two years ago CJ was one of the most popular names in the hip-hop genre after dropping his explosive hit record titled whoopy in the span of less than a year he went from being a nobody from Staten Island to having a number one hit record on the charts co-signs from some of the biggest names in the industry and scored a major record deal with literally just two official songs to his catalog however over the last year CJ's audience has decreased by nearly 90% according to Social blade in his Google trans grab further shows just how
much he has faded into irrelevancy earlier this year it was also reported he was officially dropped from his label which showcases just how bad his fallof has become it's your boy Lea and today we're going to investigate why CJ disappeared off the face of the [Music] planet when CJ dropped his song whoopy on July 30th 2020 it popped off immediately which was pretty does for a few reasons I mean for one if we use the Wayback machine we can see that this guy barely had 40,000 subscribers on his channel when he somehow managed to pull
in 7 million views on a video a month later it jumped to nearly 80 million so how did this random Latino guy from Staten Island New York absolutely thecode the secret to going viral in the modern music era did he simply find the recipe to success that quickly with rappers like ice spice Chance the Rapper and baby Keem all being tagged with the industry plant label now naturally people started wondering if CJ was next in line however is it possible to make the claim that he had just made a banger and it hit at the
right place at the right time cuz in interviews that surface shortly after the song's release CJ claimed that Whoopi was nothing more than a random first attempt at making drill music for the people that don't know Whoopi was my first drill record I ever made in life I never experimented with drill I never made a drill record before that as you may or may not know drill music is a sub genre that was becoming massively popular in New York at the time it's also important to note that pop smoke who was seen as the face
of drill music around the time CJ started blowing up had passed away just 5 months before whoopy came out so there's an argument to be made that people were just hungry for something new and it felt like the perfect moment for someone like CJ to step in to fill a big void in the drill music scene drill was just so hot at the time I was like yo let me see what I could do on a drill be you know what I'm saying I was just playing around like I'm not a drill rapper I had
no intentions of being a drill rapper today I'm not a drill rapper it just happened to be I blew up off of a quote unquote drill Bas song what makes things even all more crazier is that the beef for whoopdee was already used by pop smoke King vaugh and other drill rappers so what was it about CJ's inclusion of it on whoopy that blew it up out of proportion could it just be the fact that he made it more catchy and simple for the average listener to understand making it much easier to sing along to
or is there something that went on behind the scenes that he was hiding from the audience the second the song dropped it went on to become a viral Dance Challenge on Tik Tok which could be one of the main reasons it was able to climb the charts so quickly but something that was pretty suspicious was the fact it was also given a huge push when cardi B played the song on her Instagram story French Montana then made him an honorary member of Coke Boys with the gift of a chain he then got Legends like bust
of Rhymes to feature on his songs and even Mark Wahlberg was seen hanging out with this dude so it's no secret that something deeper was probably going on behind the scenes with all these people in his corner it didn't seem too out of pocket when he said he wanted to be one of the greats although it was an extremely high bar to set for someone who had just a solo single on Spotify up at the time while the industry plant allegations piled on CJ things went from bad to worse when he did this genius interview
that took place on November 27th 2020 where he went on to discuss the meaning behind the word [Music] whoopdee whoopy I'm outside of some movie pretty much whoopy like guess worldwide now you know I got babies you know saying whoopy I got you know middle-aged people you know older people pretty much it's just like a Rollo you know whenever I see my guys in the street and you know that's how we greet each other it's like a New York when people say yeah while this interview seemed simple on the surface it resulted in a whole
ton of drama for CJ that would become inescapable throughout the duration of his career to preface this segment it's important to know the severity of what being labeled a fake gangster can do to your reputation as a rapper for some reason it seems that people enjoy rappers with a gangster Persona as some of the biggest rappers in the world are tied to some kind of gang affiliation this was kind of the case for someone like Gucci man who literally murdered someone in 2006 which many would consider the time period where the rapper was in his
