HipHopNumbers

So I wake up this morning to this review on the podcast that Charlie and I have - digging in the digits. The review states. Oh, dear boy. Oh, boy. These gentlemen sure are comfortable saying a racial slur for African Americans I can't put here for obvious reasons. Charlie is black. He's been black his whole life. He's certainly been black the entire time we've been recording the podcast. He also has an incredibly distinct voice in comparison to my harsh, grinding, low rent Australian accent. I promise you will not get the two of us confused. I do not use the word that SpaceDuckets is referring to in this review they have left for obvious reasons. I am white. Charlie uses the word when he's quoting lyrics, which is entirely his right. Charlie should not have to defend himself from people who refuse to do a simple Google search. His face is plastered all over my YouTube in podcast branded content. He even has his own podcast. What's Good, where the artwork is literally his face. Social media is hard enough without fucking dweebs coming at you and accusing you of something that is objectively untrue. Charlie has done absolutely nothing wrong. He isn't benefiting from white privilege either, because he's not white. So now he has to suffer as well. We take pride in our podcast. Charlie works tirelessly on it. Now, this review is just sitting there, tarnishing his work. Yuck! Use Google, you fucking clowns. You don't even need opposable thumbs. Just get a trusted friend to type it in for you. Yes, ignorance is bliss. I know that, but you're fucking up the world for the rest of us.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

Kid Cudi is deeply underappreciated. I've seen this rhetoric floating around on socials recently that he's starting to fall off. Absolutely not. Man on the Moon 3 dropped 18 months ago, and it stands as a beautiful piece of art. I still remember reviewers comparing Kid cudi to Travis Scott. Shawn Cee mentioned Travis 19 times in his Man on the Moon 3 review. Fantano Six times. Some even claimed Cudi was ripping Travis Scott off. Excuse me? Do you not own an active Internet connection and the ability to type into Google? In 2013, Travis Scott called Kid Cudi his favourite rapper of all time. In 2015, he said, there will be no Travis Scott without Kid Cudi. I find it utterly perplexing that Travis Scott can drop basically the same song over and over and get praised. Yet when Cudi stays true to his own formula, the one his fans have fallen in love with, he gets criticised. There's no realm in which kid Cudi is falling off with songs like Do What I Want - 8 Hums, 11.5% elongated syllables, References to shrooms, Cleveland, The Moon. I WANT to hear kid Cudi in this mode. I want to hear him positive, expressive. He sounds like he's in a good frame of mind. From darkness like passion, pain and demon Slayin' and tracks like Damaged, Cudi has been with us in the cave for so long. Any time he sounds happy and vibrant and enjoying himself as a win for anyone suffering, anyone who has felt his calming presence during their darkest times. But I'm happy for him. He is not falling off at all.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

Whilst the deluxe edition has been turned into a common occurrence by stream hungry record labels. It's traditionally been a place for the true fans. You know, the dedicated fans to kind of revel in unreleased tracks, live versions, remixes, hidden songs, all the goodness you want from your favourite artist. But Lil Uzi Vert changed tge world in 2020 When he or maybe his label decided to drop a second full length album a week after eternal atake and merely call it a deluxe., the album went number one for a second week and ensured that he stayed at the very top of the conversation for two weeks in a row. Since then, deluxe albums have come so fast that this year my followers actually voted them the seventh worst influence on hip hop, the seventh worst. In 2020 alone there were 129 deluxe albums. 54% of them came from hip hop, and a staggering 60 of them added seven or more songs to the original. 2020 was the year of the deluxe, but prior to that, we actually got some incredible deluxe editions, you know, Future's DS2, added fuck up some commas. Jay Z's 444 added Adnis, a brilliant track about his father. Plus we have Blue dropping some bars on Blues freestyle. Good kid, Mad City. Of course, the recipe added to its deluxe, and Spotify deluxe edition, actually added the Jay Z remix of Bitched Don't Kill My Vibe, which is legendary. So before the word deluxe triggered thoughts of a bunch of low tier c-sides bloating out a brilliant album just to pick up streams, it was actually really welcome trend in music, and I kind of miss those times.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

