“I’m Always Trying To Raise My Game” – An MM Exclusive With On The Radar’s Gabe P

On The Radar is arguably the most influential platform in the freestyle space right now. From Drake and Central Cee to the likes of 4Batz, Karrahboo, and 1900Rugrat, OTR continues to produce organic viral moments and showcase new talent from a broad spectrum of hip hop and its subgenres. It’s founder, Gabe P, is now looking even further, having already achieved international expansion through their OTR Brazil series.

I caught up with Gabe in West London back in July during On The Radar’s second international expansion to the UK. In a bustling atmosphere with some of our scene’s biggest names present, we spoke about the origins of this platform, the new generation of UK talent coming through, and what is next for On The Radar:

What part of your musical experiences have contributed to On The Radar?

If we want to go back to when I was a kid, I feel like there was always, like, a piece of me that knew I was gonna do something in music. I don’t have a big musical background in my family. My mom was a dancer, and she also played guitar when she was a kid as well. I lived in a very diverse part of New York where, like, I’m Puerto Rican and then, surrounding me is, like, Jamaicans, Haitians, a lot of Caribbeans – very similar to here. So I grew up with this really broad sense of musical taste, right?  You grow up in a traditional Puerto Rican household. Listening to salsa music, some reggaeton, because of my environment that I was raised in. 

Obviously being in New York, I had this deep love for hip hop very early on in my life, as well as, like, reggae and dancehall and Soca, because of everybody who I grew up around. 

I always knew I was going to do something in music. I played like a couple instruments growing up. I played guitar mostly because I wanted to get girls (laughs) . I sang for a little bit too in a little makeshift band at one point as well, but I always knew I was gonna do something in music, I just didn’t know what. When I went to college at St John’s University in Queens. I went there originally for business looking for a marketing degree. After the first semester I realised that I wanted to switch my major to communications. I could write because my mom was an English teacher, so I was really good at writing. I’m really good at talking, so I’m sure I can find something in the radio or maybe the print lane that would make sense for me.

Fast forward to my second semester in 2016 Angie Martinez, who is a legendary radio host in New York, was on a book tour for her memoir at the time, and she came to do an interview at my radio station. They asked me to do the interview, along with my co host, Nyla, who’s also very prominent in the music industry now. She picked us up, started interning at Power 105 before getting a full time job there. When I graduated college in 2018 is when I started on the radar. 

It started off as, just like an interview platform. It was during the SoundCloud era, and a lot of the legacy media platforms weren’t really like understanding the SoundCloud artists. You know, you see Yachty going on the Joe Budden Complex show, and kind of get flamed – they just wouldn’t understand. I think, since I’m in the same age bracket as them it just made sense. And so I wanted to create a platform where everybody could feel equally represented in a place and have artists come through and not feel like they’re going to be grilled, or they’re coming here to get click baited.  When we got out of the pandemic, my friend Devon had a studio in Brooklyn that he was so kind to let me rent from time to time. And that’s when we started doing freestyles. We had a raggedy set up with one mic and a laptop but we ended up blowing up during the Bronx drill era. We’ve grown a lot since then and kind of become this global platform.  You never know what you’re gonna see and I think that’s the beauty of it. It’s all about music discovery.

I find it interesting that a lot of freestyle platforms feel very selective in their process. Obviously you do have a process but On The Radar feels a lot more expansive. What’s the thinking behind that?

I like the method of not being paid by artists to feature on the platform. Granted if we did run that way we’d all be financially better off but I think the way we run is so organic. Everybody on my team is an A&R. We all have very different tastes but I try to use what I call my third ear. If I don’t like something, I try to analyse it outside of my perspective and understand why people like this and why there is an audience for this. In the end I’m not here to be judge jury and executioner. I just want to put people on to some cool shit.

The broader scheme of things is just being able to showcase talent of all ranges. Sometimes things hit, sometimes things miss, but I think that just comes with being a discovery platform. When we did the Drake and Central Cee thing a lot of platforms might have seen that as an opportunity to become more exclusive or for lack of a better word in your terminology, posh. But the one thing I discovered early on running On The Radar is that when I would do bigger artists, a lot of the time they wouldn’t put up as bigger views as the upcoming artists. 

For us to stay relevant forever, we’re gonna always have to make sure that we’re putting people on. That sense of discovery is what brought people to On The Radar. If you lose that sense of discovery, then you kind of lose the family that you created. Even here in London, we’ve got Dizzee Rascal next door waiting to go and we’ve also got upcoming artists that less people have heard of. It’s really just, like, an all encompassing piece of culture. That’s why I love doing what I do.

This is the second On The Radar series outside of the US after Brazil. Can you talk to me about these two markets and why you have been drawn to them for expansion?

COLORS is a huge inspiration to me and we recently became really close with those guys. They’ve been really instrumental in terms of expanding our mindset and how we do business. Similar to what you guys do here in the UK where every freestyle goes out on streaming, we’re trying to move towards that model.  Going globally is kind of like the perfect way to do that, and also I think it’s just a great way to put fans onto new music. Similar to how our YouTube page is like a spiderweb of new music, we want our streaming pages to kind of match that model where you can find all of this crazy new music.

