So many songs today are indistinguishable in terms of what project it comes from?

[Rasille]

For a long time when you hear a song you instantly know what era or project/album it comes from. When you hear Imaginary Players you know that’s Vol 1 era Hov, when you hear Nas Is Like you know that’s I Am era Nas. Today these artists put out so many projects that when you hear a record you can’t immediately tell what album that’s from. I think Kendrick is one of the few rappers today that doesn’t have that problem.

 

[Cladyclad]

Griselda is goated

 

[Piff Perkins]

I'd add Earl/Danny Brown/Vince Staples/Schoolboy Q/Roc Marci to the list with Kendrick. There are others too but overall there is very little variation or era-type shifts in mainstream rap. I was in a parking lot a few weeks ago and somebody was bumping NBA Youngboy. Every song had the exact same downtempo piano melody beat, the same simple melody/flow, etc. Same with Rod Wave and a lot of these other guys. Drake has switched his sound up multiple times but it largely correlations with whatever is hot at the time.

On the underground level virtually every Griselda album project sounds the same. Only differentiation is based on whether it's a major label release, in which case Beat Butcha has a bunch of piano beats that sound the same (without samples).

 

[PatCake]

Even the younger generation is listening to older music, at a much higher rate than before.

The thing is, radios and magazines used to work harder to find the great distinct music for the genral public. Upside? They were THE guys and made money from it. People in turn got to hear the quality, different stuff.

Today, while the music is still out there, no one wants to do the hardwork of finding the music.

 

[Knucklehead]

Even the younger generation is listening to older music, at a much higher rate than before.

What do you base this on?

 

[FOUR_ONE_TWO]

For the last 4-5 years I've all but checked out of Hip Hop for this very reason. nikkas stopped evolving and bringing new sounds and flows to the table, and started leaning on whatever made them the most money. It's especially frustrating coming out of the blog era where literally everybody had their own vibe and brought something new with them.

I wouldn't mind these lil nikkas if they knew how to switch it up and experiment, but they don't even do that. Just making the same song 20 times on every project to get streaming numbers. That's it smh.

 

[WIA20XX]

Modern artists put out SO MUCH MATERIAL.

At least 1 album a year, multliple mixtapes, remixes, features and collabs...

And all of the songs are less than 3 minutes for the streaming services.

I'm not gonna hate on the lyrical content, cause it's only a relative handful of artists in hip hop that really have a lot of range in that respect.

My worst fear is that music's place in our society just falls off a cliff, like we've done with movies and TV.

 

[lowkey0z]

interesting take, meek, rick ross, mobb deep, pac, wayne, jay, etc. definitely have "era's" to them

i lowkey feel that way about nipsey and mozzy as well, just because i've been following their music so much

i bump EST gee and leaf ward heavy, but yeah their projects aren't usually distinguishable