What is it like to have tens of thousands of social media followers? Does the engagement and influence negate the harassment and vitriol you have to put up with? No, it fucking does not. Having a platform is incredibly difficult. Fear is a common emotion. And because it's social media, something we all use in our leisure time, it makes it difficult to disengage from the emotions of it when you're not online, because it's right there on your phone, all these people shouting at you, abusing you, threatening you, making fun of you. So two courses of action emerge. You can try and stay totally anonymous and post vanilla takes in order to minimise the number of people attacking you. Or you can be yourself and hope you're set up well enough psychologically, that you can withstand the constant vitriol. Neither of those options sound ideal, right? And please don't underestimate that vitriol. I've been told to kill myself more times than I can count. I've had every stan under the sun accuse me of slandering their favourite and promising to dedicate themselves to exposing me and getting my account scrubbed from the Internet. Eminem stans are the worst because they're the dumbest. So they take everything, even compliments as insults. And they harass you in DMs on YouTube on Twitter on instagram I've had people find my personal instagram and try and DM death threats through my personal instagram. So what is it like to run an account like this? It's fucking hard, man. It is fucking hard. Please cut us some slack if you can. And if you can try to be kind just be kind. You know, we're humans tooCheck out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

this Rolling Stone list is what we deserve, not as listeners, but as consumers of content. We've engaged too much and for too long, with pages like rap TV and Wild hip hop DX headlines, XXL posts designed to provoke our ire and our eyes in equal parts. We've created an environment where there's no incentive for Rolling Stone to publish a list that we're all going to agree with. And let's face it, the vast majority of us should agree with the greatest hip hop albums of all time list from an outlet who claims to be a bastion of respectability and intelligent critique, an album that rises through the ranks of mid and good to greatness will naturally be heaped with adoration from listeners. Rolling Stone wanted to provoke us with outrage, but how best to do that? They could stack the top 20 with Lil pump and 6ix9ine albums, but that would be too easily dismissed. They could leave prominent albums like Illmatic for the Bottom 100 but then the trolling would be so obvious people would merely disengage, so they sprinkled enough breadcrumbs to keep us interested, and then they unloaded the dogshit on us. Miseducation at number 10 - slightly concerning. Stankonia number two. Well, at least it went to Outkast. Illmatic at 24. I mean, at least it isn't outside the top 50. Very sneaky, and wholly useless as a list of rappers, but hugely informative as an insight into what content consumers are thinking and feeling right now.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

if rappers were stocks, Who would you invest in? I really love this question because it brings in a whole bunch of factors, like, where is the artist right now in their career, what the future looks like? Are they signed? Have they just got on a hot feature run, For example, you would definitely have invested in Fivio Foreign for after Off the Grid. But then his album underperformed, and I don't think any of us saw that coming. You were unlikely to invest in Future because it kind of seemed like he peaked, and will just continue on that plateau for a while. Then I never liked you, dropped and he sold 45% higher than the first week of his previous peak. A lot of people are answering Drake. I don't think he'll increase his value, but if he's paying dividends, then he's a really great safe investment. I personally picked J I. D as one I think it's a bit of a risk. He may have peaked with that Imagine Dragons track, but I honestly think his next album is going to set the world on fire. If it is rolled out properly and given the energy it deserves from the label and J. Cole, which I'm sure it will. J. Cole always does that for his artists. I personally would also invest in Backwood Sweetie, Earl sweatshirt, I think he's coming back to the mainstream. Chance the rapper, for sure. I mean, his feature verses lately have been incredible. And every time he drops a solo song, it hits hard and his value is down since the big day. Let's face it. And Travis Scott, you know, I think his value is way down right now, but I think that's going to explode when the machine starts up for Utopia. And, yeah, I think Travis Scott is a good investment right now. What do you guys think? Who would you be investing in right now?Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

what is up with TDE's release schedule. I still can't get my head around it because it's been over 2000 days since Ab-Soul's Last project in 2016. SZA is approaching 2000 days. Since CTRL, she's on 1,822 days. Even Jay Rock and Schoolboy Q have passed 1000 days again. I don't know why this is happening, you know. CTRL by SZA, has spent 200 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200. It's never left the charts. She's clearly still streaming well and selling records. But where is AB Soul where is Q. Where's Jay Rock where is Lance Skiiwalker, Kendrick says on United in Grief he took so long because he was going through something. We knows Zay was going through something before the house is burning. Hence, we waited 1792 days between his two projects. But SZA has tweeted multiple times about her frustration with the labels perplexing release schedule. Are we expected to also believe Q Jay Rock Soul Lance Skiiwalker. They're all going through something too? They're unicorns at this stage. And whilst the scarcity model worked for a time, it really locks artists into huge event records If you're only dropping an album every five years, that album has their hit hard. The hype is fever pitch if you miss. The disappointment spills over into outright annoyance, as has happened with Kendrick's last record. I'm confused as to what the vision is. I know the talk on social Media is starting to turn against TDE. Kendrick is gone and that mid 2010s goodwill is waning rapidly. I never want to pressure an artist to drop music, but this feels like there are TDE decisions, not artist level decisions. And I hope these artists are not releasing albums by their choice, not labels choice.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

