Appreciation Thread: Salute to the 2010 Trifecta - Drake, K Dot and J. Cole

[CoolinInTheCut]

Kanye's 2010 decade is the definition of not being listened to outside (don't even come at me, certified Kanye stan but his music as far as radio, clubs, cars was not outside like 04-12 Kanye)

Thug is greatly over estimated on this board, bruh was not more successful, listened to or influential than Cole, Kendrick, Drake and Future. And he definitely doesn't have the same reach across age ranges and gender. The three in OP easily had people 10-50 listening to them, someone like Thug had 15-30 year old boys/men

For Kanyes 2010s decade, were talking MBDTF, WTT, Cruel Summer, Pablo, Donda... How were these albums not being listened to like that? Cmon breh let's be realistic here. These albums had smash hits.

I'll admit that Thug is definitely a more controversial / debatable pick, but the streets were definitely fukking with him way more than Cole and Kendrick, and he has been incredibly influential the last decade. Thug and Future are responsible for today's generation of rappers. Thug is also tapped in with the kids too since he was early on artists like Juice WRLD and Yb.

Kendrick definitely had a 3 huge albums with a few hits. But outside of that he stepped away from music for half of the decade. His feature game was never that great either. Cole doesn't really have a big album or big hits like that (outside FHD, which still doesn't compare to Drake or Kendricks albums). He's just someone who's really likeable. I would argue Meek had a bigger presence in the streets over the last decade than these guys.

Your point on reach is interesting. I've been to all of these artists shows, and the demographic at a Cole and Kendrick show is almost 95% white. Shouldnt we be discounting this from their reach? Obviously we can't accurately measure this, but we know white people love that kind of music (fast flows, word salad verses, and fake deep topics) and we know they don't have the ear for trap or street music. I'm curious how the top artists would look if we could filter for only the black listeners.

 

[CrimsonTider]

Salute them all. Not sure when we’ll see this type of dominance, creatively or commercially, from multiple rappers at the same time who entered the game together.

Blog era was special

I’m not sure when we’ll see non street rappers have an impact again

 

[Waldo Geraldo Faldo]

Page 1 thread already in detail status

You meant derail status?

 

[detroit devil 3]

You meant derail status?

Ya sorry was on the move

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

For Kanyes 2010s decade, were talking MBDTF, WTT, Cruel Summer, Pablo, Donda... How were these albums not being listened to like that? Cmon breh let's be realistic here. These albums had smash hits.

I'll admit that Thug is definitely a more controversial / debatable pick, but the streets were definitely fukking with him way more than Cole and Kendrick, and he has been incredibly influential the last decade. Thug and Future are responsible for today's generation of rappers. Thug is also tapped in with the kids too since he was early on artists like Juice WRLD and Yb.

Kendrick definitely had a 3 huge albums with a few hits. But outside of that he stepped away from music for half of the decade. His feature game was never that great either. Cole doesn't really have a big album or big hits like that (outside FHD, which still doesn't compare to Drake or Kendricks albums). He's just someone who's really likeable. I would argue Meek had a bigger presence in the streets over the last decade than these guys.

Your point on reach is interesting. I've been to all of these artists shows, and the demographic at a Cole and Kendrick show is almost 95% white. Shouldnt we be discounting this from their reach? Obviously we can't accurately measure this, but we know white people love that kind of music (fast flows, word salad verses, and fake deep topics) and we know they don't have the ear for trap or street music. I'm curious how the top artists would look if we could filter for only the black listeners.

mbdtf, wtt, and cruel summer were 2010-2012, yeezus, pablo, and everything after was not putting up numbers in the paint, kanye was still an event but not dominating radio/clubs/playlists anymore. that's why i give him 04-12, you don't get to be artist of the decade when you only had two years of dominance. future, drake, cole, kendrick put album after album (and mixtapes if talking future) up that did numbers and had commercial as well as personal streaming play on lock. you can't seriously say kanye of 10-20 did the same. he became a spectacle and great at visuals/performance for his music, but his music wasn't dominating

Re: white audiences - where are you located? Secondly, white people make up a huge audience for pretty much all top rappers, of the people we're listing Future probably has the blackest audience, kanye and drake concerts are full of white people too. I don't think concert audience it reflective of entire audience because black people are listening to cole and kendrick, but are we dropping $100+ on concert tickets? Prolly not. Only black audiences I see are at club performances

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

None of yall said a word about KRIT yet. The disrespect

 

[CoolinInTheCut]

mbdtf, wtt, and cruel summer were 2010-2012, yeezus, pablo, and everything after was not putting up numbers in the paint, kanye was still an event but not dominating radio/clubs/playlists anymore. that's why i give him 04-12, you don't get to be artist of the decade when you only had two years of dominance. future, drake, cole, kendrick put album after album (and mixtapes if talking future) up that did numbers and had commercial as well as personal streaming play on lock. you can't seriously say kanye of 10-20 did the same. he became a spectacle and great at visuals/performance for his music, but his music wasn't dominating

Re: white audiences - where are you located? Secondly, white people make up a huge audience for pretty much all top rappers, of the people we're listing Future probably has the blackest audience, kanye and drake concerts are full of white people too. I don't think concert audience it reflective of entire audience because black people are listening to cole and kendrick, but are we dropping $100+ on concert tickets? Prolly not. Only black audiences I see are at club performances

Kanye was definitely in decline after those first two years you mentioned, and he had a slump with the Wyoming shyt, but I think you're lowballing the impact Pablo had. That album still had huge mainstream hits like Famous and Father Stretch My Hands. The Chance song was a moment too. Donda wasn't as big but he still did big first week numbers, went platinum, and he got plaques for Hurricane and Off The Grid.

