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“D.O.A.”
written by Zeke Hugo
Richmond, VA — It’s a gloomy Richmond morning. The alarms have gone off, and I’m wiping crust from my eye, giving myself a few more minutes before rolling over the scattered tabs filled with presentation points and half-memorized talking tracks for my final group project of the semester at VCU’s Brandcenter. The two-year program is designed to rewire the advertising industry, but lately it feels like it’s been working overtime to rewire me.
Even as a self-declared morning person, the day doesn’t really start until the first track shocks my system awake. Once the rhythm lands, I cue up my Apple Music station to the usual blend of rap and R&B folded into old-school funk and jazz fusion. Today, though, Nine Vicious interrupts the shuffle. He’s an emerging voice in the Atlanta trap progression (carrying the melodic DNA of Young Thug) and his sound is marked by quick one-liners, hood poetics, and that unmistakable autotune — hip hop’s most controversial instrument of the past twenty years.
Mid-groove, a question meets me: What does Jay-Z think of this entire generation of autotune-first artists today?
I glance at myself in the mirror, noticing the compact, unshaped fro I’ve developed while still looking for a reliable Richmond barber. It’s giving the “D.O.A.” Jay look from the late-2000s era when he stepped into his heel turn, newly allied with Live Nation and operating with the bravado of a superstar fully aware of his mogul status. This was the period that pivoted him toward the mythic figure we encountered in his powerful Swizz Beats in “Open Letter,” lecturing government officials and bending geopolitics into punchlines. It was the moment he separated himself from the genre’s rank and file and began narrating from the boardroom as much as the booth.
But as Nine Vicious keeps harmonizing into my bathroom tiles, the question returns, sharper: What would Hov make of an artist like this, flourishing in the very sound he once tried to bury?
Keep in mind, Roc Nation just launched a new distribution platform for emerging artists. I find myself thinking about Jay’s long, sometimes contradictory relationship with autotune. Historically, he’s used his voice, whether through cryptic tweets or longform lyrical essays, as a barometer for the culture. His verses became cultural commentary disguised as performance, a billion-dollar megaphone for his politics, critiques, and philosophies. That power once allowed him to declare autotune dead in 2009. But clearly, someone forgot to inform the next generation.
And yet, the contradiction is fascinating. D.O.A. was a direct critique of artists like the New Boyz, whose digitally-enhanced delivery, according to Jay, compromised the lyrical rigor hip hop was built on. But the most convincing use of autotune at the time came from someone Jay trusted deeply: Kanye West. Hov had just appeared on Ye’s 808s & Heartbreak, a project that dismantled the genre’s expectations and ushered in a unique sonic language. Then Lil Wayne discovered his own elastic, almost extraterrestrial relationship to the effect. Soon autotune wasn’t a tool. It became a dialect. Future spoke it. Travis Scott hallucinated through it. NBA Youngboy made it generational.
As I move through my routine, I think about hearing D.O.A. for the first time on road trips with my dad. Blueprint 3 was the first Jay-Z album I was fully conscious for and the first time I understood how a rapper could also operate as a cultural regulator. Now, years later, I’m a Detroit-bred DJ with Ghettotech influence studying advertising in a hip hop-driven city, surrounded by murals of MF Doom, Fly Anakin, Michael Millions, and other underground heavyweights. I don’t get enough exposure to the house, techno, and Motown lineage I grew up around, but the gravity of rap keeps me connected. That tension feels like a generational echo of the melodic rappers Jay once critiqued.
So yes, I still wonder what Jay-Z makes of Nine Vicious and the broader autotune-centric class dominating today’s charts. Would he still argue they’re “T-Pain’ing too much,” or would he finally applaud the subgenre’s evolution?
Because from one angle, hip hop’s progress is built on contradiction. The old guard critiques the new guard, only to eventually adapt, collaborate, or cash in. In an old Tim Westwood interview, Jay offered a small window into his thinking: “I like the way those records sound… I’m not saying I hate autotune — I hate it if 100,000 people are using it. I’m a fan of music.” It was less condemnation and more fatigue.
Now, with autotune fully entrenched as the lingua franca of mainstream rap, a new question emerges: How will Roc Nation’s new distribution platform treat the very sound Jay once tried to bury? Some interpret the move as a genuine attempt to empower emerging artists; others see a calculated business pivot designed to capitalize on trends he once critiqued. But maybe that’s the point. Rap is young enough that revolutions and reversals can happen within a decade. What was once declared dead now drives entire revenue systems.
As I finish getting ready, the track still humming behind me, I return to the same question: What does Jay-Z make of this sound now? The generation he once warned didn’t just survive but they defined the era he still influences. Maybe D.O.A. wasn’t a funeral after all. Maybe it was the prophecy of how quickly culture mutates when even its architects can’t control its evolution.
Autotune didn’t die. It became the language of the kids Jay now hopes to empower. The same kids who never needed his permission to change the game.
Image Credits:
Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter observed by Nino Munoz; Copious Managment
Cover Story for Best Life Magazine: “Personal Success Issue”
January 2009.