Covering hip-hop, R&B and popular culture for over 20 years, Jayson Rodriguez has interviewed some of the biggest names in music during his distinguished career, including Drake, Mary J. Blige, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Queen Latifah and Dr. Dre, among others.
In 2007, his one-on-on sitdown with Jay-Z earned him recognition by MTV as one of the network’s 10 best interviews of the year, where his work was highlighted alongside peers Sway Calloway, John Norris and Suchin Pak. As a reporter for MTV News, Rodriguez also covered high-profile events like Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration, Michael Jackson’s funeral and Shyne’s controversial release from prison.
In addition, Rodriguez exercised his talents beyond news gathering, by producing broadcast specials, including 2009’s “Chris Brown: The Interview” (MTV), 2016’s Keep It 1600: Wale at the White House (Revolt TV), the 2017 Live Nation documentary, “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story” (Apple Music/Fox) and he contributed freelance pieces to a number of media outlets, such as Billboard, NBC News and Rolling Stone (“Drake’s Big Break“).
More recently, he’s guided a number of prominent, multi-media projects as an executive producer and showrunner, including The Breakfast Club on BET, a partnership between iHeartMedia’s Power 105 radio station and Paramount’s BET network; Spotify’s The Bridge: 50 Years of Hip Hop, hosted by Grammy-winning recording artist, Nas, and veteran journalist, Minya “Miss Info” Oh; and 7PM in Brooklyn, with Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame candidate, Carmelo Anthony, and late-night staple, The Kid Mero.
From 2011 to 2013, he served on the staff of XXL magazine as its executive editor, where he penned four cover stories (50 Cent, Rick Ross, etc.), supervised the editorial, art and photo staff and contributed to the brand’s digital strategy.
In 2014, Rodriguez was appointed the first editorial director of Revolt Media & TV, where for two years he oversaw the network’s music and culture coverage online and was instrumental to its social media and linear news planning.
Rodriguez was later a senior producer and on-air talent at Vevo, where he directed doc shorts on Pusha T and GoldLink and hosted “Live At Vevo,” a hip-hop performance and interview series that featured guests like Nipsey Hussle, Tech N9ne, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, A$AP Ferg, Fabolous and Jadakiss.
Pursuing independent passions throughout his career, Rodriguez created the livestreaming show, “The BQE” (with co-host Shaheem Reid), which aired on PNC Radio from 2012-2013; managed an upstart recording artist, Mike Jaggerr (The Eleventh Hour mixtape); and currently publishes Backseat Freestyle, his popular, weekly hip-hop newsletter, while also developing a variety of projects under his Smarty Art production banner.
An avid social media enthusiast, Complex named him one of the 25 must follow music writers on Twitter.
Rodriguez graduated from the University of Delaware with a B.A. in English and obtained his master’s in journalism from N.Y.U.
And although he no longer lives in Brooklyn—having moved to the ‘burbs with his wife and their daughter—he still thinks Biggie Smalls is the illest.
Follow Rodriguez on Bluesky, Instagram and LinkedIn or subscribe to his newsletter, here.