Rap Genius Co-Founder: Zuck Can Suck My Dick
Rap Genius’ co-founder Mahbod Moghadam’s interview with Wakefield editor Guy Cimbalo was so outrageous, the tech newsletter ran it in full. Nobody was safe from Moghadam’s sharp tongue, as he told Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to suck his dick, called the New York Times Carlos Slim’s ho, and said, “I’m a fiscal conservative, but I was like fuck Romney.”
Rap Genius is a Web site where users can annotate rap lyrics. Founded by Moghadam and two fellow Yale undergrads in 2009, the Wikipedia-like site attracts more than 10 million unique users a month and features annotations from verified users such as Nas, RZA and Common. Since scoring a $15 million investment from venture firm Andreesen Horowitz last year, Rap Genius has exploded with the goal of providing annotations for everything on the Web.
On the business side, Moghadam told Cimbalo the company has 17 full-time employees in New York now, as well as a “hella” part-timers all over the world. With 500,000 people writing explanations of lyrics, he said Rap Genius is “like a giant Ponzi scheme.”
Moghadam also suggested a Rap Genius sequel may be in the works—or two.
“StereoIQ that’s my baby – that’s Rap Genius for indie rock… I’m all about indie rock right now,” Moghadam said. “And then Bible Genius, that’s when we’re gonna get real Talmudic.”
But he also wants to get more artists annotating their own works, as well as other celebrities annotating items of significance.
“We need to get every single famous person explaining their own shit, or their favorite shit,” Moghadam said. “And we need Barack, who’s a huge fan of the site – we need to meet with him, and chill with him, and we need to get him explaining the Constitution, explaining Jay-Z.”
Yes, that’s right. According to Moghadam, the President of the United States is a Rap Genius fan “since the early days,” and “the man” in Moghadam’s opinion.
Obama may be a fan, but apparently Zuckerberg is pissed at Moghadam over an incident at a mutual friend’s house. And yes, before you ask, he really did say, “Zuck can suck my dick.“
“We took pictures of Zuck with Nas. He should be honored, but he demanded an apology. I guess he’s like Rainman,” Maghadam explained, adding that he was drunk and Instagrammed the photo without “Zuck’s” permission. “But then the press picked it up and apparently Zuck gets home and his whole PR crew is calling him every five seconds, and he told us to take it down. We wrote a letter of apology and I feel sorry… But then on the other hand, fuck that fool – that’s Nas the Don. It’s not like I’m taking a picture of him smoking weed. You know he only went for a year, but once you go to Harvard it’s just game over for you personality wise.”
And the fun didn’t end there. Moghadam went on to explain how Rap Genius got “burned” by the New York Times.
“They talked mad shit about us and said we were Orientalists or whatever, but honestly they can suck my dick because they’re Carlos Slim’s ho.”
Of course in the end, Moghadam felt bad for showing such aggression to his adversaries, admitting it truly is “all about the love.” Perhaps his attitude could be blamed on the Vyvanse he took for the interview, or the fact that he was “just feeling icy.”
You gotta love this guy! It’s no wonder his creation is a hit. Of course there’s no lack of… let’s call it smugness… on Moghadam’s part.
“Rap Genius is a cult,” he bragged. “I consider is a religion. (Co-founder) Tom (Lehman) is God, and he lets me be the messiah.”
Hell, even Zuckerberg visits the site a lot, according to Moghadam, even though he refuses to get a verified account. Moghadam can hope, though.
“I heard he’s really into Classics, so we put up Pericles’ funeral oration for him to explain,” he said.
[Image via Twitter]