In January 2019, an album sold 823 copies and however topped the charts.

Aside from a few novelty headlines, the news didn't faze mainstream rap listeners; everyone was too busy streaming A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie'southward Hoodie SZN. Just the record-breaking moment served as a symbol for one of the most important music storylines of the 2010s: By 2019, every attribute of rap, from the business to the cosmos of music itself, had been reshaped by the rise of streaming.

Traditionally static concepts similar genre labels, project lengths, and even what counts every bit an anthology sale have shifted dramatically in the mail service-streaming landscape. Contained artists have unprecedented ability to reach audiences without label help, and a hot track can turn an unknown into a household name in the bridge of a few weeks. Immature musicians are growing up with a world of music inspirations at their fingertips, and making genre-defying records that would have been considered wildly unconventional a few years agone. Meanwhile, A-listing stars have revamped their approaches to align with the new economic and creative realities, and increased numbers of international acts are finally breaking through in united states.

Virtually changes in the streaming era accept been undeniably positive, but others, peculiarly those driven past the revamped commercial mural, are less and then. There are new ways to game the charts, resulting in albums that sometimes swell to exhausting lengths; the influx of streaming coin into the industry doesn't ever go far into the hands of the musicians themselves; and some of the artists who are thrust into the spotlight from a viral streaming striking don't have the infrastructure around them to support a lengthy career, so they disappear equally chop-chop equally they emerged.

From Kanye West and Drake'due south post-release tweaking to the ascension of the SoundCloud rap scene, hither's a sweeping look at how streaming shaped the 2010s, and where things might head in the next decade.

The Art

Music streaming hasn't simply changed how music is distributed; it's had a major impact on the manner music projects are actually constructed. Because of the way album sales are counted, with an increased accent on individual song streams, artists are adjusting the length of their releases—not only for creative reasons, only also financial proceeds. This has led to an increase in extremely long projects (retrieve Migos' Culture 2, Post Malone's beerbongs & bentleys, or any of the Quality Control compilations). In near instances, however, this comes with an artistic tradeoff. The muddying of a project'southward main message with superfluous tracks ofttimes ends up feeling like a cash grab.

The speed of uploading music to streaming services means that, in many cases, the traditional timeline of turning an album in weeks or months in advance no longer applies, and artists can indulge their perfectionist (or procrastinator) tendencies past working upwards until the terminal possible moment. Famously, Drake's guest vocals on Travis Scott'southward "Sicko Mode" were submitted at 2 a.yard. the day the song came out. For musicians of Drake's caliber, who are constantly dealing with jam-packed schedules, the more malleable timeline for putting music together allows them to maintain their status every bit omnipotent forces in the manufacture while even so touring and fulfilling diverse obligations. Equally the speed of music consumption increases, information technology also allows rappers to go along upward and stay relevant, and not fall backside due to slow-moving infrastructure. If Drake wants to release two songs in the heart of the night, with no alert, he can.

Just considering music is released doesn't hateful it's reached its last grade. Changes are now made to records afterward they've been uploaded to streaming services, including adjustments like additional features that either weren't submitted in time. Such was the case with Young Thug's "Ecstasy," which initially dropped as a solo song on his 2022 record And then Much Fun before a belated Machine Gun Kelly poetry was added. Although, that widely maligned modify proves that simply because engineering means you lot tin practise something doesn't always hateful y'all should.

More than ambitiously, entire albums are existence contradistinct. The most noteworthy case is Kanye Due west's seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo, which was updated several times after its initial release on Feb xiv, 2016. Kanye once billed the album as "a living animate irresolute creative expression," which, while highfalutin, is a reflection of what the streaming era can do the one time-static album format. Many of the tweaks to Pablo were relatively modest and involved adjustments to vocal mixes, production, and book levels—not to mention the infamous "Ima fix 'Wolves'" meme—but the experiment proved to exist influential. The trend of post-release tweaking has continued in recent years, with Reddit sleuths and diehard fans compiling lists of adjustments fabricated to records similar Drake'southward Scorpion and West'south ye.

Per the RIAA's 2022 year-end report, streaming accounted for 75 percent of recorded music revenue in 2018, compared to 7 percent in 2010.

