2017 forward to today, the gen after the Cole, Drake, Kendrick, Uzi, Travis, Future, Young Thug etc. era.

Juice Wrld dead, Xxxtentacion dead, Pop Smoke dead, King Von dead, Lil Peep dead, Drakeo the Ruler dead, YNW Melly jail, RondaNumbaNine jail, Pooh Shiesty jail, Tay K jail, Rod Wave arrested might go to jail, 03 Greedo jail, Valee basically retired to do sculpting, Sheck Wes basically retired to do basketball, 6ix9ine fell off, Cordae fell off, Trippie Redd fell off, Roddy Ricch fell off, DaBaby seems to be falling off etc.

Almost everyone has died, arrested/jailed, quit or fell off. Dying being the biggest then jailing being the second biggest.

On top of that, Covid happened. So a lot of projects, opportunities, tours, signings, hype, buzz, collabs etc. for newer artists fell flat.

These Artists falling in unfortunate circumstances plus Covid made us skip a generation & extended the prior generation's run/era even further. Im of course talking mainstream & major underground, & of course not everyone is gone. Most, especially the big players & leaders are tho.

The big Artists of the next gen, which should be now, are all gone. I dont think people really realize how big of a deal that is & the ramifications. How bad it altered the genre's timeline. It takes 2 to 4 years for a Rapper to pop or at the very least get realitively relevant. The Artists that already put in that work to pop in the next era, are now gone. That means the next crop of artists that was/are/were suppose to come after the Xxx, Juice, Pop era are still "training".

• And their impact & influence does not exist/extend as much as it should/would due to early untimely deaths & jailings, meaning the next-next gen doesnt have an "elder" to gain from either as much. Unlike how Drake, Kendrick & Cole had Kanye, Lil Wayne & 50 Cent to look at & build off from. So repetition of already styles & concepts are more likely to happen for that era, instead of evolving. Thats just my own speculation tho, time will really tell.

Regardless, there is no stop-gap. We skipped a whole gen + sound & have to wait for the next-next gen to stop by without anything here in the meantime.

I believe this is why the previous gen Artists I mentioned above in the beginning are still so dominate. The people to past the baton too got injured, with only a very few survivors left like Baby Keem, & the next crop slowly happening like Yeat. So the vets are "holding it down" for the time being.

Its terrible. This has never happened in any genre I dont think, even in Rap beforehand. Closes example are the 2Pac & Biggie deaths, & imo we're lucky the Rap genre of today didnt crash. Niggas died & went to jail bro. We're talking dozens & dozens. And many of them were huge, or uprising to be huge. A lot of people did support & we're rooting for them.

Wether you liked those artists or not (looking at you, fellow bitter old niggas), its an unprecedented scenario. Its a sad timeline.

No other genre has to deal with this. Within 3 to 5 years we lost a whole class, a whole era. Literally the whole now generation & the next movement.

And we wonder why the genre feels slow, or that there is not too many new faces at the moment...

And i know i didnt mention everyone dead or in jail, but theres just so much.

Its not out of disrespect & "perceived irrelevance". Its terrible all the way around, for all of them. And for all of us.

damn so many gone

Mac

"Valee basically retired to do sculpting"

I'm sorry but this killed me

trippie didn’t fall off

Summrs arrested, kankan beats his gf, autumn fakes his mugshots, iayze snitches, goonie look like he got hit by a shrink gun, where does it end?

Imagine showing this post to somebody on ktt1 in 2017, they wouldn’t believe you

Too many people gone man

No ❤️

Very saddening reality

let’s hope Yeat is faking the lean like Future

Tay K would have had so many more hits if he wasn't locked up smh

Hip hop is well overdue for a reset. I wonder when and who will spark the next era

rod wave charges just got dropped the other day but still a bad situation if true

hiphop needs to heal man, change the lean for some tea or whatev

Dont think either of them are faking

I don’t think Future is faking completely I just don’t think he does it nearly as often as one would assume

RIP Dolph i barely see people shout him out anymore

Yeah he's not

Him and Lucki got me worrying fr

I've been hoping hip hop can move away from the d*** era for a while.
Lean is shortening the life span of so many young artists .
Same with the violence

We need a positivity movement for sure.

Him and Mac Miller being dead are two deaths that just catch me off guard till this day. Everything is done to the max in this generation,whether it’s thuggin,druggin or partying and dudes lives are getting cut so short because of it.

We're definitely in a live fast and die young generation in music right now.
It's very destructive

Even though I respect this generation of artist for having balls,at the same time,you can see that a lot of this gens courage comes from ignorance and they like to copycat. That ignorance is bliss s*** can only go so far when you apply it to your real life.

Rap/Hip Hop was never built on ignorance until now. Yea,the genre is fun and it was always fun but it was never just outright dumb and reckless like it is now.

Solid post. Very sad observation.