Capone-N-Norega MC N.O.R.E and Miami Hip Hop staple DJ EFN brought their Drink Champs podcast to Revolt TV last year, which was quickly turned into a video series. The show has just been picked up for a second season, which didn’t necessarily surprise EFN.
“It wasn’t a surprise ‘cause the show got its success as a podcast,” EFN explains. “The visual was secondary to the audio podcast, but we knew we were going to continue doing it in some format. It just happened that we did the trial run with Revolt for six episodes and it worked really well for everybody. We were happy and they renewed it for a full season.”
The first episode of season two premiered on Thursday (July 27) and the featured guest was “Mama Said Knock You Out” rapper LL Cool J, who finally shed some light on some burning questions N.O.R.E. had bottled up for years. The idea is to get each guest as drunk as possible so they’ll hopefully start opening up about a bevy of topics.
“There's nothing off premise on our show,” N.O.R.E. says. “Nothing. We joke on the guests, we joke on past guests … we just have fun. That's the basis of the show. If we're not having fun, we're doing something wrong.”
“Really, it just depends on the vibe,” EFN adds. “In the beginning, the interview starts off straightforward, but as the shots go down, everything starts to spiral in a different direction.”
Some pretty outrageous stories can result from the (sometimes) massive consumption of alcohol that goes down on the show, but the hosts don’t intentionally try to get anything salacious out of their guests.
“Personally, we don't set out to gossip or do anything, but the mere fact they're drinking for more than an hour with anybody, that interview is going to deteriorate,” N.O.R.E. says. “Something is going to come out in that environment that ends up becoming something that goes viral or something on a gossipy level. It's never our intention. I think that's what people like about the show, as well. We’re not setting out to do ‘gotcha questions,’ we’re just genuinely trying to have a conversation and we're just getting drunk, and when you get drunk, shit happens.”
The Drinks Champs hosts want to drive home that anyone they consider a “legend” is welcome on the show and it doesn’t matter if you drink or not.
“Everybody's welcome whether you're sober or a drinker or a smoker or if you don't do nothing,” N.O.R.E. says. “If you're a legend, you're still welcome. It won’t change premise of the show or change who we are. We will just drink for them. There are a lot of sober artists out there and just know that you're welcome.”
Drink Champs airs on Thursdays at 7 p.m. PST.
By Kyle Eustice for RAPstation.com
