What happened to Rock is slowly happening to Rap. You are seeing the beginning of Rap no longer being the dominant genre in music

Dafunkdoc_Unlimited

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I kinda understand what you mean about the 80s R&B compared to the 90s … the 80’s was traditional R&B - while the 90’s was this new , fresh & more urban version = he pretty much was a whole new genre & that transition was phenomenal


and yes I may be bias, BUT I don’t think you can compare the top 80s R&B artist to the 90s
I remember it different. The 80's was FAR more 'experimental' rather than 'traditional'. 90's just polished it....












Afrobeats sucks.​
 

kingofnyc

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I remember it different. The 80's was FAR more 'experimental' rather than 'traditional'. 90's just polished it....












Afrobeats sucks.​


I kinda get what you’re saying, but to be real … most of the tunes you linked would go under the genre of dance music rather damn R&B music

while in the 90s sub genres ei. hiphop-soul / new jack swing / neo-soul etc. etc. would still fall under R&B when you purchased or went to the music stores to buy your albums, CDs and cassette tapes
 

HoldThisL

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I have not checked for a new rap album in a min. :francis:

I usually go see what is hot on Spotify and what is trending and everything sound the same or just trash.
 

The Devil's Advocate

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Absolutely nobody is praying for its downfall.. People are just frustrated with the messaging thats being put out.. The balance just isn't there anymore.

The beats sound awesome though and possibly the driver in record streams because I can't understand a word a lot of these artists are saying.
The thread title is rap no longer being the dominant genre. This is the beginning right now.

What's actually happening in real life though, is kids and young adults are listening to rap in record numbers. They know who these guys are. They can tell them apart. They show up to their concerts. They listen and know the words. They tweet about them all day. They follow on tik tok. They are playing it at their parties. And it's actually increasing year to year.

You know what else contributes to those numbers? Our generation. We all have spotify and streaming apps too. We play our music and it's still rap so the numbers is still going up. Kendrick can do a record tour. Drake can do . Jay can pop up anywhere and sell out a stadium even if he ain't put shyt out in years. Nas still on national tours that these young rappers are on. But it's all still rap money

But to hear the people in here, afrobeats is what's really hot and here comes pop and kpop and mexican music and what the fukk ever. But surely it's not hip hop still leading the pack (it is). Cause y'all don't like the current stars, you'll act like rap don't still have this nation in a chokehold.
 

Wildhundreds

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The thread title is rap no longer being the dominant genre. This is the beginning right now.

What's actually happening in real life though, is kids and young adults are listening to rap in record numbers. They know who these guys are. They can tell them apart. They show up to their concerts. They listen and know the words. They tweet about them all day. They follow on tik tok. They are playing it at their parties. And it's actually increasing year to year.

You know what else contributes to those numbers? Our generation. We all have spotify and streaming apps too. We play our music and it's still rap so the numbers is still going up. Kendrick can do a record tour. Drake can do . Jay can pop up anywhere and sell out a stadium even if he ain't put shyt out in years. Nas still on national tours that these young rappers are on. But it's all still rap money

But to hear the people in here, afrobeats is what's really hot and here comes pop and kpop and mexican music and what the fukk ever. But surely it's not hip hop still leading the pack (it is). Cause y'all don't like the current stars, you'll act like rap don't still have this nation in a chokehold.

But they not talking about sh*t in large numbers. Thats all. I listen to it and it sounds like a bunch of ramblings. The few artist who bring a legit message is small.. Thats all im saying.
 

yung Herbie Hancock

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90s was when hip-hop and R&B became more radio oriented and localized to the club. Once black music left the living room, the rent parties, the Chitlin Circuit, our clubs, our neighborhoods and became a product of white record labels, the writing was on the wall. The decline in quality was integral to commercialization, the target audience of the music was no longer the originators of the music.

Market research played a part in this. Most corporations do this to figure out where the most money will be and how to tap into it. Earlier cultural backlash from whites becomes acceptance when the art form becomes commodified and their children begin listening to it. In the process it gets watered down and homogenizes, so variety in this market is discouraged from an economic standpoint, artistic innovation is not part of the business plan. Businesses don't want to spend extra money marketing a variety of rap artists of different styles if they can just have a generic rap artist. This is why, hip-hop specifically, got overran in the 90s, they put out a great movie on this topic in the early 00s:
scale


Pay attention to the music and the movies at the time now y'all got history. Brown Sugar was an epilogue to a decade of commercializing hip-hop. You can go back to the 80s, but that's really an introductory period.

