ideas moving. From there, Daniels jumped straight into the new release, asking about a six song project called “Banned from Vlad TV.” “We call it a Digi Maxi single,” Glasses said, explaining why he sees it as something different than a traditional EP. “I was tripping off how to streaming like this would be the first time in recorded music history” where platforms are not fully dictating how artists make records, he said.

Early in the conversation, he tied that concept to a story about DJ Vlad and clarified the tension was not imaginary. “I don’t have no personal issue. Vlad is mad at me,” he said, before walking Daniels through a moment he believes changed their relationship. He framed the story as less about gossip and more about how hip hop stories get turned into content and cash. The episode eventually widened into streaming economics, West Coast pride, Kendrick Lamar’s discipline, rap battles and the lasting impact of Nipsey Hussle’s death on Los Angeles, but the opening stayed rooted in who gets paid when the culture becomes a product.

The never before told Vlad TV story

Glasses said his history with DJ Vlad goes back to when Vlad was still a DJ, building through mixtapes and early relationships in Los Angeles. He said he brought him into Watts and Compton, vouching for him in rooms where respect is not automatic, and he remembered moments when people tried to rob Vlad during those early visits. Glasses said he stepped in because he saw Vlad as someone who was moving with him, not against him. “Nah, dog. This is a cool dude,” he recalled telling people at the time.

Then he shared what he described as the moment that changed everything. Glasses said Vlad called him “legit crying,” telling him he had just caught a Black man with his girlfriend, then “asked me to borrow a pistol.” Glasses said the request sounded wild because the consequences would land on him, not Vlad, and because the optics were ugly. “Look, man, just text me where you at and me and the homies will jump out and make sure you get a fair one,” Glasses said he offered, pushing for a fight instead of a shooting. Vlad still wanted the gun, and Glasses said he drew a hard line, telling him, “Lad, I can’t give you no gun.”

Glasses said the fallout lingered longer than he expected. Years later, he said a mutual contact tried to reconnect them and came back with the same message, that Vlad was still upset about the refusal. Glasses also credited Vlad for building a powerful platform, even while questioning what the platform represents. “I think he has the best hip hop platform because the way he ask questions,” Daniels said, before adding that a white perspective flexing on Black guests can land wrong. He said the broader climate made the story feel timely because, as he put it, “they are going to be accused of being a culture vulture because there’s a disconnect of how they’re pouring into it.”

Streaming as a creative canvas

Glasses said the streaming era forced him to rethink what an album even means, because the old definitions no longer hold the way they once did. He pointed to “Thriller” as the kind of fixed classic that cannot exist the same way in a playlist world. “If you made Thriller today, you can add three songs to it and take three songs away,” he said, arguing that the project stops being a locked object and starts behaving like something flexible. In his view, that reality should not scare artists, it should push them to create with more intention and more agility.

He said that is why “Banned from Vlad TV” is built around one idea, shaped into six titles that function like chapters. “It’s one idea but I created and produced it in six titles,” Glasses said, adding that he makes it “start, climax, and fall every time.” He compared the approach to podcast listening because it encourages replay for context. “It’s kind of like podcasting,” he said, describing the moment when a listener realizes they missed a detail and wants to go back. If the platforms are already training people to consume stories in segments, Glasses believes the music can meet them there without losing depth.

Glasses also argued that the mindset shift should affect how often artists release. “Why don’t they treat music like you treat a Instagram post,” he asked, describing how people post feelings in real time and move on. He floated the idea of dropping a three song release about a specific conflict or mood, then letting the next idea take the next slot. The point, he said, is to stop treating streaming like a punishment and start treating it like a creative canvas.

The price of commitment in the old days

When the conversation shifted from format to business, Glasses sounded almost protective of the work ethic that used to be required. “I think a lot of people coming from the streets don’t make the commitment to be in the business,” he told Daniels. He tied that to how expensive it was to even make a serious mixtape when he came up. “My first mixtape, I think we spent like $23,000,” he said, then explained why the bill was so high. “Ain’t no YouTube to steal beats,” he added, describing a world where you had to pay for production and pay for access.

In that era, he said, the money forced you to think and forced you to plan, because every release had a cost you could not ignore. You had to press CDs, find places to sell them, and stand outside stores or post up out the trunk until the audience believed in you. Glasses described it as earning the dream, not sampling it for a weekend. He said the spending also created accountability because “people have to feel your commitment,” especially when they are deciding whether you will still be around. If the streets and the industry did not trust you, he said, the dream could end before it started.

Glasses contrasted that with today’s easy access to recording and releasing. He said people can use rap as “daily social currency,” dropping songs to flex, to respond, or to poke a rival with little financial risk. “Back then, you couldn’t spend $6,000 just to talk” on a record unless it had a real chance to go somewhere, he said, because each drop came with a dollar amount and physical work. Now, he said, the culture can crown people fast, and the flood of releases can blur the line between a real career and a quick experiment. “You’re seeing people that are being referenced as rappers when they had four songs,” he said, arguing that access is beautiful but it can also distort what commitment looks like.

