Not everyone is buying it. Despite the study’s findings, “I don’t think hip-hop lyrics are angrier,” said Dame Aubrey, director of A&R for CMG Records and Management, the music label that represents rappers Moneybagg Yo, BlocBoy JB and GloRilla. If anything, Aubrey said, the changes we’re hearing are the product of: how The scope of music expanded. Aubrey says it’s simple: more people, more perspectives. Thanks to advances in technology, this medium is now more accessible. “More artists have a chance to be heard because it’s basically become a trend in making music.”
A big tweak in all of this is the mechanics of how a song becomes popular, and what happens as a result of its popularity.
In the age of social media, this can often translate into more of the same type sound, although this is not always the case. So when Lamar took a swing at Drake, calling him a “fool with a check,” and went on to say “Before all your dogs are buried/That’s with all this The K of Nine, He Will See the Pet Sematary”—poems gain traction on
Rap always gets a bad rap. Ego, rage, hubris – these emotions are part of the genre’s raucous character. In the 50 years since the birth of hip-hop, artists have been tapping into these emotions to express their reality. Rap is sport. This is theater. It’s this kind of music that encourages the intense style of engagement that’s increasingly common among online fans.
Are less positive lyrics actually on the rise, or does the popularity of a certain song simply reflect what we think the algorithm wants to hear?
Streaming has changed the music industry in every way possible. Making hits is easier in a way, but just as difficult. Viral trends remain unpredictable. While it’s not an exact science, it’s clear how streaming playlists can help deliver songs to large audiences in a way that analog media can’t.
“While there are certainly trends in organic pop, one unique aspect of playlists is the meaning and importance of context,” said JJ Italiano, head of global music curation and discovery at Spotify. “Even the most popular songs can have performance differences. It varies a lot depending on the playlist they’re on and the other songs surrounding them in that playlist.”
Italiano said Dasha’s recent hit “Austin” had already racked up about 10,000 streams when Spotify editors began incorporating it into their playlists, and when it came time to join a mix of country and It works best when paired with pop songs of similar themes, arranged in a summery, guitar-driven sequence. tunes (like Noah Kahan), narrative-rich country songs (like Zach Bryan), or similarly heartbreaking songs from different genres (like Mitski). “Eventually the song became so popular on Spotify that it made it onto our most popular playlist, ‘Today’s Top Songs,'” he said. But over time, Italian notes, sequencing does become less important to a song’s lifespan as listeners become “deeply familiar” with the song.
As a result, artists find themselves writing music that fits popular trends, trying to achieve the same impact as songs like “Austin” or “Like That.” In the past few years, everything from war to heartbreak has influenced the music of the time. This is still true, but now TikTok, X, and other platforms drive conversation more than any other. “Social media definitely plays a role in songwriting, just like community, film and television once did,” Aubrey said of rap. Depending on the temperature of communication between users, which ranges from lukewarm to angry, depending on the artist, it can prompt certain songs to dominate conversations. Taylor Swift’s most popular songs online tend to be those that detail contempt.
Even artists like Milwaukee rapper Khal!l find themselves accountable to algorithms. He told Wired in August that he wanted to “create an atmosphere where we can party hard but also cry and hold hands and shit.” He’s famous for TikTok, and the best way to maintain his presence on the app is to feed it content that resonates: “We have to ride this horse until the hoof drops.”