you still don't need the streets to make it in the music business adore and being successful is two different things
dont fall for the smoke & mirrors. most of these "stars" that came thru the internet, blew up under the guise that they were organic. cole, drake, kendrick, wiz, asap, etc etc.
the avaerage casual fan in middle america still wants to think that what theyre listening to has been stamped & approved. thats why alot of these rappers are so protected in a bubble by the labels & such now and have no choice but to stay cordial.
the only thing the internet changed is that a lil over a decade ago, the labels figured out ways to pump-fake and make it look like you have the streets and built an organic following before you hit radio. when in reality, the only following these dudes had were the internet fans who hopped on the bandwagon under the impression that they were apart of a bubbling movement. meanwhile, these rappers werent even poppin in their own citiies.
then you have the tekashis of the world. the thing that seperated him from all the other rappers of his kind is that he was actually doing videos in the hood. shooting vids in high-risk areas with the whole neighborhood in the video and had well-known gangbangers ridin' for em. i'd have to hit google in order to name the rapper who fell to a distant 2nd place in that sub-genre. you would prolly have to do the same as well, unless youre really into that type-a-chit.