By: Meghan Mahaffey
The lens into the lives of today’s most relevant stars is the most focused it has ever been throughout the generations of music. While all genres have experienced the recent intertwining of artists and their fandoms, Hip-Hop has been positioned uniquely. Rising stars in the genre have leveraged streaming platforms and their reach to tap into previously untapped online audiences that have the potential to form fan bases. For example, earlier this year, recent Hip-Hop icon, Doechii, connected with her fans over her hit record, “Denial is a River” via a livestream entitled “Denial is a Stream”. Artists’ ability to engage with livestream has created a casual and comfortable environment where audience members feel as if they are creatively involved with the artists they look up to.
Hip-hop artists, in particular, have taken advantage of collaborating with streamers. Plaqueboymax, a popular Twitch streamer, has enjoyed commercial success by displaying his music production skills live on stream with up-and-coming rap artists. The streamer recently collaborated with DDG, a rapper well-known in the streaming scene due to his presence on YouTube. The two live produced “Pink Dreads” on a live Twitch stream, which was so successful that the duo created a subsequent official music video for the track. Audiences of streams like this one can see into the music production process in real time – an insight that fans have traditionally been kept in the dark about due to the lack of technology that made this visibility possible.
Streamers are playing an increasingly important role in the future of Hip-Hop, as many artists are taking their music development to streaming platforms. Streamers’ traditionally younger audiences will shape their understandings of the current major players in the genre based on what they consume on these platforms. Streamers will likely play a significant role in the way Hip-Hop artists approach fan acquisition, especially as they target the emerging generations of music fans.
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