Quote from: BrandyCollabs on December 10, 2016, 07:50:45 AM
its so heavy the difference between rap sales and r&b sales these days. It makes you wonder if rap artists have maybe done a better job with their music than the r&b ones.
I cant help but think that r&b music 10 years ago was much much hotter than the current one. So the different quality cant be just a coincidence
Mm...not necessarily. Rap/Hip hop have maintained popularity longer because they're more marketable. They have always emphasized lyricism, beats, etc. They're two of the last main genres having that wide appeal yet still be considered definitively "black".
R&B emphasizes vocals, then lyrics, production, etc. fall in line. It's not challenging for non-black R&B artists to gain ground in the genre so long as they can sing, write, etc. On the other hand, it's a lot more difficult for a non-black person to be taken seriously in rap or hip-hop because the expectations are different.
I think you do have a point, but I think the different standards/expectations contribute to this as well. It's kinda why labels want to latch a rapper on to most if not all singles by black R&B artists because it seems like such a hard sell.