My avi out now

Streaming is the short answer. Because it has devalued music by making it too available.

Because you can make a living as an artist in your niche. You dont need to appeal to the broad spectrum.

This is what Ryan Leslie and Tech Nine been preaching for years. Find your supporters and meet their needs and you will have a long career as an artist.

cause the party is dying

There’s probably some early 2010s ye level talent out there sitting with less than 500 followers on ig and no listeners cause they aren’t whoring themselves out on social media for engagement. And everyone on social media is a main character now so some bad lightskin chick in nyc with 50k followers on ig could decide she wants to start dj’ing today and within a few weeks she’s playing a set at some lit spot in the city with no real experience and have a career meanwhile real talent goes unnoticed, it’s sad tbh.

The real answer is nowadays you could be the next big thing but if you don’t play the social media game you just wont cut through. Nepotism might be the only way to avoid that and it sucks cause it seems like pre-social media you could play some gigs and if you were good enough you could have something happen through word of mouth. Nowadays that seems very unlikely, people with ig clout are the gatekeepers and s*** on people with no clout and real talent due to insecurity and not wanting the people with real talent to surpass them.

Whenever I hear of people getting in front of record executives back in the day to show them a demo I just laugh because the idea of that being even a possibility nowadays as a totally unknown artist sounds like a pipe dream lmao 🤦🏽‍♂️

doja cat, post malone etc

Yearly what happened to “mainstream stars” thread same answer as always monoculture is dead due the near universal access to the internet

You can find whatever niche of music you truly want instead of only knowing what’s on the BB100 aka radio airplay chart essentially same reason number 1s don’t really mean ass anymore

look at the contrast between a good answer

... and a really lazy one

Pretty long answer lmao but I had to start at the root of the problem to explain why people who could potentially be stars get overlooked online or don’t ever get in front of the right people who could even make that happen in the first place despite having the talent

Cause they’re not crazy enough. Sucks that you’d have to be - and that’s in large part due to things you said - but you do

It may even take years of building oneself. It may take delaying an album or three. Being shelved by a label. But it takes craziness and pushing through to a level of, well…Doja Cat or Chappell Roan for example, even if they don’t fit exactly what you’re saying

Gotta be crazy, niggas be too normal like this not art. If you the next Ye and you out there? Ok mf be crazy find a way to force the world to pay attention, push push push. Cause let’s say you don’t have that thing that makes ppl social media famous before scoring a viral hit, you gotta try x10 harder now that you can’t just show a label person your talent directly like back in the day. What does it take to persevere as YOU you rather than artist you through the limitations of this dynamic? Craziness

Feel like today’s “superstars” are short lived. But they are there, like Bad Bunny and Karol G. Idk if the inescapable stars exist like that anymore tho, even in other types of entertainment aside from sports

This tbh

What made a prince/mj type of person possible as far as popularity goes is a sense of mystique (including a lack of social media), the comfort of having an audience that possessed the ability to read (e.g. liner notes/wanting to buy physical copies and OWN the music they listened to.) and the knowledge of knowing you wasn’t competing with over 5+ streaming platforms that drop 120,000 songs a day so you had an audience with an attention span.

Cause, truth be told, if we coming from that angle: folks like jean dawson, dijon, and mk.gee would be f***ing superstars at this point. But all 3 are popping in an era where “everything comes and goes.” So even though they are actively popping, there’s no big pond no more cause everything is so niche’d.

Meanwhile prince, mj, and the big 3 came out during a time all of this wasn’t a thing. Itunes store unlike apple music, once you downloaded some s***, that’s in your library forever. Live from the underground is still in my library even tho i be forgetting lol.

Because as both music lovers and musicians within the said field, both sides have noticed there is less money now within how musicians get their money (from tours to merch to streams. The fact ticketmaster takes percentage of merch is insane) and the ways in which musicians can even get their music out is becoming even more all over the place.

its a whole era of musicians who grew up where they were looking at things going a cookie cutter way and then as soon as they pop everything change.

Imagine growing up thinking “i cant wait to sell my cd at a music store and be in this magazine” oh, we dont sell music or read no more.”
-vince staples

You niggas killed the liner notes bro.

THE LINER NOTES.

Brooooo. Niggas dont realize how insane it is that the entirety of music being available for only 19.99 is the craziest devaluing of an artform ever seen.

Painters/art dont even do s*** like that (they got they own set of problems of course, if I'm wrong in this case anyone in the know please inform me!)

My man.

Chappell roan out now

Yep. Happening with TV and film too.

And now market makers are learning its at a loss for them as well.

Not a superstar. Great run tho.