Why is rap music declining in popularity ?

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I remember listening to a rap song and being upset by the lyrics, because they were about raping teenage girls in small towns and killing people. I don't get the appeal. I guess nobody listens to the lyrics. Whenever that song plays in public I put in my earphones or try to ignore it, because it is uncomfortable to listen to.

So I'll be glad when the whole rap stuff isn't as popular.
 
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OP attempting to explain the Kendrick beef to Kiwis is pretty gold
 
There’s two main reasons for it. One is that a lot of the up and coming stars from the mid 2010s like xxxtentacion and Juicewrld died young or fell off. While in the 90s, a lot of the biggest rappers died young like Tupac and Biggie, the main difference is that the biggest rappers are much older now. The four most streamed rappers in 2024 were Drake (38,) Kanye (47), Future (41), and Kendrick (37). Rap is always been a genre by and for young people so the biggest rappers being middle aged is emblematic of its stagnation. All four of them have been releasing music for over a decade and have been the biggest faces for just as long.
There an interview with Andre 3000 were he talks about how he doesn’t want to rap anymore because he’s too old and doesn’t think he has anything to rap about. Kanye is the only exception to this because he’s schizophrenic so he always has something to rap about. That’s also why he’s the only artist out of those four who’s actually innovating. But even he jumped the shark after Vultures 2 and who knows if he’ll be able to come back from that.
There are some young rappers that are doing well like Travis Scott and Playboy Carti but they both only release music like every 3 years. Even everyone’s favorite Death Grips hasn’t released music in 6 years and probably won’t anytime soon. Anyways, I kind of doubt that rap is going to actually die. It might just be like rock were it will go through periods of stagnation and growth. Most modern music is very gay which is why it will still be popular among young people (the documentary Buck Breaking goes into detail about this!)
 
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Buck Broken Chimp said:
So rap music is declining in terms of popularity and commercial success. I don't think anyone will argue this. I never liked rap music so I am curios why. Here is some market share with rap.

2020: 28.2%
2021: 27.7%
2022: 26.8%
2023: 25.8%
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Where are these stats even coming from? In 2018 hiphop accounted for only 21%. https://www.statista.com/statistics/310746/share-music-album-sales-us-genre/

Also 25.8% is probably still the most popularly sold style. At worst just behind classic rock. or pop.

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I disagree, rap is more popular and insidious than ever. Just about half of the country songs getting played have some portions that are rapped. I think it’s just nothing special anymore. Seems like the only two types of music (((record labels))) allow are rap and thot pop. It’s pretty dire overall.
 
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Buck Broken Chimp said:
View attachment 6732007
While this is a bit distasteful (I know says the guy with chink in his PFP) it has the relevant facts and figures in a connivant place so here it is
Click to expand...
there's a lot of factors in play here that i think you're getting at, but yeah the drop off in rap now compared to say 2022 is insane. the immediate issue is that dril and florida rap just flamed out rather quickly with so many of their artists just getting murdered, ODing, or being sent to prison. like imagine how non-existent SoCal rap would have been if Snoop got a life sentence way back in 1993 or Dre died instead of Easy-E

So a lot of "new rappers" haven't been able to break out. Another big thing i don't think people realize is how wide "rap" could be considered now. like a lot of Doja Cat songs almost feel motown esque and like something you could have heard in the 1970s outside of the rap part. Like Kill Bill from SZA is categorized as a hip hop song, but its very old school sounding, like if Richard Chesse played it seriously.

that leads into country and how a lot of the songs i hear from friends and others are like the shit post malone's releasing now. in general the trends are moving away from rap. I remember that 4chan copypasta from november 2023 about how the jews are going to tone down all the degenerate anti-white shit because they realized they need them to die for israel, and irregardless of how true it is it certainly sounds like it.

The fact that most of the biggest hits are from Kendrick and Drake's feud is telling. its like how every once in a while the rolling stones or beatles can get a hit and everyone knows its off the name recognition instead of quality songs.

but the biggest reason and why i replied to you is something i like to call the Middle Classification of blackness.

