Underground Rap vs Mainstream Rap

Why do some artists blow up with little or no talent because of one viral moment, while others grind for years with cult-like fanbases? The answer to this question is much less black and white than many people may assume. A great example of a mainstream artist who blew up because of one viral moment and is known to have extremely little talent is a person like Lil Pump. Lil Pump was the biggest thing in 2017 and reached almost 20 million followers on Instagram. He dropped songs like “D Rose,” “Eskeetit,” and “Flex Like Ouu” as well as countless other tracks which made him go viral. The final moment which solidified Lil Pump’s fame in the hip-hop world is when he released the song “Gucci Gang.” This song became so viral that it peaked at number three on the Billboard top 100. This is for any genre and for any rap song to reach in the top 10 is already unusual on it’s own. Lil Pump had children blasting this song all over the place and people screaming his famous catch line “esskeetit.” 

So how did this happen exactly? 

If you have never heard a Lil Pump track before do not expect a lot. There is a hard bass instrumental which makes it feel like your eardrums are about to pop with him saying the same catch lines over and over again. The reason this became so viral was because it has never been done before. Lil Pump was so unique and fresh to the rap game which was starting to transition over from rappers rapping about their struggle in a more lyrical and impactful way. Rather, shifting to a newer, trendy concept such as Lil Pump who had dyed dreads, face tattoos, wild fits, and a completely new sounding type of music. People always want to move onto the new trendy thing and this is no exception for rap music. 

The Downfall of Lil Pump

With all of this fame in the matter of a year how can things possibly go wrong for Lil Pump. The problem with Lil Pump is that he rose to fame so quickly using social media stunts like screaming at the camera while flexing money at his camera and children became so drawn into this for some reason. With all of this quick growth however he lacked talent. And now he has found himself in a deep hole where is constantly getting made fun of by fans, his music sells horribly, has no real fan base because all of his fans were people just following a new, fun bandwagon which other kids were also following. The same way people all started quickly supporting Lil Pump, they also moved on to the next new trend and left him in the dust. He has not had a successful track record since 2018 and no other artist with success is interested in working with him because of his horrible reputation in the music industry.

“Underground Artists” 

Artists in the “underground” are artists who have not yet had that viral moment to bring in tons of instagram followers or are backed up by a major label to fund millions of dollars into the projects and playlisting to boost their streams. These artists are much smaller in social media followers and do far less in streaming numbers. However, these artists have cult-like fan-bases who show them far more support, go the craziest at their shows and these artists get 100% of their earnings from shows, merch, streaming numbers, sponsorships, etc. They don’t have to split stupidly large percentages of their profit with a label and they are free to drop whatever type of music they want. There are plenty of artists in the past who have signed to major labels and fell off of relevancy. Either do not drop music entirely for too long so the people lose interest or they drop the trendy mainstream sound that the label is looking for to try and make a radio hit. When this happens a lot of time the cult-like fanbase which the artist created starts to fade away and become less loyal.

This does not mean that artists should not sign to labels, because in the long-term to get to a certain point of fame they cannot fund and promote everything on their own. However, make sure when you sign a deal you read the deal many times, because you are basically signing all the rights to your music away and no longer have the same freedom to market yourself how you wanted. A lot of times signing to certain labels does not let the smaller artists drop until the major artist on that label drops. Leaving smaller artists not dropping for months and sometimes years. Some labels are super helpful and in my opinion signing to another artist's label is one of the best ways to go about this. Many artists like Dr. Dre, Travis Scott, Young Thug, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Playboi Carti, LL Cool J, etc. Signing to these artists can provide far more and they can promote artists to their super large fan-bases, give you features of their own, other big-budget features in the industry, or best of all feature the smaller artist on their own album. Most of these artists have been in the industry for years so they understand how to work it and promote rollouts for songs, projects, tours, and merch.

Why do artists sign?

In the artist's perspective it may seem super persuasive to sign a deal right away when you first start a bubble in the underground. Some of these rappers had tough upbringings and really could use that immediate money from the label that goes directly into their bank account. The truth is, that if these artists believe in themselves, they should wait til they hit the certain point with the independent route with no label to back them up. This way, the labels understand their worth rather than signing too early and getting themselves in a pickle. Another thing artists should do is fully educate themselves before they sign their signature on a sheet of paper which gives away most of their rights and freedom. 

Dark Industry

When an artist sees they are signing for $100,000, maybe even $1,000,000 this excites them and forces them to oversee the rest of the deal. This makes sense considering a lot of these young people (some even children) have never seen this vast amount of money before. However, the label is really tricking the artist and however the amount of money the artist signs for, is the total amount that they owe to that label. So that loan they receive is basically just the amount of debt they now own. For example, if the artist signs a deal for $20,000. When they earn that money as a loan from the label, they are expected to pay the label back this $20,000 from the money that they earn from streaming numbers, shows, merch and other sources of income. So any newer artist you should want to sign for a smaller amount of money because with all of the percentage splits that are made with the label, making a lot of money is extremely difficult, and signing a huge deal like some of these younger artists that may only be 16 or 17 years old, are now in debt until you make back the 2 or 3 million dollars the label payed them. This is truly sad because the artist may be doing extremely well and could make a million dollars in their first year, but behind the scenes they might not be receiving any of it. So the artist is truly making 0 dollars from all their hard work until they pay back this debt which the loan essentially is.

Behind the scenes

On top of this, when labels own huge percentages of the artists music in exchange for free promotion, they have the power to shelve this artists music whenever they please. If the artist isn’t racking in the number of streams that the label envisioned, they can stop promoting this person. A lot of times not let them drop music which makes them lose tons of money, and completely give up on them. A lot of these labels own up to 90+% of the artist's stream revenue. 

What can be done

A lot of these rappers complain later on when they mature and learn the real value of money but they are stuck until the deal finally ends. They realize they are stuck with terrible deals that they signed before they learned the true value of themselves. A lot of these rappers have been in poverty for the entirety of their lives so if they see any type of contract for millions of dollars, of course that is going to excite them and force a bad decision based on emotion. Signing one of these deals should be much more of a big deal than just signing a piece of paper and having a small meeting like a person agreeing to a normal job. These deals have many hidden things written in them, and before signing their signature, these rappers should memorize everything on there and read it through hundreds of times so there are no surprises and regrets later on.

So which is better?

The independent route in music might get less followers on Instagram and Spotify monthly listeners, but in the end it may be worth it to have freedom of dropping and how to be marketable. Also, if the label is gaining up to 90% of the earnings off of streams it might not be worth the promotion that they give and the ability they have to give up on the artist at any given moment with no warning. All in all, there's no wrong decision on whether to sign but the artist should be aware of what they are agreeing to and the rights they are giving away.