How did NY lose it's regional sound?
- Thread starter Neuromancer
- Start date
I was born and raised in Flatbush. I moved to Jersey City this year but lived in Brooklyn most of not al my life. Granted I'm almost 40 so all drill sounds the same to me. Offbeat
According to people in this thread no one listens to Joey.
I have a traditional answer about NWA and then the South appealing more to Black folks outside of the tri-state, but the real answer is Clear Channel and the Telecom Act of 1996, and later on Youtube/SoundCloud/Blog Raps and the algorithm.
A$AP Rocky was the first big AND NEW artist out of NYC for quite some time - and he said he grew up on the South. HE GREW UP ON THE SOUTH, steady living in Harlem. He didn't say Dipset, Wu Tang, Rakim..he said UGK.
How the music is marketed, advertised, and distributed is the real reason why young east coasters listen to the South and Chicago, and then make Drill/Southern hip hop.
When you destroy the connection between youth and their elders, this is what you get.
I mean how many folks still bumping Stevie Wonder and Al Green and they're under 25?
A$AP Rocky was the first big AND NEW artist out of NYC for quite some time - and he said he grew up on the South. HE GREW UP ON THE SOUTH, steady living in Harlem. He didn't say Dipset, Wu Tang, Rakim..he said UGK.
How the music is marketed, advertised, and distributed is the real reason why young east coasters listen to the South and Chicago, and then make Drill/Southern hip hop.
When you destroy the connection between youth and their elders, this is what you get.
I mean how many folks still bumping Stevie Wonder and Al Green and they're under 25?
Oh wow so there's a structural reason why. Why did the south get more advertisement than other regions?
If we really wanna break down the chronology, NY deviated from the traditional boom bap sound in the mid-late 2000s, when NY rappers stopped dominating the genre.
The masses are naturally going to be influenced by what’s most popular and the generation that came of age in the late 2000s and early 2010s were no longer influenced by Nas and Jay-Z because they weren’t the biggest artists anymore.
The youth dictates what’s cool and kids were listening to Jeezy, Gucci, Wayne, etc.
By the mid-2010s, “traditional” rap was officially dated and not cool to the youth due to the sound having been slowly removed from mainstream black culture by that point.
NYC youth today know more about Chicago drill than boom bap. That era is ancient history to anybody under 25 from here. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s the cycle of life
The masses are naturally going to be influenced by what’s most popular and the generation that came of age in the late 2000s and early 2010s were no longer influenced by Nas and Jay-Z because they weren’t the biggest artists anymore.
The youth dictates what’s cool and kids were listening to Jeezy, Gucci, Wayne, etc.
By the mid-2010s, “traditional” rap was officially dated and not cool to the youth due to the sound having been slowly removed from mainstream black culture by that point.
NYC youth today know more about Chicago drill than boom bap. That era is ancient history to anybody under 25 from here. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s the cycle of life
Plankton
All Star
The Coli ≠ The real world.
Joey just had a wave of west coast rappers responding to his The Rulers Back song which dropped 2 weeks ago and almost has 2 million in views on Youtube. Obviously a bunch of people heard that song.
The internet and NY radio
I also think everybody's obession with "Sounding like New York", they just try to use the old NY sound instead of evolving it. New York Drill and Pop Smoke was probably the closest I heard to New York sounding unique again
So dudes on the coli are just talking shyt?
Yaboysix
That nikka
Now them Nyggas rap fast like London Brehs, and don't nobody listen to that Bullshyt but them.
Doing back shot dances with they homeboys hyping them up...
Doing back shot dances with they homeboys hyping them up...
The same way every other region did, times changed 
Does Lil Baby sound like Outkast? Does Kendrick Lamar sound like Warren G? Does Rick Ross sound like Dr Luke? Lil Durk like Common or Twista? Travis Scott or Megan like UGK? No, obviously not. So why do you expect people from NY to sound like a sound that was created before they were born
Besides that, you also have the internet where people are influenced by the same shyt in the whole world. That's how you have that rappers in Brooklyn might've even been influenced by some cat in London before he's influenced by some cat in Philly. Cause through the internet, the distance is exactly the same.
You still have commercial rappers from other places with that NY sound in many songs like Drake, Pusha and J.Cole, but that's cause they are 40 years old and grew up on that.
Does Lil Baby sound like Outkast? Does Kendrick Lamar sound like Warren G? Does Rick Ross sound like Dr Luke? Lil Durk like Common or Twista? Travis Scott or Megan like UGK? No, obviously not. So why do you expect people from NY to sound like a sound that was created before they were born
Besides that, you also have the internet where people are influenced by the same shyt in the whole world. That's how you have that rappers in Brooklyn might've even been influenced by some cat in London before he's influenced by some cat in Philly. Cause through the internet, the distance is exactly the same.
You still have commercial rappers from other places with that NY sound in many songs like Drake, Pusha and J.Cole, but that's cause they are 40 years old and grew up on that.
Not “the south” per se, but it made it easier for big labels to take control of local and regional sound trends by buying up talent, cheapen/assembly line the music making process, packaging image and radio friendly music, and drown out anything else.
It was easier to find radio friendly stuff where the best strip clubs were. It’s also easier and cheaper to scout for one sound. That whole deal basically set the industry on the path of just becoming one big factory with poor quality control.
It’s why it’s so hard for certain regions to really eat collectively, but easier for some individuals from those regions to eat when they’re replicating somewhere else