KSI drops album on track to hit No.1 in the UK as well as debuting The KSI Show and multiple collaborations with former rival Logan Paul.
KSI has had a massive couple of weeks debuting The KSI Show, dropping a new album and collaborating with Logan Paul in the latest Sidemen video. The rapper is one of YouTube’s biggest stars to come out of the UK ranked second by The Sunday Times in their list of the Top 100 UK Influencers in 2019.
KSI, also known as JJ, first joined Youtube back in 2009 and was mostly known for his gaming commentary videos. Since then, his videos have diversified into vlogs, diss tracks, comedic skits and much more. Between his two main channels, KSI and JJ Olatunji, he has acquired a total of 36.6 million subscribers and 8.6 billion views as of July this year.
He is also part of one of the biggest and most successful YouTube groups founded in 2013 called the Sidemen consisting of KSI, Miniminter, Zerkaa, TBJZL, Behzinga, Vikkstar123 and W2S. All Sidemen channels combined have accumulated a mass following of over 123 million subscribers.
Boxing History
KSI and fellow British Youtuber Joe Weller, following Twitter disagreements and several diss tracks directed at each other, announced they would be settling their feud in an amateur boxing match in Feb 2018. JJ ultimately came out victorious and at the conclusion of the fight raised awareness for mental health before calling out American Youtuber Logan Paul for a fight. The fight live-streamed to 1.6 million viewers and gained 25 million views several days after being uploaded.
One year later it was announced that KSI and Logan Paul would face each other in the ring. The fight concluded as a majority draw and was described as “the biggest white-collar boxing match in history” by the Independent as well as “the biggest amateur boxing match in history” by Radio Times. The event sold 21 000 tickets for the Manchester Arena and was live-streamed by over 2.25 million viewers.
In 2019 the rematch was set and unlike the original, this was to be a professional fight without the use of headgear. KSI was trained by Jeff Mayweather and pro boxer Viddal Riley and was named the winner by split decision.
Logan Paul Rivalry
The pair have through their fights, several press conferences and diss tracks have earned the reputation of having one of the biggest feuds in the YouTube community. However, following his appearance on The KSI Show, Logan Paul made his debut on the Sidemen channel. Which saw the Sidemen split into 2 teams lead by the two boxers for a friendly competition of Extreme Fishing in the English Channel.
A fan commented, “It’s almost like Batman and the Joker became friends and went fishing.”
After catching a stingray, a starfish and even each other, Logan ultimately took another loss to JJ 11 – 8. JJ jokingly radioed “How does it feel to lose again Logan?”
KSI also featured on Logan Paul’s podcast IMPAULSIVE. The pair sat down and had a friendly discussion covering their boxing careers, work as influencers and expressing their mutual respect.
Some of the other topics covered during the podcast included: Logan vs Mayweather, Diss Tracks, Being a Disney Actor, KSI vs Olivia Rodrigo, Work Ethic, Nutrition, Deji vs Vinne Hacker, Celebrities Fighting, Youtube’s Evolution, Music, KSI vs Mayweather, Logan vs Mike Tyson and much more.
The KSI Show
After announcing The KSI Show, the rapper claimed it would be the biggest show to be done by a Youtuber. And revealed that Logan Paul would be featuring on the show as well, releasing an image of the two in the ring again on Twitter.
Credit: RedditJJ originally planned to conduct the show but was forced to release an online livestream due to the pandemic restrictions. In a Youtube video leading up to the release, KSI revealed that he and his team had been working on the show for 11 months with 250 people involved and 2 million pounds invested in the project. He also disclosed that writers from American Dad were brought in to aid with the script as well as several staff members who previously worked on events such as the BRITS, Grammy’s and the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
Some of the most notable guests featured included: the Sidemen, Anne Marie, Craig David, Digital Farm Animals, Tion Wayne, Jay1, Swarmz, Ella Henderson, Nathan Dawe, Jonathan Ross, Jack Whitehall and Logan Paul.
The show aired on Momenthouse.com on the 17th of July and was met with very mixed reviews. KSI addressed all fans’ criticism in his video “The KSI Show Was Bad?”, taking to Reddit to read about the reception of the show. It is clear in the video that JJ is heartbroken by the reception of the show and expresses his disappointment as he had worked extremely hard on it saying, “I thought I did something.”
However, JJ didn’t shy away from any of the criticism and admitted that he could have approached things differently. And strongly encouraged his fans to express their opinions fairly and truthfully. The rapper apologised to his fans saying that he wants to make them proud and will implement all this feedback in anything he does in the future.
His honesty and attitude towards the feedback was well respected by his fans who commented on the video:
“KSI takes a WIN for speaking directly with his fans here and taking criticisms well. Not a lot of other YouTubers or especially Celebrities would be humble enough to do this and upload it for all to see him take an L. I’m not really a fan of him but this video shows his character as a person and makes me want to check out more of his videos/support him. Great job, KSI. You are brave for doing this. Respect.?” Frank Legend
“Y is everyone hating on him he just needs to learn from his mistakes and try again. That’s all we have to learn from this.” Vir Parmar
“It sucks for JJ. I feel so bad for him, even more after seeing how humbly he has dealt with the criticism. The man spent months and months, dollars and dollars trying to do something he thought we would enjoy. It must hurt like hell to open his reddit and check how badly we reacted to what he actively worked so hard on. Respect JJ. We still support you”
– Leandro Saraiva
All Over The Place
All Over The Place was released on the 16th of July, and was led by the singles “Really Love”, “Don’t Play”, “Patience” and “Holiday”. The project features contributions from Anne-Marie, Digital Farm Animals, 21 Savage, YOUNGBLUD, Craig Davidson and many more.
Its predecessor Dissimulation contained 12 tracks with features from artists such as Offset, Tion Wayne, Lil Pump, Jeremih, Rick Ross and Lil Baby just to name a few. And peaked at number 2 on the UK Album’s charts as well as earning KSI a Silver BPI certification after surpassing 60 000 sales.
With the release of All Over The Place, KSI’s Spotify monthly listeners currently sits at 9.7 million and is on track to become his first UK No. 1 according to Billboard. The piece also outlines that the album is currently “outselling the rest of the of the Top 5 combined” and that “it’s the market leader on physical and digital sales”.
Check out All Over The Place on Spotify now!
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