Isn’t that just scam rap with extra steps

i don't even blame the street dudes tbh. i think that they are surrounded by yes-men and pigs who go out of their way to feed into the behavior that what they are doing is great because it benefits themselves

and going away from execs, the audience is to blame as well. not on some boomer s***, but people are conditioned to hearing a particular sound and they want that sound. same can be said outside of the music industry, with Marvel movies and COD games flooding the market because it is a rinse-wash-repeat business

when a major label artist does decide to go experimental and out of their comfort zone, it's immediately bashed as "mid" because it's not what the audience wants

who got locked up directly as a result of their lyrics in the 90s

Nah absolutely not, I loved those guys and I probably spent more time than I admit listening to “Im Up” “Flocka Durant”, and every classic mixtape from that era

I just meant that the there was a large amount of energy that was placed on the happy rap era with Lil Yachty (before he came back to his rapping roots), DRAM/SHELLY etc

Now that its fallen out of favor, street rap is bigger than its ever been

I dont think any style can die

I was more interested to hear what people think the fallout will be from the main faces getting locked up.

I mean Thug, Gunna, Durk, G Herbo, are no small fries

this is bigger than rap tbh. this just applies to the entertainment industry in general

I feel like mainstream gangsta rap was kinda in background from about 2007 to about 2018

Rap will definitely become more pop and upbeat someday again

Uhm what that Kendrick guy just put out

The issue is the fact that no one has come yet and made an “artistic” album out of this new street sound yet, that could be what pushes this forward.

Another issue is that these street dudes were never really “music people” they just started rapping cause they knew them being known in the hood is leverage, not really the music. Nobody wants to co-sign a fake gangster. Pop Smoke was the perfect street rapper, he had everything from the image to the sound, he was gonna reach early 2000s 50 Cent levels of big imo. He had an it factor that not every street rapper has.

Whenever the labels sign someone who can be deemed as experimental they usually pick someone who just isn’t it, they don’t ever pick someone who can bridge the gap cause those are artists who aren’t the obvious superstar choice. Travis and Carti and perfect examples of this, upon debut nobody in a label would expect them to be as influential as they’ve become but they bridge the gap between the streets and being artistic and not everyone can see that.

The labels go big and push for whoever they think has the potential to be the their cash-cow when they sign non street rap guys, only issue is when thinking about money they play it too safe and the dudes they pick are almost always intentionally too corny which naturally gets labeled as mid lmao. Rocky might be the only time they got it right off rip and knew he was gonna be the guy.

Money Man

big ol f***in facts, especially on a lot of rappers not being "music people." how many stories have you heard from people saying they only rapped cuz they wanted to make it out of the hood, and not for the love of music? and the thing is, i feel for them. if they feel that they need to get out of their situation, then do it. but there are a lot of problems that come with it as explained earlier

I fw Travis and Carti, but they've been exploited in different ways. Their fanbases are mostly made up of white people who are exposed to all sorts of different kinds of music and aren't as upfront about gangsta s***. It's all about the image and how the audience sees them, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but at the same time you got cornballs out there who feed into it and turn it into a mockery

Travis imo was the poster child for capitalism in 2020. I'd even say he was bigger in that year than in 2018 when Astroworld dropped. You could not escape that man's brand endorsements wherever you went. He might be chasing a bag, but there's also a clear underlining issue at play and that's that execs are reaping off of that s***

Nerd

Shut the f*** up

Mfs writing paragraphs from their suburban homes about street rap

You good?

Nigga probably never took the train in his life talking about the suburbs 😂

Suck my d***

People are way too interested in street rap for it to go anywhere. From actual street niggas being interested in everything going on, to the dorks on YouTube making 2 hour breakdowns on the beef. This the closest rap has felt like real life GTA. This s*** got the people excited

Most rap fans are gonna be white people those are just the facts right now but Carti and Travis aren’t the street dudes, they’re the bridge. The streets f*** with what they got going on and the artsy people f*** with them too. They could co-sign a hood rapper and the hood wont look at it as corny, but they can also co-sign an alternative artist and that crowd wouldn’t mind it cause their fans probably overlap too. Same way Kanye was that for the last generation. Their songs could be played in many different scenarios and not sound out of place. Tyler isn’t fortunate enough to be perceived that way though. His fans are almost exclusively white suburban kids.

The only reason I’m not harsh on Travis “selling-out” as some might say is cause this was never the in the cards for him, he wasn’t the a marketable mainstream artist when he debuted, Antidote literally changed his career trajectory and once he saw the doors that songs opened he slightly compromised his creativity for the sake of notoriety but still made sure he stayed somewhat authentic to his sound. I can’t be mad at that.

Gangster rap wasnt really a thing until NBA Youngboy came thru.

For the majority of the past decade there was no "gangster rapper" moving numbers like that.

Drake, Cole, Kendrick, Wale, Meek, Big Sean, Future, Thug, Wiz Khalifa etc.

None of these guys were gangster rappers. Some were street rappers at the best.

The closest to "gangster rap" was YG and Chief Keef but they were never major consistent factors of the decade sales wise. Just movements and moments in time.

That is prolly why Lil Durk was struggling for the past decade until recently cause the pendulum has now just switched back to that drill/gangster lane.

Nah it can’t be replaced they just might stop putting so much money into it the moment it stops being lucrative. Labels won’t turn down that black corpses and incarnated people money tho that’s like Americas #1 source for “entertainment”.

HOV invented

the logical next step for rap in the next decade tbh

Eazy/NWA was in the 80s tho lol

50 was in 2000s

Waka Flocka Chief Keef etc.
It never left and it wont tbh

But Wacka Flocka and Chief Keef's numbers pale in comparison to the Drake's, Cole's, Wale's, and Kendrick's.

Even Wale's best first week albums sales alone is more than Chief Keef's, Wacka Flocka's and YGs best first week album sales combined.

In comparison to when Fifty and NWA were out when THEY were the main attractions. They were the one's selling the most and the center focal point of the culture.

The 2010's was big shift thanks to Kanye. Its is now just slowly starting to shift back.

Which imo is honestly cause the new generation of rappers suck. so its defaulting back to the street s***, im pretty sure when a new set a stars come thru the game will continue to progress forward.

He had the industry behind him at one point good for him but i dont think that matters lol