Post Malone is projected to sell a staggering 76% less first week than his previous record. 2019's. Hollywood's bleeding sold. 489k First Week. His new album, 12 Carat Toothache, is projected to sell 115 k 1st week. We've already seen huge drop offs in major artists. First week sales. Kendrick Dip, 51% J. Cole, 29% Drink, 16% So what the hell is happening? Billboard. Keep changing the goalposts. It's non impossible now to compare first week sales not just between decades or eras, but basically year to year, because in 2020 Billboard eliminated bundling. And they said, basically, before you could buy a T shirt and the album was bundled in digital or physical, he didn't have to add it. It counted towards sales. Now, as the consumer, you have to actually add the album to your purchase at an additional cost for it to count as an album sale. And we all remember Kenny Chesney going number one over Drake in 2020 by bundling his album into his ticket sales to a tour that he ended up cancelling all of those ticket sales got refunded, but the album sales did not, and Billboard are definitely trying to avoid repeats of that. But what they've done is make First Week numbers mostly arbitrary. The rules change so often it's nigh on impossible to get any kind of foothold in what they mean is 115 k good. There was once a time when 100 and 15 K wouldn't even get you Top 10 that week. Now it might get top 11th week sales of the entire year. My answer is simply comparing artists on first week sales is now basically pointless, which makes my account kind of pointless.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

starting a new psychiatric medication is kind of like leaping off the bridge into a river without knowing how deep it is. Sure, you might land softly, you might penetrate those calm waters and feel that warmth when the water begins to support your weight, pushing you up towards the light and surface, breaching into the warmth of the sun and just lying there calm and supported. But equally as likely. You might crash through the choppy surface and discover it was only knee deep, shattering your legs and spending the next few months in bed trying to recover. My psychiatrist is like a mad scientist, I swear, because whenever it's time for a new medication, her eyes light up and she gets this slightly manic goblet of slobber on the side of her mouth. And she starts extolling the virtues of the latest medication she heard about in some journal or some forum She went to the weekend. "Oh, yeah, I mean, you'll projectile vomit for four days and you'll never be able to have sex again. And sure you will bleed from your eyes, ears, mouth and belly button. But I've got three patients on it, and they've reported at least the 15% decrease in their symptoms". Okay, cool. Sounds great. Where do I sign up for that? Worse still, though, is when she doesn't have any ideas. A psychiatrist without medications to pitch you is about as dangerous as a nuclear reactor That stalled. mayhem is imminent unless you act quickly. And yes, sometimes that means you might have to bleed out your belly button for a few months just to reset the balance. There are a lot of fun psychiatric medications. It's a hell hell of merry-go-round, that's for sure. It's It's the whole thing, the whole thing.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

070 Shake, You Can't Kill Me. Naturally, Mike Dean is involved here. 070 Shake calls him the album's final boss, and his synthesizer Love sits in a beautiful hazel atop everything this album delivers, and it oscillates from the opener Web, which sounds almost like a gospel number with naked vocals atop an epic synth lead. Then these huge slow burns like medicine or skin and bones. Basically, what you get if you fed Frank Ocean's pyramids through an industrial vat of acid and cobbled together songs from the resulting sludge. There's discordant changes of pace like Blue Velvet, which kind of sounds like a Laura Mvula song on ketamine. There's some really listenable bops on here. Cocoon, Body, Vibrations. It's a little bit disconcerting because the second half of the album actually employs way more percussion, and she truly begins to skate across some truly diverse production. It kind of feels like sketches that were unfinished but were so stunning they were sold anyway. She actually told Complex the album was about dissociation, but I kind of get a cold feeling from these tracks. You know, the sense of a heavy wall of sound, and rather than sitting atop them or penetrating them with her vocals, she seems kind of lost within them. The joyful moments when she explodes out from them and shine so warmly with such a cold backdrop like vibrations, for example. I've played it pretty much constantly since it dropped, my partner and I were playing it yesterday while we were making cookies and having some pretty heavy conversation, and it soundtracked both beautifully. It slips into the background when you can't attend to it, but it's directly in your face when you flip your ears on. Perfect, then to described dissociation.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