prime even Chicago rappers is like little BBY claim that him killing someone was the reason he liked Gucci man so much man you know Chicago people just love Gucci man he like he like everybody's Idol man he like a gangster man first of all he K somebody for trying to rob him and then he wed about it he made all the type of diss song man Chicago just like NE negative [ __ ] man we we we we like um we like people that's really Gangsta man you know what I'm saying however this only seems
to be the case for a rapper who actually stands by the words they say within the lyrics and for this very reason the music video for Whoopi would also cause a ton of unwanted drama for CJ because as you probably know the video for [ __ ] D shows visuals of CJ rocking red bandanas while also hanging around members of a Bloods gang from New York rappers like slim Jesus and 69 show the whole world the type of success you can achieve by this marketing gimmick which seems to perform even better if the rapper is
not black it's not just a coincidence that all of these artists's biggest songs just happen to feature a substantial amount of gang activity to help increase shock value and speaking of 69 he also had a hand in CJ's drama but we'll delve into that part later in the video of course these aren't the only reasons the song blew up it also had a banging beat in a hell of a catchy hook however problems began to arise when people started to dissect what the word whoopy even means and much to their surprise it wasn't just some
madeup slang as CJ made it seem in his interview with genius but rather the word had an incredibly dark history behind it the rap dictionary defines wopi to be a noun meaning a gang calling greeting salute or ackowledgement for New York Blood gang members upon further investigation and fan speculation people began to question CJ's authenticity of being a real Bloods gang member Whoopi is a slang that is closely linked to the ma baller Blood Hound brims which is a notorious gang in New York City that's been around since 2005 at one point it was considered
to be one of the most dangerous gangs in New York according to to a post that dates back to 2014 the Mac baller brims were known for doing some pretty serious stuff for instance some members actually kidnapped a dad whose child is a prosecutor in North Carolina all because they were mad about the sentence one of their own God and there's another tragic story of a 14-year-old kid who got mixed up in all this and ended up getting shot by the cops it's also said that joining this gang could mean you've got to commit murder
as your initiation these incidents show the dangerous and risky World CJ was stepping into and if he really wasn't about that life he was making a big mistake for clout and it's clear that CJ was definitely affiliating himself with this group as people began to notice that he had referenced specific gang members from The Blood Hound brims in his lyrics when he [Music] said in this line CJ is heard referencing sleazes which is a shout out to a New York rapper named SZ mola who is part of the mabala family and goes by nickname names
like big SLE or sleazy also when the song mentions hats he's once again referring to members of the brim gang Bloods these are the kind of details that shifted the whole conversation suddenly people started to question CJ's realness they wanted to know if he was genuinely part of a game or if he was just borrowing their lingo and reputation to make a hit song and grab some attention but at first CJ didn't back down and was pretty sincere about not only being a gang member but also the fact that he had simply made up the
word whoopy besides claiming that he and his friends invented the word he went as far as to filing a trademark to own the rights to the word whoopdee but this only made things worse it eventually caught the attention of the leader of The Blood Hound brims lebrin who despite being arrested for 30 years for Narcotics trafficking and Firearm offenses took the time to make a phone call in reference to CJ yeah this your boy la la Johnson so I'm going take a moment to set the record straight for you I see a lot of controversy
over this woopy thing so first and for almost CJ made a hot song but the content that he used is not his content so his foundation is based off a l he's not whoopy he don't know nothing about whoopy he went on to state that CJ knows nothing about whoopy and that he literally stole the term claiming that his song was disrespectful to the entire gang is that I heard the kid was trying to claim it as something that he made or that him and his dudes grew up with I didn't appreciate the fakeness and
the fraudulent with that that to me like that was some fraud that was some busted like everybody know where woy come from he didn't even understand what woy is so I was very disappointed with that situation very his phone call from lebm had a quite severe impact on CJ's street cred with more gang members and Affiliates questioning CJ's authenticity one user wrote a comment stating CJ owes them royalty percentages while another claimed that New York Bloods were getting finessed a member of the Bloods gang by the name of G5 res hopped on Instagram live to
