The music industry today, specifically the hip-hop sector, is nothing if not oversaturated and fickle. How anyone expects to distinguish themselves from the throng of aspiring new rappers popping up out of the woodwork daily is beyond me; regardless of quality of music, individuality, or musical innovation, the new artists whom the public decides are worthy of being propelled to stardom today seem arbitrary at best (unless of course we’re talking about industry plants: artists placed into the spotlight by music industry executives as a controllable tool to make their company millions, and discarded soon after). However, ignoring those who rise to fame due to those disingenuous factors such as financial backing or nepotism, no one seems to have any real formula on how to build a substantial, organic, long-lasting career in hip-hop anymore. Why is it that artists like Tyler, the Creator, Kanye West, A$AP Mob, and others were able to gain attention in their smaller stages, while artists today struggle? I’ve thought about it tirelessly, and I think I may have discerned one important factor that distinguished them from many artists trying to gain attention and recognition today: every one of those aforementioned artists each started out as just one part of a movement larger than themselves; a reputable hip-hop metaverse.

No one can be heard in a vacuum. Let me say that again– no one can be heard in a vacuum. It comes down to worldbuilding. Each of these artists I’m referring to were involved in a movement, a world, which they valued as greater than themselves, and helped build from the ground up, giving them a platform to stand on; a physical and digital world, composed of different characters, storylines, and most importantly, content (!!!), that fans could envelop themselves in and buy into.

Take Odd Future for example. While Tyler may have been the de-facto leader of the misfit crew which prided itself on its strange antics and refusal to adhere to the status quo in the early 2010s, he was only one member of a larger movement, a group of artists who built an entire universe around themselves by consistently documenting their everyday activity. Odd Future’s members were inextricably linked, constantly making both audio and visual content for their fans to consume. They uplifted each other and created a network of shared fans and audiences; if you knew everything about Tyler back in the old OF days, you felt incomplete without also knowing everything about Earl Sweatshirt, Frank Ocean, Domo Genesis, Syd, and the rest of the gang. It was almost like a friend group that you desperately wanted to be in, but could only be a part of by watching their videos, listening to their music, and buying their merch.

The same could be said for A$AP Mob; Ferg and Rocky brought together a group of rappers who were uniquely talented (and honestly just cool), who may not have raised eyebrows individually, but were absolutely impossible to ignore when fused together. With that group came all types of content: music videos, vlogs, merchandise, group projects, and again, that shared network of fans and audience members. They built a world. You didn’t watch or listen to Ferg and Rocky without at least hearing about Yams, Ant and Bari. And yet another example could be Kanye West; without the emerging hip-hop scene in Chicago in the late 90s into the early 2000s, who would Kanye have been? Would we love him as much had we not seen him rise to stardom with Common, GLC, Consequence, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and later, Kid Cudi? All of these artists built a scene in Chicago, through freestyle videos, mini documentaries, and open mics; content, content, content. We weren’t just in love with Kanye, we were in love with the Chicago rap scene as a whole, and Kanye just happened to rise to the top of it.

I remember being a fifteen-year-old rap junky in the early 2010s, consuming as much content as I possibly could, scouring the internet (YouTube especially) for videos of my favorite groups and artists, joint projects they had dropped, collaborations, merchandise, anything. It was like reading a book and having your favorite characters, and wishing you could be part of the story with them. Because of how much fun it looked like they were having together, all I wanted was to be involved, and the only way to do that was to be a fan. But I doubt I would have been nearly as invested in the individual artists as I was in the scenes that they came up in.

This is what artists today are missing. There may still be crews nowadays, but there aren’t movements anymore; nobody builds worlds. Nobody is out here creating a scene with their group of incredibly talented friends and peers, recording and posting everything they do together all across the internet organically. Everyone wants to be Tyler, the Creator from 2017: we all want to be the leader, the mastermind, the solo genius who makes everything himself. But the fact is, most of us are the 2010 Earls, Domos, Hodgys, and Syds of the world; despite our talent and our drive, we might not ever achieve national recognition without becoming a part of something larger than ourselves, something that fans will desperately want to be part of as well. Not even Tyler would have been able to become the incredibly talented solo artist he is now without once being a cog in the Odd Future machine. To me, this is the distinguishing factor. If you want to be recognized, you better get with your people and build a world that your fifteen-year-old self would want to be a part of. Because if you wouldn’t want to be a part of your world, then who else is ever going to?