I was actually the person who discovered that Tyler, the Creator, is the only solo rapper in history to go number one with an entirely self produced and self arranged album, 239 Number one hip hop albums. Only one time has this been achieved - with IGOR. I remember when the idea first struck me that it might be true. Tyler had been promoting that album with the tagline that he self produced and self arranged the whole thing. When the album was projected to go Number one, I went through the Wiki list of every single number One album in history, extracted the hip hop albums and put them into a spreadsheet. Then I pasted Wikipedia into a column in the spreadsheet. I used the tool on chrome that would search multiple lines at once, and I cut and pasted my spreadsheet into it, and I systematically went through every single number one hip hop album in history. In the end, I would say it probably took 30 to 40 hours of work. I went through that at least four separate times to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Then Judgement Day arrived. IGOR went number one, I tweeted it out and Tyler Retweeted it almost immediately got eight million impressions had complex reaching out to me. Wall Street Journal DJ Booth wanted to do an interview. This was the moment my account went from. Cool little aside with people, not really believe in my starts for real two people realising how unique my account was and how much time and energy are put into these statistics. It's a beautiful day actually went out that night for a friend's birthday and people treating me like a rock star. And it was It was such a validating feeling and I deserved it, man, I really did. I put a lot of time and energy and effort into that statistic, and it's one of my most proud.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

everyone's mental health journey is entirely unique to them. Regardless of what you've read in books or seen on T V or heard in lectures, there are genuinely some cases of mental illness that do not improve, treatment resistant cases. They definitely exist. I mean, I have one. I've tried over 100 combination of meds, at least 30 different medications. I've been told by my psychiatrist that will likely need ECT whenever I can muster up the courage to go get it. I've seen 15 different psychologists since I started therapy age six. I see my current one twice a week and my psychiatrist once a month. I've been doing everything right since I was a child. I take my medications. I avoid the things I'm told to avoid. I practise meditation, tai chi, somatic grounding. I exercise. I eat well. I get regular blood tests to make sure my body is in an optimum state. I have a partner who is kind and caring and loves me whom I love. I have supportive and loving family. I have friends I'd lay down my life for who protect me and uplift me. And hip hop numbers is successful and validating And yet I suffer badly and my psychiatrist has told me ad nauseum I will not recover. She used to tell me I will just get better at managing my condition and understanding it. Now she says, I'm the best I will ever be at that. And this is my life for the foreseeable future. And that's okay. It has to be okay. Some of us don't recover. It doesn't mean we're invalid or broken or defective. It means we will suffer. But we will keep fighting, and your life will be a struggle. But that's okay.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

it hurts when someone steals your content without giving the proper credit. It always felt like a violation to me , even if it wasn't malicious. At the very least it's wholly deliberate. And not only is it disrespectful', it's entirely unnecessary. tagging someone in the Post has no negative impact whatsoever. People aren't gonna throw stones at you for not coming up your own stats. In fact, they're probably going to shower your comment section with love for giving credit where it's due. So why do you do it? You might know of the account. Daily Rap Facts Just some generic run of the mill hip hop page, posting things like The Game is dropping his new album on the 17th and Lil Baby's Recording Music with Drake in his Toronto mansion. You know, the kind of vibrant music journalism that lights up the soul and satiates you intellectually. now, They used to steal my stuff all the time , eventually they stopped stealing and they blocked me because as my following grew, they all jumped into the comments section and just kept blasting this account. They actually accused me of spamming underneath their tweets when I used to call them out for stealing my stats, so they blocked me, but they left me a parting gift. If you go to the domain www.hiphopnumbers.com, you will find they actually bought my domain name purely to screw with me. They knew I'd try and create my own website one day, and rather than being adults about it, they acted like four year olds and left me this parting gift. So the question isn't why do it? It's Why wouldn't you do it? Because in the world of capitalism, if you can get away with it, why not do it? It's super nasty.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

So this morning I woke up at 4:30 a.m. Because I wanted to finish editing my interview with Che Noir and post it. That's the culmination of 30 hours of work. Then I had to quickly come up with a couple of tweets because I've posted way too many links recently and I need to get back ahead of the algorithm. I spent 45 minutes working on a graphic for IG because I need to focus more on growing that platform. In my mind right now, I'm thinking about what section of our latest podcast episode will be best to post to YouTube. Should I go back over old episodes and create visuals for them? I haven't posted my daily beams yet. What should I talk about? You know, yesterday I spent six hours writing our next podcast and replying to DMs because I want people to feel like they're talking to a real human, not just a faceless account, all of that in the space of 20 hours, and that's every single day. because I run this account by myself. The only help I get is from Charlie with the podcast and my partner who creates the cover images for my interviews. You cannot succeed without hard work and good content. Hard work with poor content- You'll just exhaust yourself and get nowhere. Great content without hard work is maddening because you feel you have something genuine to offer. But it never grows because you have to grow it. No one else will. Even at 227,000 on Twitter 50,000 on I G 1000 on YouTube, I still spend at least four hours a day promoting myself. Independence is beautiful, but it is ridiculously hard work.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

