As if Drakeo The Ruler's "Talk To Me" collaboration with Billboard Juggernaut Drake wasn't a calling card indicator of the growing relationship between the Scorpion rapper's October’s Very Own (OVO) imprint and the next generation of West Coast artists, the new episode of OVO Sound Radio is like a formal acknowledgment of that connection.
R. Baron Group, the creative agency responsible for breaking numerous trending acts including Shoreline Mafia, 03 Greedo, and Money Sign $eude delivered a 45-minute guest mix for episode three of OVO’s Sound 42 broadcast on Sirius XM satellite radio Thursday (April 1).
Helmed by the Co-Founder of OVO Oliver El Khatib, the latest Sound 42 episode taps R. Baron Group Co- Founder and UpandOn1 Records executive Jeremiah “Picaso” Aubert and DJ Hyphen for an exclusive guest mix featuring new exclusives and unreleased heat.
The OVO and R. Baron mash-up mix is the result of a long-standing business relationship between the two camps, years in the making, that was seemingly set into motion last year following the release of Shoreline Mafia’s debut Mafia Bidnezz album — which peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 Chart. Picasso revealed he and Oliver connected through a shared admiration for each other’s work while he was working with Shoreline on the project and explained how the link essentially initiated their collaboration.
“He was a fan of Greedo, Drakeo, Shoreline,” Picaso says. “Oliver started reaching out, and we started doing things—feeding him records early, getting his advice about Shoreline’s albums, behind the scenes. He gave me opinions, and I applied them to certain things."
The collaborative back-channel the pair built within the last year is clearly evident, with both OhGeesy and Fenix Flexin appearing in their own OVO capsule collections, and of course, via Drakeo’s “Talk To Me” track featuring Drizzy — which currently has more than 10 million streams on Spotify.
Picaso says he and Oliver came up with the idea for their Sound 42 collaboration under the premise of re-inventing a platform that helped shape the careers of multiple artists, and ultimately put the OVO boss in-tune with the audio frequencies emitting from the West Coast. Previously, Picaso and DJ Hyphen created similar mixes on a UpandOn1 tumblr page. The mixes featured the early music released by artists such as the Stinc Team, Lil Yachty, Playboi Carti, Divine Council, Maxo Kream, and others, and garnered hundreds of thousands of plays — giving birth to the Young N*ggas Rule The World mixtape series, and a short-lived broadcast on VICE’s Noisey Radio.
OVO Sounds’ recent move to Sirius XM proved to be the perfect point of alignment for both brands and Picaso and Oliver’s appreciation and commitment to developing the biggest talents early.
“All the people that Oliver is a fan of came from what I did three years ago with the mixes,” Picaso said. “I’ve got all these dope records because I work with all these young talented dudes. So I created the mix and presented it to Oliver. He’s messing with it tough.”
OVO’s Sound 42 radio is a 24-hour station featuring non-stop bops, and exclusive curated broadcasts like this episode featuring R. Baron’s guest mix.
Stream the full two-hour broadcast below, then tap in with R. Baron and Upandon1 on Instagram for details on when the tracks will hit DSP’s.