as I worked on this video about artists who take a long time between releases I thought of something kinda interesting

the gap between channel orange and blonde (2012-2016) felt a lot like the gap between die lit and whole lotta red (2018-2020)

both had memes on the internet about how long they took, artists teasing and pump faking, and then delivered with a huge hyped album

but that gap for Carti is half as long as the gap for Frank

is the fact that artists are begged to drop so quickly part of the reason why the mainstream wing of the genre feels "fast food" to so many people now? is it a chicken or the egg type situation

and for older people was it always like this for hip-hop? when did the expected gap between albums become so short

thumbnail looking spooky

Labels need to make their money back

Other factors too but I think the most logical one is they need to make their money back. Whether in house label or corporate label can’t just let music sit you losing out on bread.

And I guess because of the free form recording style of rappers aka just get beats go to random studio sessions and record hella songs, labels are more likely to be like here, you have the songs, go drop

whereas bands that go in and record intentionally get more time by default

Exactly

this is facts but what about fan expectations?

Uhhh why would that matter lol

Actual rappers have always been able to feed their fanbases outside of albums through loosies, mixtapes and freestyles.
The problem comes when rappers feel too good for that

Cause we know it doesn't take that long to make Go2DaMoon, SORRY

Rappers don’t even listen when their homeboys say they should say line like this in a session. Why should they care about the expectations of generic fan #5220775

That's really what I was talking about here, like fan pressure to drop

Would be logical but artists defff care what their fans think

Fasure

Gotcha idk good question

Doesn't answer your question but we should appreciate both artists who drop very regularly and artists who really take their time and respect the creative process isn't the same for everyone!

Facts. There is so much music out there and so much old stuff someone can go through, we are never really for lack of good music to listen to that will be new to us

looking back it’s kinda hilarious how thirsty niggas was for Eternal Atake and it was only like 2 and a half years after LIR2. s*** felt like 5 years

That's what I'm saying. I wonder if it was a cultural shift more than it is a genre thing because of the time difference from 2012 to 2016 vs the WLR / Eternal Atake stuff

that would prob make reliance on streaming services the real culprit here

I feel like part of it has to do with how rappers “announce” these projects immediately after one drops.

We knew the name of Astroworld before Birds dropped. Meanwhile rock bands will go on a 3 year tour of an album, then announce that they’re in the studio

Drake keeps his foot on the world's neck with yearly drops
and regardless of how people wanna perceive him now, he has been the standard

prime Jay-Z, same s***

even Ye never took too long of a break between albums

I was gonna say Ye was remarkably consistent, I guess between 808s and MBDTF probably felt like the longest wait because 808s was such a departure and then he went quiet after the controversy

and while MBDTF and Yeezus was a 3 year absence he dropped Cruel Summer and WTT between them

Yeezus and Pablo was a 3 year gap as well but he was so visible and released a lot of singles so I guess it never felt that way? I'm trying to remember. I know the hype for TLOP was through the roof, I saw yeezy season 3 in theaters but he was sooo active it didn't feel like he was absent

the first nut is always the best

I do like your perspective about some of the artists who constantly drop are avoiding the hype buildup that they can't really live up to (not to diss those artists, because sometimes the hype becomes impossible to live up to)

I also think it's harder to keep up with as many artists as there are. I'm constantly looking for new music, and the last 365 days alone I've found probably a dozen rappers I love and will follow for their career, but where does that put somebody like a Big Sean or Joey Bada$$ or Chance the Rapper, who all dropped albums somewhat recently and just haven't been able to capture my attention despite me being a big fan of those 3 10~ years ago

So if you're not constantly dropping or you're not releasing absolute classics, it's hard to keep the attention imo

Exactly. It's so cutthroat. They gotta find their fans, and a lot of those artists have to find out the hard way that there might be less 2025 fans than it felt like they had in 2015