Black drug dealers/gangster are the ones who mostly funded hip hop , white people saw it and took charge
I don't know about you but me and my people been buying hip hop albums since we could walk to sam goody and make a purchase in early 90s
We was bumping outkast before cacs even took a liking to them out the south. We was the one who support local artist (trick daddy, pitbull, jt money, rozay, plies) by going hole in the wall clubs until cac heard it and put them on big screens. Black people been buying hip hop albums even when we was the poorest, look @ the 90's plats of rappers and early 2000
Now, today If you look at the numbers about 71% of illegal download is hip hop/r& music.....that just mean we & other race don't value black music from black artist now and illegal download fuk the game up
Also we live in white america just trying to survive in they system so certain things things they do we going to adapt to sub consciously and unconsciously .....meaning sometimes we don't value ourselves or our people
I wasn't referring to how Hip Hop was funded but where the funding is coming from now.
Everything else is anecdotal, the circle you run in doesn't even come close to represent a sample size of people who consume music. Music stores nationwide are being closed down, that's not because a lot of us are actually supporting the music monetarily. Spotify doesn't happen in the music industry of the early 90s, neither would going gold after a month or so be an achievement.
You're right, not sure about the percentage but most people don't value music like we did. I was one of those dudes. I bought music like crazy. I had stacks and stacks of CDs, hell I even bought mixtapes at the flea market. Since Napster (1999), I've bought maybe 10 albums, if that? There's more people in that boat than in the boat you're claiming.
Go to DJ Vlad's youtube page, there's a couple of big time artists that say it themselves: White people buy their music by and large. It's just the truth.