The 90s was the golden age, and businesses were trying to figure out what variety of hip-hop would stand the test of time and be more marketable after the millennium. The conscious rapper won't survive the media (radio) if the clubs and radio are in agreement. It gets pushed further underground, if artists get signed or were signed they get a reduced budget for their albums, flop, get dropped from the label, pivot to what's selling or burn out. There was a slower time marrying hip-hop and R&B, the early 00s is when it really took off in the mainstream.

Violence in hip-hop became more marketable in the clubs, either through gangsta rap or content. It Was Written is a great example of the concept that shifted black music, it established the standard that was further reworked for artists like Ja Rule, 50 Cent. Tupac played a part in how a rapper should look for a period of time.

There were "conscious" artists and rappers still with artistic integrity but they had to adjust to the overall changes in the mainstream in one way or another. Some were more successful than others. You can look into Common's career at the end of the 90s and Like Water for Chocolate, Soulquarians was the last bit of consciousness hip-hop had associated with the early 90s and that was Questlove and Q-Tip (The Roots and Tribe had albums out before '94). Common was out in '92, but he wasn't an East Coast rapper. Most of them Soulquarians migrated to New York.

A lot of research went into studying black communities in New York, Harlem and Brooklyn to be specific and had to do with the riots in the 1960s.

71jXQ195NlL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg


Appealing to the masses has been the problem.
Jazz didn't develop to appeal to the masses, it was developed as a regional music that became national, then global once there was purpose. If not for those avant-garde musicians innovating, you wouldn't have the commercial elements. Jazz had to go through a couple periods of being unaccepted for being "avant-garde" before it got to smooth jazz.
Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane...

Jazz education focuses on the commercial aspects of jazz because it's "America's Music". They don't approach fusion. This same idea is being done with hip-hop on university campuses. You bump this album?
Syreeta-debut-album-820x820.jpg


Difference now is how we let media generally tell us what to like. Our innovators the first ones to get stepped on at the time and praised in hindsight if they don't grow in the mainstream first then take an avant-garde approach:
My5qcGVn.jpeg


If a new black genre develops it will be avant-garde because the "rules" of the genre won't be established. Problem with "now" is that record labels know this and will try to water it down before the debut drops. That's where all the pretentious shyt come from, all their music videos look like they're the same concept, production sounds the same. That's why there was a wave of black artists doing "avant-garde" styled music from a Eurocentric standpoint.

Black avant-garde music generally cannot be marketable unless it conforms to Eurocentric standards: the label.

They will always be our genres, we need to stop abandoning them en masse for the "new" thing when it's all "our" thing.

@IllmaticDelta
You're right but billionaires like El@n and David S@cks will probably use chatGPT or "truth GPT" (the shyt that El@n building) to spread lies about black culture and music. Just look at how Thomas Sowell being used to spread the lie that we got our culture from CACs in england.
 

Wild self

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Both genres peaked and stopped innovating.

When artists in general are quite pedestrian and the elite no longer the standard it this is what happens.

Stagnation is death.

Autotune caused the stagnation. No one wants to innovate with legit talent or disciplined skill anymore.

By 2026, Hip Hop will be mainstream disco status.
 

The Devil's Advocate

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But they not talking about sh*t in large numbers. Thats all. I listen to it and it sounds like a bunch of ramblings. The few artist who bring a legit message is small.. Thats all im saying.
“Dominant” means what? A bunch of ramblings is still dominating the market. What else is dominating it over rap? In what way?
 

Wildhundreds

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“Dominant” means what? A bunch of ramblings is still dominating the market. What else is dominating it over rap? In what way?

Dude calm down. :pachaha:

Modern music has catchy beats/hooks and you can shake ya a$$ to it. I doubt people really care what those rambling words are. Im glad modern rap is generating billions of dollars and the party crowd loves it.. I, and many others still believe its trash.

Enjoy that sh*t breh.
 
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