And I don't see what that has to do with the original convo. I was disputing Zenab's claim that YouTube popularity doesn't mean "shit," as if it's not a significant media in today's world in determining somebody's relevance. She should be embarrassed for saying something so biased and ridiculous and I stand by that. YouTube obviously IS huge and significant and you gotta be living under a rock to argue that.
Well me and Zenab will probably eat our words is both Justin Bieber and Lady have individually rake up record sales that go with their YouTube records.
If I love a piece of music I would buy and not continuously listen to it on youtube (which makes up the hits)!!!!! And I know kids don't have much pocket money but most will either get their parents to buy it, or they will illegally download it.
Pretty gross generalization there. Might as well say 2Pac would be nowhere without Digital Underground/Suge Knight, Snoop only got big because of Dre, Biggie only got big because of Diddy/Bad Boy, etc. The list of artists who have had a big name bring them into the game is long. I would say that after the Slim Shady LP era, people really didn't focus that much on his association to Dr. Dre as much as they did on him as an individual MC. Sounds like you are, once again, making up reasons to undermine somebody's success. There's no doubt that Eminem being white added a novelty appeal to him once he was in the limelight, but it's delusional to attribute it all to that alongside his association to Dre. The Beastie Boys, who are well respected AND competent white rappers, didn't get as big as Em and for such a long time.
Glad you agree with me on one point!
Well you have to remember, that until the last 90's, rap music was looked down on (by media and the Music Industry) and the rappers of the old times had a harder time even with support. People like Dre helped cement the rap music genre.
Whether you're a fan of them or not, Kanye West/Jay-Z/TI/Drake/Lil Wayne are all very popular artists today, so there is in fact a good competition going today in mainstream rap, at least as far as commercial success is concerned. In that regard, there's more competition in hip-hop today than there was in the early 2000s; in those days Em was mostly competing with people like Britney Spears and NSYNC for record sales. There wasn't really a fellow hip-hop artist who was any kind of threat to his position as the #1 selling rapper. So I think you're (again) just rewriting things to suit your position.
- Jay-Z is an old skool rapper who is still going strong.
- Kanye is a good rapper but his occasional behaviour means that he gets less support from the media.
- Lil Wayne and Drake have helped kill rap music. Their popularity has got to be one of universe's great mysteries!
.........Now 4 rappers hardly make competition.
In the early 2000's there were loads of rappers. Britney and NSync is
pop music. Why would he want to compete with them.
Dre, LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg, Will Smith, Puff Daddy, Mase, Warren G, MOP, Nelly, Busta Rhymes, Nas, OutKast and Jay-Z........These are just some of the names that were around in the early 2000's. Most of them don't even release music any more (or they haven't for a while).
Face it, Rap and Hip Hop isn't even that good anymore.
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