Drake, J. Cole and Kendrick never rap together anymore. Why is that? The most recent collab of these three was Kendrick and J. Cole on Under the Sun in 2019, but Kendrick has, like two bars. The next most recent is December 14 2017. So about 4.5 years ago on Jeezy's American Dream off his 2017 project pressure. Now Drake and J. Cole go all the way back to 2013 on Jodeci Freestyle. But Drake and Kendrick, we've waited nearly 10 years. We have to dip all the way back to 2012 with fuckin problems to hear them on a song together. So what is the issue here? I doubt very much any of these three are scared to rap next to each other because they're really divergent artists. Maybe you could argue J. Cole is worried about getting washed up by Kendrick. We've heard Kendrick steal the show on tracks like Holy Key, where he pieced up Big Sean for a second time after control. But J. Cole's feature run recently has been immense. If he raps like he did on Johnny P's Caddy, Kendrick might be the one to be worried he'll get eaten up. And Drake is Drake, you know. He has a very curated release schedule. Everything seems calculated. If he isn't on a song with Kendrick or Cole, Best believe it makes sense in whatever equation he's running on. But ultimately we're the ones who lose out. You know, we didn't get Nas and Jay Z until 2000 and six, and that hurt. We didn't get Biggie and Pac. So many artists avoided each other in the 90s and 2000s. This one really stings though, because, you know, they might save humanity if this trio put out a song together, or maybe it will be garbage, what do you think?Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

Albums to listen to this week: 700 Bliss- Nothing to Declare. If you love your hip hop abstract and yes, I mean even more abstract than Shabazz palaces or Cities Aviv, 700 Bliss is perfect for you. A collab project between DJ Haram and Moor Mother, this record is stacked with beautifully discordant sounds and haunting vocals. Night Flame is a straight up glitch electronic number. Anthology is a horror movie banger. Candace Parker sounds like Yeezus is being fed through a wood chipper. I love this project, New one from Rick Hyde working under Benny's BSF label Rick Hyde sounds vibrant and assertive, separating himself from Benny's frank and hard edge delivery by emoting a lot more. His stories are just as vivid, but rather than relying on unique imagery like Benny, he drops these really potent one liners almost like punch lines, but the images they conjure are super evocative. Then we've got Kamaiyah - Divine Timing every new Kamaiyah project I get hit with how adept she is at the throwback, blending stunning West Coast vistas with hard edged vocals. Divine timing is no different. The opening track with Sada Baby shows just how aggressive she can sound on wax because no one's touching Sada's energy, but Kamaiyah definitely comes close. Another super solid project from her. And finally, BIGBABYGUCCI - Soda and syrup. revel in the hedonistic abandon of this album, take a trip with BIGBABYGUCCI through addiction, violence, money, a loss of control of self and circumstance. It's such a good listen if you're not in a great headspace, it's really freeing. So that was my favourite albums that have dropped in the last couple of weeks. Hit me with yours.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

Isaiah Rashad decides to sit down with Joe Budden for an interview, and people have lost their minds over it. Now when the news leaked, and if you've been living under a rock, just Google Isaiah Rashad and the story will be revealed, when it leaked, the entirety of Twitter seemed to have an opinion on Zay's sexuality like it personally affected them somehow, like their world view has been challenged. Shut. the. fuck. up. It has absolutely nothing to do with you. You may be the only actor or actress in your own life story, but I promise you, you have no role in the life stories of anyone you don't personally know. Yes, Twitter is a place to give opinions. That's what makes it what it is. We all have a voice, and with a voice comes a responsibility to shut the fuck up when you only have something detrimental to add to the public discourse. I know it's tempting to get off your hot takes for likes and engagement. I know better than most how enticing that is, but I promise you your opinion on Zay's sexuality matters about as much as a new Cassidy single, you can keep it. We do not care. And thus we get to people hammering Zay for choosing Joe Budden. Again, shut the fuck up! This is Isaiah Rashad's story, not yours. Zay publicly said that positivity kept him afloat during the past few months. Why in the world would you want to make life harder for him? Just be quiet.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