Like think about Adin Ross or Johnny Somali or Kai Cenat or IShowSpeed becoming the top names in twitch and the internet world compared to how few black creators really got huge in say 2019. RDCWorld1 is a personal favorite but in general the blacks aren't all living in ghettos getting addicted to crack and dodging drive bys now, especially not now when cartels have basically destroyed a lot of gang power in poor areas the last 20 years. Black immigration and programs helping blacks get college degrees and high paying jobs have also lead to most blacks living more middle class lifestyles now, plus because of how easy it is to make videos now you have way more black content creators meaning people are seeing blacks from how they present themselves vs how the media portrays them. Think about how Ice Cube became huge portraying a thuged out gangsta meanwhile his own son is a proud nerd who can go hours on godzilla films. this can easily be shown in the biggest rap songs of this year. Drake and Kendrick getting in a feud where they whine about each other treating women badly, having hoes in different area codes, having secret kids, and being very close to young ladies almost seems like a joke if you remember the gangsta rap of the 1990s. Like i could easily see Kenny Chesney and Tim Mcgraw having a "feud" over treating women badly, but it seems extremely white that this is what kendrick and drake are fighting about, which also explains why its only now in this era that this is what blacks rap about, a middle class audience engaging in a middle class feud about middle class problems. Everyone 3rd generation immigrant or newer doesn't give a fuck about cheating same with the poor, half the reason fast food resturants have glass behind the counters is because the employees would suck you off if you pulled your cock out right at the register (joking, but seriously the ghetto world is like living in a porno but with very overweight ugly people)

Johnny Somali or IShowSpeed aren't really doing anything that we didn't see whites do on MTV in the 2000s. the problem with being middle class is that you also end up having to deal with the same problems middle class people do. sure the kids don't have to worry about dealing with drive bys, but they now have to deal with self actualization issues and thats also why the mental illness and suicide and opioid and alcoholism rates are skyrocketing. booze is especially notable, blacks in general fucking hate drinking. anyone that's worked at a restaurant or bar in a major area knows 99% of the time blacks order something based off them remembering hearing about it in a song and wanting to try it or they do those extra high sugar content colorful drinks because they can't stand the taste of booze and beer. Its also why they're more likely to use weed. so the skyrocketing alcoholism rates and opioid means blacks having the same routines as middle class whites used to have. think about homer simpson and peter griffin always at the same bar, plus opioid use is tied to having doctors you go to, meaning having some form of insurance which means having a regular job.

Which then leads to the music, if you grew up as a middle class kid hearing from your parents or cousins talking shit about gangsters they knew growing up (Gen Z's parents would have been teens during the height of the crack epidemic) then you aren't going to enjoy that type of music and will naturally listen to other music, country especially for blacks is as uncharted a territory as rap was for whites, which is a big reason Old Town Road took off, so many blacks fell in love with cowboy shit after RDR2 came out, and you could argue the rise of modern western bullshit is because a huge demographic suddenly got all into cowboy stuff.

Third Theory

As you remember from post election headlines, everyone that isn't black voted trump by a majority, so it could be nigger fatigue, it was shocking to me how normalized whining about blacks has gotten, like on reddit there were tons of comments about the race swapping of snape and the fact that the comment section didn't get janny'd up means they probably agree. Especially after the Hamas attack, even jews, who would genocide the entire white race for nigs, suddenly got a lot less happy once they noticed every black person rooting for hamas. And factor in jews love of whining and its a recipe made to cause rap to vanish. look how quickly rappers are getting locked up now too, the justice system and police are quickly trying to make up for the lack of policing as retribution, there's a reason anti-jew rappers are suddenly getting arrested and harrassed. From what i've seen they're being blamed massively for the entire Kamala Harris debacle too, George openly saying he was seduced by barack obama into betraying the country. That and the DEI headlines making the democrats look like the biggest assholes in the country means they're doing a lot of damage control. This was also the first election where latinos outvoted blacks as well, and you remember how little hollywood cared about spics despite being the 3rd largest voting demo. Blacks popularity was very manufactured and seeing how they've acted the last couple years truely did cause a lot of nigger fatigue, X and Tiktok allowing the videos that most people would never see of blacks annoying people on subways and shittalking whites all over means way less support for them among everyone. blacks in general seem very worried and stressed overall, and it seems like tons of hidden support they got from say HR or NGOs is rapidly vanishing.
 
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