Over the grade of the decade, the audio of rap has too evolved, and genres accept get increasingly fluid. Some of this can be attributed to the increased volume and variety of musical inspirations available to young musicians. Artists coming up in the streaming age have access to millions of songs that they likely never would accept been exposed to years earlier. That intermingling of rap with pop, rock, and culling music has specifically led to an emphasis on melody in hip-hop. Gone are the days when MCs needed an R&B singer to handle hook duty; near are more than than willing to do it themselves. Rappers with roots beyond hip-hop have get so common, so quickly, that it nearly feels trite when a new artist proclaims their love for pop punk or indie stone. But when Lil Uzi Vert first credited Paramore'southward Hayley Williams as a formative influence, and acts like Lil Peep blended trap drums and 808s with Panic! At the Disco and My Chemical Romance toplines, information technology was genuinely paradigm-shifting.

Even inside more conventional hip-hop, regional sounds are flattening. Artists are growing up listening not only to the music of their hometown, only sounds from all around the world. Though he's increasingly embraced Houston and paid homage to its chopped-and-screwed artful, Travis Scott became a star by making music that was nominally Southern but much more overtly born of Kanye's 808s & Heartbreak and Kid Cudi'southward early music. ASAP Rocky too turned heads for emerging equally a Harlem rapper with Southern influences.

Dallas Martin, senior VP of A&R at Atlantic Records, brought Roddy Ricch to the characterization. A major part of Ricch's appeal came from the fact that he didn't audio similar a product of his environment.

"When I first heard his record 'Fuck it Up,' I was like, 'Wow, this kid is from Compton, but he doesn't even sound like he's from the West Declension,'" Martin reveals. "There's a new generation of artists on the internet, and it's like, he was influenced by Young Thug, too. You can tell his influences in his music."

On the global music spectrum, streaming has helped expose people within the U.Due south. to sounds from other countries, leading direct to more Latinx and Asian hip-hop artists achieving mainstream commercial success in united states. At the same time, it has besides led to rap'southward overall increase in popularity. In 2018, hip-hop officially became the about-consumed music genre in u.s., which was "powered by a 72% increase in on-demand audio streaming," per Nielsen.

A central aspect of that uptick in fans is due to the emergence of subgenres like SoundCloud rap—a wild, DIY-minded move and so closely identified with a streaming service that it adopted its proper name. This is a direct production of the new power to upload and distribute songs without traditional manufacture connections or recording tools. Every bit Tariq Cherif, co-founder of the rap-centric Rolling Loud festival, explains it, these MCs had no choice but to encompass a DIY style of music-making that ended up seeming significantly more relatable to its fans than some of the A-List artists from earlier eras.

"They were close to the age of their fans, who could see hope and say, 'Hey, I could also be big," says Cherif, who besides manages Ski Mask the Slump God. "When a lot of people look at guys like Rick Ross or French Montana, they're similar, 'This guy's a superstar with huge label backings. I don't know what to practice most that. He's on the radio. I don't even know how to become on the radio.'"

The Commerce

Though the creation of music has gone through significant changes this decade, streaming's event on the art itself pales in comparison to how it has afflicted the way songs and albums are sold, marketed, and measured.

In terms of raw profit, the rise of streaming has been a godsend for the music industry.

After years of decline, the industry finally turned a profit again in 2013, for the outset time since 1999. At the fourth dimension, Spotify was beginning to pick upward steam afterwards launching in America in July 2011, while Tidal and Apple tree Music would arrive in subsequent years. Throughout the balance of the decade, the popularity of those services has been the primary driver for consequent growth in revenue.

Per the RIAA's 2022 yr-cease written report, music industry revenue has grown from $7 billion in 2022 to $9.8 billion final year, while streaming has grown from $two.3 billion total in 2022 to $seven.4 billion in 2018. The increased earnings have been driven by the pervasiveness of streaming, which accounted for only 7 percent of industry acquirement for recorded music in 2010 and 75 per centum in 2018.

I of the most positive effects of the ascent of streaming has been a dramatic reduction in the popularity of illegal downloading. The sheer volume of file sharing and torrenting was a major reason that overall music business revenue declined throughout the 2000s and early 2010s. At the beginning of the decade, many manufacture experts worried that the profitability of recorded music would never recover. Fortunately, streaming services dropped financial barriers for music consumption and increased the convenience of listening to songs online. In plough, people were willing to pay low monthly subscription fees (or heed on free, ad-supported platforms) instead of illegally downloading albums and songs.

Artists like Chance the Rapper have been able to utilise streaming services to get valuable lump sum payments, receiving $500,000 to make his 2022 release Coloring Volume an Apple Music sectional for two weeks. Of grade, it's important to annotation that in that location is still a long mode to go, though. While in that location is more than money in the industry as a whole, it's still difficult for some middle-form artists to be, and information technology has become increasingly challenging to rely on a devoted fan base to pay for digital downloads or concrete copies. An August 2022 report from Citigroup claimed that just 12 percentage of the coin fabricated in music is actually going to artists. As Chicago rapper Joseph Chilliams joked on the song "Mortal Kombat": "'Bout to make ii k when my streams hitting a one thousand thousand."