Los Angeles culture, Kendrick’s discipline, and the fight for the genre

Once the interview moved toward Los Angeles culture, Glasses pushed back on the way outsiders reduce the city to tragedy and violence. He said there is real drama, but there is also a daily energy outsiders do not always understand. “It’s a lot of Fridays,” he said, nodding to the way humor and survival live in the same block reality. He argued that people forget how much joy has always existed alongside the struggle, and that the fun is part of what made hip hop contagious. “I think our fun is what made everybody come to us. Not so much our struggle,” he said.

Glasses said West Coast culture traveled because it looked like something people wanted to join. “Women, weed, the weather,” he said, rattling off what made people romanticize the region, then added that the fun created a bridge for the whole genre. He said the culture New York created grew so big because people everywhere wanted to be part of that feeling. In his view, hip hop can lose something when it forgets how much of the early movement was celebration, not just reportage. The message has always mattered, he said, but the music also had to move bodies.

Daniels asked about the pipeline between West Coast legends and new artists, and Glasses said certain figures really do pay attention when a newcomer catches heat. “Them two dudes specifically, like they gonna hit you no matter what,” he said, pointing to Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar as artists who still reach back. Glasses described a dream version of the city where leaders build waves behind a star instead of letting the industry treat one breakout as the end of the story. “If Kendrick is great, we get three more tribes,” he said, arguing that credibility should create opportunity for the next run. Daniels agreed the infrastructure matters, then added his own view, saying “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City” is the best West Coast album outside of “Doggystyle.”

When the conversation turned to Kendrick and Drake, Glasses talked about the battle like a cultural referendum. “I’m thankful I live through this battle because this was hip hop at its height,” he said, remembering how widely it spread beyond rap media. He repeated his long held view that Drake is a pop artist who raps extremely well, then said the stakes were bigger than technical skill. “To me, it was also a fight for hip hop trying to stay its own genre, trying not to get taken over like rock and roll,” he said. Watching Kendrick stand tall in that moment, Glasses said, felt like watching the genre defend itself in public.

Advice, Mount Rushmores, and a city still healing

Late in the conversation, Daniels asked for the realest advice Glasses ever received from an artist, and Glasses answered with a line from Snoop Dogg. “Snoop told me you dope, everybody gonna bite you. Don’t be mad,” he said, explaining it hit because he has watched his influence appear elsewhere without consistent credit. He also mentioned earlier advice from Mack 10 about saving money, a reminder that financial discipline is still part of survival in music. Glasses treats advice like field knowledge, something you hold onto because it is written in other people’s scars.

Daniels shifted into quicker questions, and Glasses’ answers showed how he maps West Coast greatness across generations. For an all time Mount Rushmore, he named Snoop Dogg, E 40, Too Short and Ice Cube, placing entrepreneurship, voice and longevity on the same level as pure rapping. For underrated figures, he singled out Sugar Free, then pointed to newer names, including OneTakeJay, and he urged listeners to give OneTakeJay a real chance. The list is a reminder that Glasses is not only thinking about his own legacy, he is thinking about who gets the spotlight next and who deserves it now.

When Daniels asked Glasses to name unsung heroes in his story, Glasses talked about the people who shaped his understanding of hip hop and his belief in himself. He named Gary Ellis, who produced his first tape, and said he did not fully understand the cultural meaning of hip hop in his early years until he learned from people who were prepared for the deeper part of it. He also named Dr. Dre as the reason he believed he could do it, then shouted out Top Dawg for showing real support when it mattered. Glasses described quitting a job at Interscope because he did not like how he was being treated, and he said Top Dawg told him to call next time because he would have fixed the situation, even though they had just met.

The interview eventually returns to a question that still lives in Los Angeles conversations, whether Nipsey Hussle’s death changed the city. Daniels asked if it reshaped Los Angeles or if it simply showed what the city already is, and Glasses did not dodge the weight of it. “It mattered like people felt some kind of way,” he said, then described the loss as something the city still carries every day. “It’s a wound that’s open,” Glasses said, adding that it is permanent “because he’s not around.” He said conflict did not disappear, but even the fights do not feel like what they once were because people look at consequences differently now.

Daniels closed by telling Glasses the culture needs more voices like his, then pushed him toward what comes next. Daniels said hip hop “doesn’t need artists. It needs characters,” and he urged Glasses to lean into the parts of himself that translate beyond music. Glasses did not chase the compliment, but he did embody it, using a six song project and a personal story to argue for ownership, contribution and a deeper kind of presence. For him, “Banned from Vlad TV” is not just a concept, it is a challenge to think differently about how hip hop moves in the modern era and who benefits when it does.