CULTURAL ESSAYS
Original research and cultural analysis exploring how music, audiences, identity, and the business around them are changing.
The Future of Rap
What replaces the rap superstar?
Rap isn’t disappearing. The system that once created universally recognized superstars is changing.
The Future of Rap looks at how discovery, regional scenes, aesthetics, fandom, algorithms, and thousands of smaller communities are reshaping how rap culture moves.
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The State of R&B: Men
What makes an artist R&B?
R&B no longer moves through one sound, look, or definition.
The State of R&B: Men maps the genre across four emerging lanes: Pop Hybrid, Hip-Hop Adjacent, Alternative, and R&B Purist/Soul, examining how sound, audience, image, and positioning shape how today’s artists are understood.
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The State of R&B: Women
Every generation expanded what R&B could become.
The State of R&B: Women examines the artists, producers, aesthetics, and cultural shifts stretching the boundaries of contemporary R&B, from Pop Hybrid and Contemporary R&B to Alternative and R&B/Soul.
It asks a larger question about what genre means when artists increasingly refuse to stay inside it.
READ THE STATE OF R&B: WOMEN