The Brazil stuff came about because our friends over at Too Lost and Olympus Projects had a lot of connections out there.  I had also begun to see how the Brazilian funk sounds and the Baile funk sounds have been starting to penetrate into the United States market. Just right now, Cash Cobain has a huge Brazilian funk record out, ‘Feel’.  I know a lot of people are like, “Why don’t you go to the UK first?” The UK obviously makes the most sense. I think Brazil was kind of like the pilot, and it showed that our method worked and this is a natural second step. This feels like home.

In terms of your UK listening history, who would you say you have connected with the most?

I’d say AJ (Tracey). AJ is a friend of mine too but I feel like him, the Aitch’s, the Digga D’s were really like my entry point. I’ve always been listening to certain records from people like Skepta and Giggs but when I first started listening to the next era of UK music, that’s when it felt most connected to New York and for my demographic and my age range – I want to make that very clear – they were the first ones to start crossing over. Then Cench came about and took it up a level. 

I remember working in the radio station, and I would play some, like, UK music, and they’d be like, “Gabe, how do you listen to that?” Because it’s like the accent for a lot of people got in the way but it’s become a lot more accepted. I’ve always shown love to people over here and it’s always been my plan to expand globally.

At the time of this interview we’ve just had Wireless weekend. We had Drake bring out Fakemink, YT performed, Len, Jayahadadream. It almost felt like a changing of the guard in terms of UK music. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely. It’s so interesting watching the quote unquote underground get so big here. People like Len, Jim Legxacy, Fakemink. It’s been so cool to watch, because it feels like something new and something that hasn’t been done yet. Even for Drake to even take notice and bring out Fakemink felt like a big moment.  I love seeing it happen. I think what they all have going on is incredible. Their aesthetic and how they’ve also inspired fashion here in the UK and in America. That’s been really cool to watch as well, too. It did feel like a little bit of a changing of the guard moment because obviously you have Cench at the top and these guys are right there with him. I love it.

In Drake’s Wireless performance on Saturday he said that the UK was better than the US in terms of lyricism. Do you have any comments on that?

I mean, it’s tough right now, because I think overall, like, that statement is an interesting statement, because the context of it, I think it needs to be fleshed out more.  Are you saying like, right now? Are you saying overall? Because if you say right now, I can see how the argument could be made. A lot of American artists right now, the music that they make is more about feeling versus lyricism especially the younger ones. 

 But if we’re talking about a general, like, forever conversation, I can’t sign that off. Like we have Jadakiss. (Laughs) You know what I’m saying? Like we got Jadakiss, we got Hov. But like, right now, I think if we’re talking in terms of lyricism, like the UK has a ton of amazing lyricists, and there’s a lot of young lyricists in America that are coming up too. I can look at people like Samara Cyn and even BabyChiefDoIt. I think a lot of people look at him as a Chicago drill rapper but lyrically the stuff he’s been putting out recently has been excellent and I think he’s a star. 

I can’t entirely agree with Drake on that, but naturally, I also feel you gotta say that he’s in London, and you guys have been such an important part of his entire career. More Life is one of my favourite Drake records and you can hear the UK sound all over it. I’m not dismissing it, but I’m also not fully agreeing at the same time, because you gotta look at the broader context.

In terms of your time here now, are you trying to shine a light on a broad scope of the UK scene?

The diversity that we’ve done here is insane. We’ve had singers, we’ve had rappers, we’ve had drill artists. What you’re gonna get from this, and what I hope to accomplish with every international series that we do, is that we try to get as many people from that country as possible to show the overall spectrum that the country has to offer.  While you might not get everything that you want out of this series, there’s gonna be something that you’re gonna love regardless. I also think that there’s something here for everybody who’s from the UK as well.

This is your second international expansion in a relatively short space of time. Where do you see On The Radar in the near future and where do you want to take it?

That’s a beautiful question. The next two stops that we’re aiming to do are France and Germany.  I think while we’re on this euro run, let’s keep Let’s keep it going. I also want to do Spain, and then we’re also working on eventually making our way over to Asia. I think Japan, China and South Korea are very appealing to us and where we want to take it. I’m Puerto Rican, so with that being said, going to Latin America is very important for me. We’re working on all three of those things, kind of like, simultaneously. 

I do know for sure, at least in our heads right now, France and Germany are next. We’ve had a ton of great German artists on the show lately, and I think Germany’s hip hop scene is so unique and different, because it doesn’t really penetrate further than that area.  France obviously, we’ve had a fucking ton of on the radar, so, like, I already know what’s going on there, and I think that that’s a really unique opportunity as well. I also want to eventually become the biggest streaming platform on DSPs. I want to rival our friends over at COLORS with that even though those are our people and we love them. This is all motivation for me and I’m always trying to raise my game■

On The Radar’s UK series begins today, September 12th.