Do you find it important that an artist has a unique backstory when listening to thier music?

Not to say that everyone has to have an extremely traumatic formative phase like Lil Durk but looking at all the best artists, they seem have had some unique experience that makes the fans look at their work in a more authentic sense

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Drake had the single mother thing, not unique at all. but in the context of being a childhood star with a sick mother and father in another country, combined with some of the vitriol he received early on in his career, it adds up

Kendrick, enough said. He’s given us amazing material that’s detailed his early life.

Cole has had his struggles but I dont recall enough to go into detail

Lil Baby, at least from hip hop twitter the narrative was that thug discovered him and paid him to stay out of trouble

Dababy had the whole walmart shooting thing, the goons pulling up in Atlanta, etc

Durk, loss of friends and family

Youngboy, loss of friends and family, falling out with original gang and making his own, involvement in the death of former friend gee money

21 savage, getting shot 6 times and having his friend die

Etc etc

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to make a long story short, can someone reach peak position with immense talent but a fairly benign upbringing?

(Yes this was written on adderal)

No. I just want good music aka not what J Cole is doing.

everyone has a story tho. what artists don't have compelling backstories?

Jack Harlow for starters

Yeat maybe? Big fan but don’t know too much about him outside of being a d*** addict

Cordae

Coi Leray

Actually its harder than I think To think of a successful artist without one

Only if it’s presented in a compelling way. But its harder to make a sheltered and generic life sound hard and interesting in rap.

jack had the cool dorky rap videos thats pretty compelling

idk much about y3at either

Cordae had the GTA part which i think is interesting

Coi's dad is infamous

yuh

The best artists can make the mundane sound extraordinary.

You don’t need a compelling backstory to create captivating music.

Yeah an artist being able to pull you into their world is important.

Wayne said on that Belair round table with Khaled Wiz Ross that Drake could make working at the office sound good lol that’s the cheat code. Anything else is icing on top

I mean not really but when an artist has come from wealth/privilege I am a bit more cynical. Ofc if your music is great I don't care but with an artist like Clairo it just makes me dislike it even more.

Depends what type of artist they are. If they are documenting their life then of course

Everyone has something that happened in they life, how they present it is the most important. But obviously if more interesting things happened to you it's easier to formulate a compelling picture.

Rather hear about Kendrick getting jumped and riding round Compton than Cole talm bout remember when my momma made me mac and cheese

If it’s not street rap ion care about their backstory but sumn bout Jaden Smith made me never able to take his music serious

Literally.

Man literally made an anthem of a hook about working on the weekend and not doing his taxes

Cole raps about struggles that everybody in the hood goes through.

when it comes to rappers, esp the ones who mainly rap about their own success and being richer and having more stuff and women than me, it’s important for me to feel like they came from something that makes it worthy for me to celebrate that success with them.

Yeat is the very first rapper for me that has been so good and infectious that I have had to ignore that he’s prolly just a privileged c**

Super important, it’s not like I actively care about it but a backstory will make me respect an artist better. There needs to be growth too.

X is a good example.

Sure

good thread

edit: most of this site afraid of this topic tho

Depends

Im not tryna hear niggas rap about street life if they never even lived it cause thats making light of dudes that actually go through that

Nah but it def adds to their mystique and meaningfulness of their work

Kanye a great example for that

Like i like Yeat's music but im not taking the nigga seriously cause he be talking about killing s*** when the nigga most likely grew up in the burbs

it's really on a case by case basis tbh

Nah not really. If mfs hard then they’re hard. Feel like backstory only matter to chiraq reddit tier rap fans.

I come across dudes and don’t even think about their stories or any of that. S*** sometimes I even forget about Baby whole come up. I remember people use to come for Drake and his come up just cause he didn’t struggle like everyone else so he didn’t “start from the bottom”. I feel like people only care about stuff like that so they can live through their favorite artists. I grew up in an era where we were taught young that all of this rap s*** is entertainment for the most part and some dudes flex or over exaggerate their stories. Not listening to someone just cause they weren’t actively in the streets or didn’t struggle 100% is crazy.

If it’s relatable it’ll resonate with me more that’s why I love a lot of backpack rappers because I feel like I lived their kinda lifestyle growing up