At what point in American history hasn't there been a bigger base for white artists? If white artists sold more when cats were copping, why would they not when cats aren't copping? Black people don't buy at the same rate and neither do white people. Taylor Swift would sell 12 million a decade ago.
there's no denying the the slow-down, but IF Taylor Swift would've sold 12 mil a decade ago it would've been BECAUSE iTunes (and Amzon, Google Music) wasn't really yet adapted on a large level. So lots of ppl were still buing whole CD's as opposed to dl'ing singles like they do now.
But black ppl were still buying R&B music and rap as well b/c links weren't readily avaliable back then.
And IMO, the explosion of the mixtape scene the past 4-5 years has trained the young rap fan to not pay money for rap music. If you have 3-4 free mixtapes from an artist, your brain is likely not gonna compute BUYING a retail album from that artist....unless you're just really a dedicated fan like that. And when mixtapes were dropping like every week, rap fans had no need to buy albums
The issue here tho is not pop/country music, it's hip-hop. And white ppl will supprt the white hip-hop artists, and black ppl wont support our artists anymore. So the biz will go where the dollars go