So a few weeks ago, I tweeted out, Listen to anyone you want except R. Kelly. That's the line. If you listen to him, I'm looking at you sideways. But that's my line. And I was imposing it on everyone else. Because today I tweeted about xxxtentacion, being supremely talented and lamenting the loss of influence he would have had on music. Now I had a friend once really climb into me for listening to him. That was his line, and he wasn't arrogant enough to hold me to it. But I was arrogant enough to hold others to my line. You know, awful people can make life changing music, denying myself the opportunity to learn and grow by only listening to music from people who strictly adhere to my individual value system is ridiculously short sighted. A reviewer gave Donda a 0 because Kanye featured Marilyn Manson, and I know that review was criticised heavily by pretty much everyone. But how could I criticise? their opinion was valid just as my decision to listen to the album is valid. Listening to someone's music is not an endorsement of their decisions and actions. Music is unique to all of us. We take that piece of art and we mould it into our lives into our own stories. It makes me sick every time I hear ignition remix. Come on. But I've been at parties with people losing their minds. Having an incredible time. I didn't go up to them and say, You know what he did, right? Why? Why ruin their good time? We're all individuals. We all have our reasons for listening to the music we love. Let's normalise allowing people to make their own decisions about who and what they listen to, allow them to have their opinion, just as you want them to allow you yours.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

Look, man, someone's going to have to explain this. Kendrick Lamar hate to me because I'm just not understanding it. I'm not seeing it. I recognise that it's not the most listenable album in the world. It's a very personal album. Kendrick is telling some incredibly in depth and uncomfortable stories at times, and everyone's going to have their own unique experience in their own reaction to it. I fully understand that it's not. It's not a good kid. Mad City, is it? It's not banger after banger after banging, There's no money trees on here. There's no poetic justice. But the way that people are just attacking people for liking it on Twitter is wild. You know, I just posted up the revenue that each song has earned via hits daily Double, and they're the responses are obviously very misguided individuals who, unsure how to use the search feature on Twitter. He was saying, You never did this for the J. Cole album, and then I hit them with the actual statistics when I did it for the J. Cole album. They're like, Yeah, but you didn't do it for C. L. V. And then I hit him with the time. I did actually do it for CLB and they're like, Yeah, but you didn't do it for Dunder. I'm like, Yeah, well, I did actually do it for Dundee. Here is at the time I did it for donde So I'm assuming these are the most intelligent individuals who are attacking people for actually liking the Kendrick album. But it's a weird one. I mean, it's not. It's not like it's Jack hollers Album like the album is good, like, even if it's not for you, I'm sure you could be like, Yeah, this is This is intense. This is in death. What's confusing me like if you have an answer, hit me out.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

I've done plenty of analysis around the death of the third verse, and the statistics are overt. I went through every single top 10 hip hop album from 2009 to 2019. In 2009, the average was 2.9 verses per song, and 73.3% of songs had a third verse In 2019 That average dropped to two verses per song With just 16.6% of tracks having a third verse, It's been a gradual decline. Every year it's dropped off a little more, and the answers are not rocket science As to why this is happening, you know, we have shorter attention spans. We all know this to be true. We spend four days debating albums. Then we move on. Streaming services only required 30 seconds of play back. For a stream to count towards sales, think about a 30 minute album with 10 3 minute songs. 30 minutes of playing time equals 10 streams now, reduce that to two minute songs, you've increased your streams immediately by 50% by cutting a third verse, and hip hop is a new pop. We know this It's more melodic, more energy driven, less storytelling and more about making people feel things through the energy of the production. So what are the ramifications of this? You know, the art of wordplay, lyricism, storytelling in rap is slowly being suffocated in the mainstream. And again, you may say, Well, the underground can pick that up. The problem is, the mainstream is hugely inspirational to new artists. They want success. They want to copy the successful rappers. It's understandable, but it creates this data trend that we're seeing here the death of the third verse and I really do feel like the nail's in the coffin. Man, The third verse is not coming back. I really don't think it is. What do you guys think?Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

remember when Donda and CLB. dropped within five days of each other, you literally had to pick a side. You could not be on the fence. You had to choose Donda or You had to choose CLB. and the comparison was harmless. But hilarious in hindsight, because DONDA's a haphazard spectacle. You know, features pop up randomly Kanye's lyrical content lurches from mental health to religion. To sage one-liners. The mission statement for Kanye and his features seemed to be clear. Nothing was off the table except swearing, apparently, but it didn't feel curated or controlled at all. It just felt like a giant electro clash jam session CLB is the exact opposite, from the perfect lines of Drakes. CLB Era haircut to the sequencing, which tracks the same path as most Drake records. Predictable safe features. Ah, the album is about control in every aspect. Drake can manage, personal life release execution, his career. They couldn't be further from each other, Except in one solitary way, the only place the albums connected is in the hubris of the lead actors, you know, Drake was so laser focused on success. He lost sight of the fact he was thirty-five years old, telling a romantic partner. to pipe down can Kanye was so laser focused on his creative power and freedom. He featured Marilyn Manson, someone accused of genuine atrocities on an album you weren't allowed to swear on, You know, they were not comparable at all. And it's kind of hilarious to look back at how staunchly we fought each other over these two records. I wonder how you feel about them looking back now and, if they are, comparable at all in your perspective.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