fire more shots at CJ's inauthenticity gangster you got around that been putting on for this [ __ ] for Years [ __ ] you got my bro up North for 30 years right now [ __ ] pull the [ __ ] up right now pull up cuz it's not a game no more bro like with the industry turning against him after they realized he wasn't about that life the fans follow and we're now turning on him in the comment section most fugazy blood I ever seen how has this dude not gotten clapped up yet only
one song in and CJ was facing his real first beef in hip-hop but rather than it being a big publicity stunt to gain traction and new listeners this one quickly got serious as if things weren't bad enough he'd soon be hit with allegations that he stole the entire flow of other MC's if you're new to hip-hop let me make it clear that this is one of the worst things you can be accused of fighting another MC's bars or flows has been at the center of plenty of rap beefs over the years so when two rappers
named bzy Banks and tutu G's came out to say that CJ was a little sus and had basically jacked their whole style it became another huge problem for him to deal with real CJ giving me six n Vibes and boy from Staten Island the safest Bureau in NYC her he ain't even whoopy for real that CJ dude need to give me my credit no cap busy Banks then set on IG D jacking my lingo and flow I'm tired of not getting the recognition I deserve I started this new wave of drill rap let's talk about
it rather than being a vague accusation people actually began to put together side by-side comparisons to show how his Styles sounded next to buses check this out at my swag d B [Music] Us in the immortal words of Soulja Boy word for word bar for bar tut2 G's would then follow this up with a whoopy remix titled goofy where he then went in on [Music] CJ the song went viral racking up nearly a million views and fans were loving every bit of it in a Reddit post discussing The Disappearance of CJ some fans claimed that
tut2 G's disc was the nail in the coffin but yet again CJ wouldn't back down and would keep pushing further into his gang member Persona in a song called hit up where he fires shots at tut2 G's gang the Gangster Disciples as well as throwing up their gang signs with his hands in the video the song also went crazy gaining 3 million views however his fans were beginning to worry about CJ being that he was now putting his whole life on the line then on April 7th 2022 CJ made another bold move when he showed
up to DJ Vlad to discuss the beef claiming he would beat up 22gs in busy Banks if they kept dissing him if it really came down to it like we could squabble you know what I'm saying like we we could just get it on you know what I'm saying like if it if it's that serious you know what I'm saying it was like every other week from this point on CJ would be confronted with another gang member attempting to prove he was a fraud going on live stream after live stream to try to clear his
name and receiving countless amounts of threats yo we talking about CJ nobody I I see the tags I know we talk about in the span of less than a year of blowing up CJ was dealing with allegations of being an industry plant a fake gangster and now a flow stealer but in 2021 his entire Empire would crumble into [Music] pieces in January of 2021 the table officially flipped on CJ when the the Pitchfork news site published an article completely exposing him titled New York drill rapper CJ is nothing but a Shameless ripoff in this article
they detailed that CJ's rise to fame wasn't just some random luck like everyone assumed and exposed crucial details about CJ that no one knew about when they claimed that his uncle was James Cruz for those who aren't familiar James is a high-powered executive in the music industry during his time at violator management he helped oversee the early careers of 50 Cent Nicki Minaj and bust of rymes who like I mentioned gave CJ a pretty big feature early in his career he also served as the president of Bad Boy Records for nearly two decades the same
Bad Boy Records that is run by Diddy and had French Montana on its roster for nearly a decade which also explains the French Montana cosign that I explained earlier as well you see what I'm getting at here having a connection like that is huge because it opens doors James's influence could easily get CJ's music played on radio stations giving him an advantage most upcoming artists could only dream of now here's another fun fact one of CJ's first tracks was actually released back in 2018 the same time period that 69 was dominating the rap scene with
hit after hit interestingly enough CJ and 69 actually teamed up for a song called pop that many people aren't aware of as it was only released on Soundcloud fast forward a bit and that collab came back to haunt CJ it resurfaced online and got people talking on platforms like Reddit claiming he was an industry plan his uncle James didn't exactly shy away from the fact that that he had a hand in CJ's career either and straight up exposed him in an interview discussing CJ's success where he literally revealed that he came out of retirement just
