today I took a look at all the "hip-hop not being on the top 40 for the first time since 1991" discourse and went a bit deeper into how these charts actually work, and how much it has to do with the health of the genre

the truth is, billboard charts are not set up for hip-hop to win. For example, youtube views do not count the same as spotify streams. NBA Youngboy does twice as many youtube views as Taylor Swift does in a week and yet she had 12 songs in that top 40 and his highest track was at 43.

a lot of people used this as an opportunity to say hip-hop was in trouble, or going out like rock music. my question is—does it need to be in the top 40 to be healthy? the top 40 is full of radio payola, stream botting, and industry shenanigans

my question for KTT is: can the genre thrive without commercial dominance? what would that look like? how do we measure its health if not for billboard?

The problem is rappers think going pop is corny, as well as being homophobic/misogynistic

Yea I mean they don't need to "go pop" to chart though, like GNX was all over the charts and the highest-charting rap song the week there were no top 40 songs was by NBA Youngboy

but I get what you're saying—when rappers go pop there's a risk it alienates the audience and doesn't really appeal to either rap fans or pop fans lol

the truth is, billboard charts are not set up for hip-hop to win. For example, youtube views do not count the same as spotify streams. NBA Youngboy does twice as many youtube views as Taylor Swift does in a week and yet she had 12 songs in that top 40 and his highest track was at 43.

This has nothing to do with hip-hop. NBA YoungBoy is just popular on YouTube.

Also, it’s not totally accurate. NBA Youngboy’s newest music video dropped two months ago on YouTube and it has 7M views. Taylor’s most recent video dropped one month ago and has 111M views. She’s clearly and obviously more popular overall, she just drops less frequently on YouTube than Youngboy does

I just wanted to highlight a difference in how youtube views are calculated vs streams because they aren't equal in the hot 100 formula. you're right that he's more of a volume shooter on there but in general I meant it to be more of a way of seeing how we value billboard charts as the end-all be-all of popularity when actually they are a bit flawed and skewed towards certain platforms (imo)

"when rappers go pop there's a risk it alienates the audience and doesn't really appeal to either rap fans or pop fans"

That's not at all what I'm saying, which is why I put the second part in there. Pop music culture is the most gay and woman friendly it's been in decades. So if rappers who hate women and gay people don't want to be associated with them, they are going to be continously shut out. DaBaby was appealing to both rap and pop fans until he showed he hated gay people

We got AI songs on the charts now

If you really value billboard at this point, idk what to tell you

I could feel the impact of rap music before I even knew what a billboard chart was

I understand the people who are interested in the metrics, but those who think it dictates greatness are so weird to me

has literally nothing to do with it

the world doesn’t revolve around you

What the f*** is your dumb ass talking about?

True hip-hop has never been for the Top 40. Some of the most legendary songs and hits never even made it to the charts.

When I started listening to music being in the top 40 as a rap song was already really special and meant it was a huge hit. Who knows how many songs were botted during the streaming era. There is a lot of evidence out there on how fake Billboard is in general

Dababy was falling off because of the bikini bottom type beats he kept rapping on. Not because he was homophobic.

People only cared about his rolling loud comments because the audience was ready to turn on him for his output anyways

Plus you gotta factor in that “pop” for a rapper is different from the standard pop audience someone like Charli xcx has

Facts. One thing I wish I did in the video was name some of the classics that never charted

Yea that's a big part of what I'm trying to say, perhaps we as fans of hip-hop and music at large need to start prioritizing this chart less in our minds

nah real ones been tapped in over the course of rap history.. at some point you just catering to the least common denominator

f*** going pop

great video as usual

What rapper thinks going pop is corny

Tyler does a good job at managing both. He can appeal to both Charli pop and rap

no next queshtion

I think so yes

No. none of that s*** should matter

No. A lot of the biggest songs in rap history didn’t even go top 5-10. Charts are for the artist themselves. Not the fans. Somewhere along the way fans seemed to forget that

As a music listener, I don't give a flying f*** about charts