conventional wisdom states that Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP has the highest first week tally in hip hop history. In the US, Mr Mathers sold 1.78 million copies of his second record in just seven days, a rate of 254,000 copies per day. That's actually slightly less than he would manage with the Eminem show. Released early to combat leaks, it charted number one on the Billboard 200 with just a solitary day of sales one day he sold a staggering 285,000 copies on that first day and became the first artist in history to top the Billboard 200 with one day of sales. In its second week, it sold 1.32 million copies. But it's actually 50 cents, the massacre that takes the title for the fastest first week of any album in Billboard history. That came with a shortened week. It had just four days, 1.14 million copies sold in those four days. That averages to 285,000 copies per day, which is the same as the Eminem show did on its opening day. But 50 cent managed to keep that same pace for four full days. If he completed a full seven day sales week, he'd have sold 1.995 million copies, essentially two million copies. First week, he would have joined Adele and NSYNC as the only two acts to even get close to two million sales. First week we had 50 Cent. I don't think there's ever been a peak like it, and there absolutely will not be a peak like it again.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

all right. The albums I recommend listening to this week Hit boy and Dreezy hit boy's in top form Dreezy is floating peerlessly over these beats. The bangers on this record rival anything that's dropped thus far this year. It's not always easy to tackle top tier production. In fact, I would imagine it can be quite daunting, especially with a name is steeped in Legacy as Hit Boy. But Dreezy is adept, weaving in and out of the production, experimenting with her flows and matching her vocals to the mood of lyrics. The slower R and B cuts are low points for me. But there's definitely something for everyone on here. Marlon Craft. While we're here, the first track is the best I've ever heard Marlon Craft lyrically some of the most dense and layered bars of the year. He follows that track up with a genuine mishmash of influence and sound. Havoc produces a track. Some trap bangers. Chicago Jazz. You'll find at least one track to playlist off this record, it's worth giving it a chance just to find your favourite Marlon Craft sound, Blaq Chidori. numbs super lyrically dense. Grab a good pair of headphones, turn off the lights and fully immerse yourself in Blaq Chidori's Lyricism over numbz' beautiful instrumentals. I promise your mind will start sparking ideas and concepts and images and questions. Blaq Chidori is one of the deepest thinkers in the game right now, and finally Boldy James kill nothing. This is a lyrical meal. There's actually percussion under him this time, which only serves to propel his storytelling to an even deeper level of realism. When boldy speaks, it's impossible not to be drawn into the world he's constructing around you genuinely effortless artist. So, yeah, man, check out some of those albums I fully recommend them.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

Notorious Big would have turned 50 yesterday, and the estate decided to celebrate that by putting out a brand new song, which they lifted his verse from I Love the Dough. It's not a new biggie verse, and they tweeted about it from an account on Twitter called the Notorious Big. It's verified that account, and more than 50% of the tweets on that page in the last month have been promoting products or artists that Biggie had no connection to whilst he was alive. The notorious Big has become a brand name to spruik products, and it sits so poorly with me because every posthumous release, every time they use his name to promote some random product every time we see his name pop up in our timeline promoting a biggie Metaverse avatar or an Apple music event, it pushes the name notorious big, further from the man and more towards the brand he passed in 97. So there are 25 year olds who were never alive at the same time as Biggie is he even a person to these people, Or is he just a name just a monolith? And that does him a huge disservice because he was human. He tragically passed so far before his time. The pain and anguish from His passing from friends, family and fans alike was palpable, turning all of that pain and love into dollar signs. And make no mistake, that's exactly what this is. Using the name of an artist we all adored to sell. Metaverse avatars sucks, man. What more is there to say? It's just really disappointing rest in peace to Biggie man.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

now, Mr Morale. Sold 286 k 1st week and this is the hits daily double number, by the way, which isnt official the official number will drop sometime on Monday, but they're usually pretty close now This number is 52% less than damn, and the question has been floated. Did Kendrick flop? And the answer to this question and you can Insert any rapper into it will always be only if one of their goals was to have a huge first week. Now we can't peer into the mind of Kendrick and divine his true thoughts around first week sales. But we can look at his actions and come to a pretty solid conclusion. No lead single The Hard Part five doesn't count because it wasn't even on the album, and it only dropped a few days prior to the album No rollout except using SKs Tweet along with a cryptic image, suggesting it was a double album. The only song that has a video thus far is in 95 that dropped a full week after the album released no deluxe album, adding extra tracks midweek to boost streams. There are countless interviews. I've listened to where Kendrick says he does not care about numbers, he told Ebro in the morning. The most important thing outside of numbers was seeing fans of his concerts connecting with his music. And that has always been his rhetorical. In interviews, it's always about connection. So no, Kendrick didn't flop. He could have sold 50 K, and he wouldn't have flopped because it's clear that he wasn't trying to sell a million first week. He tried to connect with us, and he absolutely did.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