to manage him and I said okay play me The Record they play me this record called whoopy I go [ __ ] you got a record like you you got one like damn I didn't expect that and then um I said what else you got he said what else I need and ain't going to work with one record what you want what you want me to do you want you want you want to perform on Carnival Cruise Lines in 30 years like you need a body of work looks like Uncle James could have been on
to something as that's basically how his career played out now as you will see he basically told CJ his future still he called in some favors to get CJ positioned for Success I'm going help the kid I'mma help him he deserves his family his pops called me and I gave his pops a promise and I spoke to his moms and I said I got this we get him a record to make matters worse James didn't even step aside after CJ was set up he was heard telling his nephew what to reveal and what not to
during interviews say sh yeah uhuh oh we ain't supposed to be talking about that you got you got to have two different album [Laughter] deals shout out to James Cruz when you're already suspected of an industry plant allowing another man to publicly tell you what to say isn't going to help things even if he was trying to put his head in the sand and ignore it that didn't mean that a change in the Public's interest in CJ was taking place it didn't stop there either once the tracks uncleared sample nearly led to whoopy being taken
off streaming platform forms Uncle James took out 80k of his own daughter's college fund to keep the track online so even though CJ initially tried to paint himself as this self-made rapper who did it without a deal or a team having made it to the top the truth was much different than the story he'd sold to the public initially CJ tried to move past the industry planed talk just as he'd attempted to overcome the rumors of being a fake blood there's no response you know what I'm saying I I don't pay that no mind you
know um everybody got a depend you can't satisfy everybody you know what I'm saying so like I'm going just keep doing what I do you know what I'm saying and and and elevating you know what I'm saying and and perfecting my craft I don't really pay no M to you know with the internet saying so so when he dropped an EP called loyalty over royalty in 2021 it pretty much fell off the face of the Earth without anyone noticing later he would try to shoot himself some bail for that EP disappearing quicker than Jimmy haa
it started becoming so much of a conversation that it got in my head that I was so I started making more drill music you know what I'm saying cuz I was getting so much love from from from that movement that I was like [ __ ] it I'mma to do a whole EP of this [ __ ] and I did but then I realized I'm like yo like I got to be me and I can't get caught up in that drill that [ __ ] came with a lot bro basically he tried to replicate the
success of Whoopi and found that the audience that had helped make that track a hit wasn't checking for him anymore and to make things worse no one bought his excuses either CJ ain't a real artist he realized it when the gangsters started calling him out for jacking the style and ain't really about it he faked it to be a blood and he's a wnab be his 15 minutes are up already fast forward to today and he's still trying to dress up the fact that he chased the wave and had it backfire in every interview when
the label Hears A song they're coming to you like tell me you have five more of these of course now in your in the back of your mind that's everybody's dream yeah that's you know in the back of your mind you're probably be like it's not the type of artist I am but I did make the song exactly now also people in the streets are trying to bring you into like exactly I kind of just wanted to like stay away from that a little bit you know what I'm saying get back to my melodic jump
into the Latin do this that just so I don't get that pigeon hole label you know what I'm saying the track replica got some viral success it obviously wasn't enough for CJ though because he's returned to trying to make drill tracks that tried to capture the essence of whoopy success in some cases he just basically copied the song to the letter and the results are pretty ridiculous to be honest PE this clip of Dubai from August of 2022 Miami Jo B said that sh was a two pack of in February of 2023 Warner had enough
and severed their relationship with him once and for all users commented things like took the hit and canned him damn the song was lit until the world found out he was fake claiming in the months that followed CJ tried to reframe it like it was his decision to leave with his Masters because whoopy was enough for him to recoup on his advance but if Warner thought that there was any value left in him they would have tried to lock him back in once again people weren't buying it sounds like the label didn't think he was
capable of making another hit
