Jason Bradley DeFord, the singer known professionally as Jelly Roll, is pushing back against conspiracy theories after promising to expose the music industry.
The issue began on Friday when DeFord described the industry as nothing more than “smoke and mirrors” in a post to X.
“Learned a lot about how slimy the music business is this week, don’t worry yall know I’m going to expose it soon,” he wrote. “This whole thing is smoke and mirrors yall. All that shit Russ be talking about is REAL!”
Conspiracy theorists immediately latched onto the statement, suggesting that DeFord was preparing to reveal everything from Satanic control of the industry to reports of human sacrifice.
“Never sell your soul as many in the music industry have,” a self-described “Patriot” replied.
“Expose them. Shed light on that darkness,” a supporter of former President Donald Trump added.
Some urged DeFord to reach out to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson with his revelations, while others argued that his life was now in danger.
“Hire bodyguards, bro,” one user said.
“Looking forward to it – expose them all – make music great again!” a QAnon supporter continued.
Questions also arose from conspiracy theorists about who exactly “Russ” was, the individual mentioned in DeFord’s post. Russ, real name Russell James Vitale, is an American rapper who has repeatedly criticized the monopolization of the music industry.
“I learned that the whole industry is ran by… it’s a couple people,” Russ recently said. “You know that guy at Spotify, that guy at Apple, you know this person at Rhythm Radio and this person at Urban Radio… between four people you can run the whole shit.”
DeFord’s post garnered replies from fellow artists, including Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst.
“I definitely know a lil bit about that,” Durst wrote.
DeFord eventually responded to the attention around his post, which has thus far received over 9.6 million views, by expressing shock over all the conspiratorial remarks.
“Man yall made a mountain out of a molehill with this one,” he wrote. “All these weirdly over dramatic comments about selling souls and satanic weird shit is just weird. lol. I’ll be talking about all this on my wife’s podcast soon.”
Yet conspiracy theorists weren’t ready to give up. Instead, they began claiming that DeFord had been threatened into silence.
“In under 24 hours, they got him…” one user responded.
In the end, DeFord appears to have been referencing Russ’s previous accusations that major record labels and music companies are paying for streams in order to inflate their artists’ status on platforms such as Spotify.
And while the music industry is undoubtedly plagued with issues, as can be seen in the countless accusations facing rapper and music producer Sean “Diddy” Combs, DeFord’s follow-up tweet clearly angered conspiracy theorists.
The matter worsened on Sunday when DeFord said he would no longer use X due to its toxic environment, a remark that led right-wing users to accuse him of being against free speech.
“This is for sure the most toxic negative app to exist ever — PERIOD. lol,” he wrote. “This place is different man, I always heard it was the Wild West on here but man it’s insane. It’s a safe place for everyone to say mean shit to each other with no consequences. I’m out lol.”
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