Everyone talks about this being the last “good era” of hip hop but in reality this was the downfall. All of these artists and everyone from this crop valued aesthetics over actual substance and such only lasted 4-5 years before become meme garbage

Uzi- been chasing his 2016 sound for 10 years
Kodak- crackhead cia psyop
21 savage- washed
Denzel- meme garbage

In fact the most successful rapper from that generation is Yachty and it’s precisely because he doesnt rap and writes for orher artists

It’s not even worth posting the other cypher from that year. Theyre all meme garbage slop too.

Those old heads were right and everyone only lived in the moment because Magnolia and Xo Tour life were hot on the charts

All these guys had solid careers though

kodak disrespect?

the zoes won't take that lightly op

"In fact the most successful rapper from that generation is Yachty"

@JewBudden

Not on some pocket watching s*** but he’s probably made the most money purely off brand deals, ghostwriting, association with Drake

You’re kinda proving my point lol. Hes garbage musically even compared to his own gen

No avy and member from 2026

Anyone taking the blatant bait is kinda ed

Most people really aren’t ready to have that convo, but the decline really did start in 2016

So many people have nostalgia for that era because it was “fun” . But this was when rappers really stopped caring about having a genuine good verse. It started to become more about “vibes “

And music listeners ate that up, so then up and coming rappers didn’t need to actually rap well anymore to blow up.
And that’s why hip hop is in its current state

And I’m not saying there wasn’t good music during this era, but this was when lyrics stopped mattering

Immediately invalidated himself

Only when you ignore the statement that follows immediately

But you could say the same thing for the ringtone rap era and yet the blog era came right after it

Kanye and Wayne wasn’t dumbing them selves down to make ringtone rap music to appeal to the youth they just were doing them, the youth followed and thats what birthed the blog era

Wayne’s and Kanye’s are once in a lifetime artists. We don’t get that s*** every 3 years.

You can tell this s*** is f***ed because people like Joe Budden and Ebro pivoted to d***riding new music to no longer be the old hating fart lmao

No one with a platform over 30 has a backbone when it comes to hip hop criticism because of the constant age shaming of people who have opinions that value the fundamentals of rap music which im sure we gonna see a variation of in this thread lmao

unfortunately correct

Anderson .paak has been doing his thing

This is cope to not acknowledge we collectively as a culture started letting niggas get big 3 rapper perks (carti uzi yachty) without big 3 rap skills

Are Cudi Lupe Pharrell etc also “once in a lifetime” artists because they also said f*** just giving in to imitating niggas half their age and continued to make dope s*** that served as the foundation to the blog era? Lol niggas be making excuses

Ringtone rap was just a section of hip hop though, and wasn’t the entire mainstream scene. At the same time ringtone rap was popping, you had Wayne rapping his ass off on every single track he could get his hands on . And he was easily bigger than any ringtone rapper

TI, Ye, Lupe, and 50 were all at mainstream levels but were actually spitting

There was still a real standard for rappers to actually rap

Yep

Niggas cant name 5 rappers outside of the obvious YMCMB/GOOD/Roc lineage (that were also the top rappers when Obama was president lmfao) and Kendrick who are of that level of rap skill that can sell anywhere near 100k today lol

And no sales dont matter/arent everything but what im saying is still a symptom of how the culture and most new mainstream aspiring artists dont value rap skills anymore because of what has happened since 2015-2016

There’s a big reason why haven’t gotten another mainstream rapper who is on the same lyrical level of Kendrick or Drake. Audiences lowered their standards, there wasn’t a real demand to hear rappers actually rap anymore. And it really started during the “clout era”

People just wanna hear Carti vibe out on a beat, so now we are stuck with Carti and Uzi clones

• in fact
• probably

The beginning of the end was jay z packaging hiphop into a product for labels and pushing that concept as the forefront of the culture

This was the logical consequence of that

Been saying this