Chat, what do you think?

Drake saved hip hop
not watching but it is and its not at the same damn time
Rap is def dead
No one is progressing it anymore
Just cuz some dudes are trying to recreate 90s and 2010s rap don’t mean it’s alive
Mainstream it is
Creativity it half is
In my own thinks in the chat
In the mainstream, it sorta is.
Apart from Don Toliver who isn't even truly "young" himself, Drake, Cole, Ye, Rocky and Future got the most streamed albums of this year and they all either pushing 40 or pushing 50 while debuting more than 15 years ago.
It's 2026 and we still have "the Big 3", Future, Kanye, Jay-Z, Travis, and Tyler dominating the conversation more than the new guard. Youngboy, Keem, Lil Baby, Yeat, Ken Carson, Rod Wave, Carti, etc. feel like role-players by comparison.
That's not the greatest sign. But, quality wise, hip hop is absolutely in a great spot.
Tons of great projects dropped this year so you can still feast off of that.
summarize the points made. nobody wants to actually watch the video.
objectively there is plenty of data pointing to a significant mainstream decline in recent years
the only thing going on is legacy acts doing victory laps
Yall let all these mediocre niggas with mediocre music into the game that tell you out of their own mouth that they don't care about rap and this s*** is just a bag to them and then wonder why the s*** sucks now.
These niggas can't rap, nor are they song writers, they just care about fashion and auta farming.
Bring back gatekeeping.
Also the pace of releasing music is hurting the genre too cause s*** isn't allowed to sit in the oven and cook properly cause niggas gotta compete with the algorithm to stay relevant so niggas keep releasing half baked projects.
I think the death of mixtapes has killed the genre too and Im talking bout real mixtapes when rappers rapped over other rappers beats
I trust everything he says about hip-hop 💯
White man speaking on hip hop as if that ain’t one of the reason why it is
The true rap aficionado has spoken 💯
“Rap isn’t dead I just so happen to give light 4s to all its major releases”
In the mainstream {or whatever you want to call the type of s*** that makes it to Kurrco and Akademiks consistently/the post mainstream}
dense linear lyricism that continues a thought for more than a bar or two without the majority of the vocals being melodic is absolutely dying and the fact that niggas about to argue with me that rap doesnt have to be that, means rap is already dead. GGs
Yall let all these mediocre niggas with mediocre music into the game that tell you out of their own mouth that they don't care about rap and this s*** is just a bag to them and then wonder why the s*** sucks now.
These niggas can't rap, nor are they song writers, they just care about fashion and auta farming.
Bring back gatekeeping.
Also the pace of releasing music is hurting the genre too cause s*** isn't allowed to sit in the oven and cook properly cause niggas gotta compete with the algorithm to stay relevant so niggas keep releasing half baked projects.
I think the death of mixtapes has killed the genre too and Im talking bout real mixtapes when rappers rapped over other rappers beats
Ironic stanning killed the genre tbh
I really hate how there is no foil or alternative to fantano
FD signifier
ShawnCee
Imdontai (might not be spelling it right)
Although signifier the only one with as big of a channel
Two main issues is the YN generation never cemented itself and blog era rappers got too much control over music.
Uzi Carti Youngboy baby Kodak rod wave etc never replaced blog era rappers and future.
Rap still in a good spot if you can find rappers you like or don’t really care about who’s running s*** if you older.
I guess if you’re under 25 rap is ass but if you’re like 27-35 rap is fine
its alot of factors to why hip-hop is stagnant but the most important one to me is that artist under 30 dont have much of a story to tell. the heroes journey in hip hop is completely gone
this aint the only factor tho
depends on what metric you use to determine if it's "dead" or not. a genre where ken carson, destroy lonely, and yeat are the artists leading the new generation does not have a bright future ahead of it.
FD signifier
ShawnCee
Imdontai (might not be spelling it right)
Although signifier the only one with as big of a channel
FD not tapped in like that. He unc but he got a good take (music related) every now and again