View: https://twitter.com/iamstillpunch/status/1495831917346045952?t=io0fKYik-fVvLlNqRWrpNA&s=19
This tweet made me ask this question. I have to rack my brain to figure out if there's any artist that even has the potential to be that guy, let alone actually is. In the 80s it was undeniable, we had LL, Run DMC, NWA. In the 90s we had Tupac, Big, Nas, Jay Z, DMX. In the 2000s we had Wayne, Eminem (I know, I know) Nelly, Ludacris and Kanye. And of course this past decade there was Kendrick, J. Cole, Drake, and Nicki Minaj (again, I know).
Looking at this new era we have seen minimal artists that had the it factor to lead an era for the next decade and we're two years into it already. The artists that I've seen mentioned so far are Uzi, Carti, Lil Baby, Gunna, and those of the like. Commercially they do well but they don't necessarily stand out, or there's nothing special about them. They may seem interesting but not enough to convince me that they can lead hip hop through an entire decade. The important part about this is they aren't undeniable, even if you don't like them. Many are critical of the likes of Nelly, Eminem, or Nicki, for example, but they're undeniable impact wise.
This is the first decade that we have experienced the beginning of where streaming took a large portion of music consumption, and as the Is Old Music Killing New Music article stated (Is Old Music Killing New Music?) record labels haven't figured out a way to produce talent. They have yet to catch up to the technology, which struggles to get the spark that you would get watching a music video on MTV in 2003.
To produce a new superstar, the industry is going to have to have more room for organic growth instead of trying to force certain artists on our playlists and algorithms. The Blog Era was the last time we saw that, but I'm seeing plenty of dope artists on Hip Hop Twitter which could cause a shift if given a chance.