Now I got someone to delete not just their tweet, but their entire account. This morning it was just another misguided individual who decided to throw down in the court of public opinion, which is Twitter, and I did not feel good about it at all. I think it's important to defend yourself, to be assertive, to state your opinion strongly and clearly. And if someone is needlessly attacking you, I think it's okay to jab back every now and then. But I always feel a little part of myself wilting away every time I do it. Because, yes, I pick my battles. I wait until something witty comes to me, and only then will I respond. Plus, I have hundreds of thousands of followers. The deck is already loaded in my failure, but it's still a lose lose because even if I stand up to some unsuspecting quote, tweet, warrior and when I fed into this myth, and I really believe it's been perpetuated by the social media platforms themselves, that all our interactions need to be aggressive and super charged that negativity will drive a conversation further than positivity that we need to fight and win or lose and retreat, and I don't want to subscribe to this. But anger is powerful. It can drive a person for decades. Twitter i g. Facebook. They know this. It's an easy route to engagement and keeping eyes on their platform for long periods of time. So the algorithm feeds into it. It pushes contentious content to the top of your feet and you wade into battle. Now I do try my best to offer a different route, and I feel like most of the time I do. Sometimes I just get caught up and I don't feel good about that.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

The Eminem Show has just become the first studio album all genres released in the two thousands to surpass four billion Spotify streams. Now. I was just 14 when the album dropped Living in Sydney. So naturally it was a contentious issue in our household whether I should be allowed to listen to it or not. Eminem did not make it easy for us. Whilst the track names on the Eminem Show weren't inflammatory, my mom was still shocked that Eminem's choice of song names on his previous album, Kill You Drug ballad Bitch, Please Criminal Under the Influence. Wild song names Man. So I tripped out there to my local sanity. I cobbled together the $19 I needed to purchase a copy. Yeah, $19. And this began a month long battle with my mum, who would sniff out any hint of Eminem physical copies and destroy them before I got a chance to fully digest. Now, this was pre streaming during the era when download speeds and monthly download limits meant that you could download an album once, but it would take you a whole week and you wouldn't have the Internet for the next 23 days, and I was never that much of an M and M stand. The final straw came one night when I was out with my cousin. She was amused at my dilemma, and she dug the boot and even further by saying, How crazy is it when he sings for an entire song? I had never made it past without me, so I had no idea what she was talking about. I never heard Haley Song. Eventually, I had a friend bring it to school, and I listened to it during English lessons up the back. It took me two weeks of sneakiness, and I don't know what an adjective is, but I think it was worth it. And I actually think that this and blueprint to by Jay Z the albums I've listened to the most in my entire lifeCheck out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm

now a second dealer has been sentenced simulation of MacNeill's death, and the rhetorics under any tweet I make about this is genuinely concerning. Stephen Walter was sentenced to 17.5 years for supplying fentanyl laced oxycodone. Distribution of fentanyl in the US carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years, so he didn't even get as many years as he could have. I'm so confused by the conversation around this Mac Miller asked his dealer for oxycodone. He did not ask his dealer for fentanyl. His dealer gave him fentanyl, and thus he overdosed. Yet people seem intent on blaming Mac for his own death, citing his addiction, saying he knew the risks and thus the dealers are not culpable. This is ridiculous. I've read the full text messages between Mac and his dealer. He didn't ask for fentanyl. I've been taking psychiatric meds for well over a decade. If my pharmacist sold me my drugs but didn't tell me that they had leased it with fentanyl and I died that pharmacists will be just as culpable on good am, he rapped to everyone who sell me drugs. Don't mix it with that bullshit. I'm hoping not to join the 27 club. Mac really struggled with his mental health, and it played out overly in his music. But on the final album release while he was with us swimming, he begun to turn a corner. For the first time since Blue Slide Park, the mental health content on his albums was more positive than negative. Mac was fighting and he was winning. His death is tragic. Don't use it as an opportunity to demonise addiction. It's an opportunity for us to learn and come together and support each other.Check out the replies and reactions on Beams.fm