Most of these mysterious rappers are not as great as the mystique presents themselves. Put them on a song with prime Beanie Sigel and I promise you Beans will have the best verse.
imo if someone tried this today it might be effective
all artists now are so tapped in with their fans, constantly engaging, posting on social media etc if someone did the polar opposite itd be an interesting change of pace for people
Too much new s*** coming and going to stand out with this approach today
At that time, no streaming.. just outlets, Twitter and word of mouth.
New names came around only so often and even then usually there was a label behind them on some level.
Now these labels throwing anything against the wall, just hoping it sticks and people don’t even have the time to keep up with everything coming.