Verzuz as a brand started out in the middle of the pandemic, where everybody was in the house staring at various screens. It was an amazing evolution, fast and furious. When it was strictly on the phones and people were in the safe haven of their homes, it was very different than what it turned into.
After a while we began to get live performances, Verzuz expanded beyond Instagram into other platforms like Apple. And then, it was sold to Triller. Timbaland and Swizz Beatz were the owners of the brand and apparently made a pretty penny from the sale. $28 Million! However, all was not well in paradise. Recently, headlines show that the two producing monsters sued the brand that purchase Verzuz And demanded their cheddar cheese from them.
In a recent interview with The Lox, Jadakiss, the dude that’s dominant in the brand of Verzuz battling, said he was about over with the versus situation. He didn’t say it in a malicious way, but he has done so many, climaxing with the battle against Dipset. Last but not least, is a recent battle between Jermaine Dupri and Sean Combs, a.k.a. Diddy.
This one is more interesting, because Ciroc liquor was a major sponsor when there were various battles. And now that the brand of Triller is leaning a bit, we are now seeing these two Titans of hip-hop culture go edit song for song. But they don’t seem to want to do it with Verzuz. I would imagine, they can apply the sponsorship dollars directly to their effort in Atlanta and make it a huge party in a bit. Those guys have major hits between the two of them and they spanned across so many different musical artists.
And, we have to really look at Verzuz a couple years for what it was. The world has changed dramatically since we saw people like Jill Scott and Erykah Badu sitting at home playing songs. I think it’s going to be important for Verzuz to show a new way of doing entertainment/business that helps them reestablish their foothold.
What do you guys think? I know one thing, they better get it together fast. Styles P is already calling for a boycott if Timbaland and Swizz “leave.” They still pretend that it is a partially Black owned entity, because a lot of the participants in the original Verzuz are apparent partial owners of Triller. But are they? I don’t know! I am not here to judge anyone involved, but we have to do the right thing for the culture.
By the way, they are saying this ain’t about Verzuz at all – just money.