Eye-catching looks, lots of noise, lots of fans, money, drugs, and women, big waves of young people who want to be the next star, just as it was during the 70’s/80’s/90’s era rock n’ roll was the mainstream genre. In this Millennial era, Rap has taken a hold of mainstream music as the sound has evolved over the years and you’re now hearing sub-genres come to form. It seems that not much has happened since rock dominated the radio, mainstream media and filled stadiums as it once did when rock bands like Queen, Aerosmith, Guns and Roses, Nirvana and Led Zepellin, use to set concerts a blaze. Now the horizons are different, young people have new interests, new problems to deal with and have found a refuge in Rap for themselves. The parents hate it, they hate the looks of rappers, they hate that they talk about drugs, sex, depression, and problems like suicide, but that’s what the parents of the ’80s didn’t hate when their children listened to Metallica’s explicit lyrics that talked about drinking and death? the same feeling at different times.
The time has passed where it was believed that Rap and Hip Hop was only for people from the underworld, gangs, and thugs from some hood that liked raw lyrics about reality, guns, and problems of the street, now you can find the blonde catlady in turn who loves to watch series of vampires listening to Migos, Travis Scott and Tyga. This has happened because Rap has continued to evolve through its 45 years of existence. We appreciate the old artists who gave us the bases of rap but the world continues its course and must continue to evolve, under that premise rap has merged with other genres, has adopted new ways to sing, talk about personal issues and create extravagant looks and millionaire expenses that call the attention of everyone, especially the younger audience.
We have seen how fans chant artist songs at concerts, start moshpits, and go crazy when they hit the stage. Beyond the music, there is an established image of the artist, which we can always find thousands of images or videos that make fans love these artists even more. For example, we can surf the web and find out how young people idolized Lil Peep like young people of Seattle once did with Kurt Cobain. They identify with the depression and anger problems that some of these artists suffered from like XXXTENTACION with his troublesome past, the lack of love lyrics through Juice Wrld’s music or those who want to party their troubles away and listen to Playboi Carti that will get them hyped up. Just as it was for rock there is a cult-like image of the artist strongly established today through drugs, face tattoos, women, expensive jewelry, and loads of cash, Times have changed much different from rock as an artist have much more miscellaneous things to flaunt but nonetheless it’s all for the glory and fame.
The explosion reached everywhere when the rappers of the new school began to dominate the market in 2016 and still very much present now. Artists like Lil Pump, XXXTENTACION, Lil Yachty, Lil Peep, Trippie Redd, Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti and Tekashi 69 released during those years their greatest hits, their style, their image and their sound enchanted millions of people who joined to listen to Rap after listening to any of the most famous songs of those artists.
Just as Rock took the power many years ago, so now did Rap, which has the artists with the most reproductions in 2018, where the first three places of reproductions in Spotify were of Drake, Post Malone, and the late XXXTENTACION, putting Rap at the top that has been in a long time.