You gotta consider all of his features too like Blessings with Sean, Birthday with 2 Chainz, and all the songs with Khaled, Ross, Travis, etc. Cole and Kendrick aren't matching the presence Kanye had the last decade.

And I didn't mean only concerts, just outside in general. You don't hear Kendrick or Cole more than the artists I mentioned, that's why I feel like this is only an online thing and these guys got strong cults online. Not saying these two didn't make a big impact, cause they do whenever they drop. They just never have any songs in circulation like that throughout the year, Cole has been slowly changing this though over the last couple years with his features. I can't even remember the last Kendrick record that got played out here like that before Family Ties with Keem.

I live downtown Toronto, most of the black party scene out here is soca, dancehall, etc, but I'm also frequently out in NC/SC and Cali for work and family. I always hear Drake, Future, Kanye, Thugger, Meek, Travis, and whoever's hot in the moment way more than Cole and Kendrick.

 

[imfromthesouthside]

Brehs, there are umpteem threads discussing who is better than who.

In this thread we ain’t on that shyt. This is to show love and appreciation to these rappers for staying consistent and creative and steadily moving this art form on.

This 2022, we showing love and appreciation to our people fukk all the bullshyt. Come in a post why you appreciate these artists.

I like this post. I haven’t like drake since 2014. But during this time he was on fire. He was new, refreshing, exciting. Never heard music like he was making. Unfortunately your post says “consistent, steady, moving the art form forward” drake stopped doing that after NWTS. Now I know what he will rap about and the music will be before I press play. Dude is washed. I don’t care how many bad bytches he’s fukked or guys Like Crimson Tider suck his balls. He could touch a billion. His new shyt is trash. But between 09-14 he was the man. Legendary years. Guest features were the best.

And we already know about the other 2. I didn’t like Damn or TPAB. But Section 80, GKMC were great albums.

J. Cole is the most consistent and has the best jams. He turned Drwamville into something special. Born Sinner is my favorite Album of his followed by his first joint sideline story.

 

[LOOPY]

Lil Durk, Lil Baby and NBA youngboy are the biggest rappers out now

And they sound like none of these nikkas.

They sound like Future and Young Thug tho.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

Kanye was definitely in decline after those first two years you mentioned, and he had a slump with the Wyoming shyt, but I think you're lowballing the impact Pablo had. That album still had huge mainstream hits like Famous and Father Stretch My Hands. The Chance song was a moment too. Donda wasn't as big but he still did big first week numbers, went platinum, and he got plaques for Hurricane and Off The Grid.

You gotta consider all of his features too like Blessings with Sean, Birthday with 2 Chainz, and all the songs with Khaled, Ross, Travis, etc. Cole and Kendrick aren't matching the presence Kanye had the last decade.

And I didn't mean only concerts, just outside in general. You don't hear Kendrick or Cole more than the artists I mentioned, that's why I feel like this is only an online thing and these guys got strong cults online. Not saying these two didn't make a big impact, cause they do whenever they drop. They just never have any songs in circulation like that throughout the year, Cole has been slowly changing this though over the last couple years with his features. I can't even remember the last Kendrick record that got played out here like that before Family Ties with Keem.

I live downtown Toronto, most of the black party scene out here is soca, dancehall, etc, but I'm also frequently out in NC/SC and Cali for work and family. I always hear Drake, Future, Kanye, Thugger, Meek, Travis, and whoever's hot in the moment way more than Cole and Kendrick.

That’s why I say kanye was an event/spectacle at that point. TLOP’s roll out/concert and videos were much bigger than the album/music.

Kendrick and Cole ain’t really party music, but FWIW I hear Kendrick out in the world a lot - gym, radio, restaurants, but I’m also in California.

 

[detroit devil 3]

How SICK would it have been if these three nigz collaborated on a track about females sometime in 09 before they all got gigantic???

That’s the one for sure common denominator: females and relations. KL EP/OD kendrick, Warm Up Cole, and SFG Drake just in they female/relationship bag on one song





Not a love song but God I was crazy about this Cole



Miss that era

 

[Waldo Geraldo Faldo]

How SICK would it have been if these three nigz collaborated on a track about females sometime in 09 before they all got gigantic???

That’s the one for sure common denominator: females and relations. KL EP/OD kendrick, Warm Up Cole, and SFG Drake just in they female/relationship bag on one song





Not a love song but God I was crazy about this Cole



Miss that era

Drake would have fit in right on this track.

 

[detroit devil 3]

Factory fam

 

[Spiritual Stratocaster]

One of those has to be replaced with FUTURE .

Future influenced and impacted the culture more than any rapper listed by the OP

 

[Smokin Rider]

Based on my sociological observations, not the charts

Future and Young Thug >>>

Drake been a pop act.

Thug >> J.Cole easily, possibly Drake

Future > Drake and J.Cole easily

Kendrick tho... idk he might be a new GOAT