The major streaming services still have some slight barriers to entry compared to the free-for-all mixtape era—Spotify tried and scrapped a direct upload programme for artists—merely it has become relatively easy for musicians to have their music uploaded through intermediary services like DistroKid, CD Baby, and TuneCore. Beingness able to record and release music so quickly has created unique new circumstances for marketing and public relations teams of high-profile acts, which previously had longer atomic number 82 times to promote projects.

"The level of work and engagement with the artists is even so 24/7, but the tactics and outlets accept changed," says Chris Atlas, Warner Records' head of urban marketing. "Without the correct support, you lot could release records and you could put them out on streaming, but you still need that appointment with the artist, with the labels, with the people, to really ground it and give information technology focus that helps it take shape."

"When you get organic playlisting, that's when you know you've got a record that's really working" - Chris Atlas, head of urban marketing at WARNER RECORDS

Even the concept of a hit vocal has changed in the streaming era. In July 2019, Rolling Stone launched its own ready of charts to challenge the industry standard set by Billboard. The RS nautical chart is updated daily, meant to amend capture the apace changing music ecosystem, and notably does not factor "passive listening" (in essence, radio plays) into its numbers. The streaming services operate their ain charts, every bit well. The Spotify Viral Meridian 50, in particular, is closely followed by labels and media because of its history of forecasting mainstream hits.

The Billboard charts volition likely remain the primary measure used for the foreseeable futurity, only fifty-fifty those are facing existential questions in the streaming era. Since creating the streaming-equivalent anthology, a unit of measurement that counts a sure number of streams every bit an outright album sale, Billboard has tweaked the algorithm regularly, and as recently as June 2018. That update gave more than weight to paid streaming, minimizing the bear on of YouTube and the gratis edition of Spotify while empowering subscription-only DSPs like Apple Music and Tidal. For reference, the aforementioned A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie record actually moved 58,000 equivalent album units, buoyed past roughly 83 one thousand thousand streams.

A decade ago, making a radio striking was the biggest goal for many mainstream rappers. By 2019, the all-important "streaming hit" is a slightly different breed. A streaming hitting is prized for its uniformity and its ability to transcend genre lines and blend into whatever playlist seamlessly. This music is rarely jarring, and accomplishes the master goal of streaming services: keeping listeners engaged on platforms without stopping. With some obvious exceptions, hit songs of previous decades have been uptempo, percussive, and hook-driven, but streaming hits are oft slower, woozier, and far less cheery in their outlook. When the sheen of mainstream pop is mixed with the narcotized production and somber subject area matter of today's genre-agnostic artists, we get acts like Juice WRLD, Billie Eilish, and Post Malone.

In 2019, getting a vocal placed on an influential playlist can make a young artist's career.

Atlas refers to playlisting as "the equivalent of a radio show or video outlet" in an earlier era. "Playlisting upon the initial launch of a record is cardinal," he explains. "Then, after the initial launch, it's about whether you can maintain that level of playlisting, enter into more playlists, and into genre- and region-specific playlists. Hopefully, from there, you tin can build organic playlisting, and when you become organic playlisting, that's when you know yous've got a tape that'south really working."

One key side product of streaming is data. A&Rs and talent buyers often use data to forecast trends. Rolling Loud founders Matt Zingler and Tariq Cherif accept long been using streaming information to help select talent for the festival, which began every bit a standalone event in Miami but has since expanded to cities similar New York and Los Angeles, with intentions to go global.

"I would say we saw numbers for people like XXXTentacion, Ski Mask the Slump God, and Lil Pump on SoundCloud first, and that was before anybody else was really looking at that," Zingler says. "A&Rs were definitely on SoundCloud, but every bit far as people booking shows, whether it was booking agents or promoters, they weren't actually upward on information technology notwithstanding."

Everyone Circuitous spoke with cautioned confronting focusing solely on information, withal. "I think the A&R part is condign more important than e'er, because it'due south still a gut affair," says Martin. "I call back that there's a lot of smoke and mirrors with these numbers and things similar that, so I think it's an even bigger responsibility for us to be able to identify truthful talent and make sure that the people that are truthful and big stars have a existent shot."

"It's about assessing who is taking the time and putting in the effort to craft a fan base of operations," adds Cherif, citing Wiz Khalifa as an case of someone who worked difficult to build an invested audience. "The greatest artists with the biggest fan bases, they have an ability to connect with their fans and unite them and make them feel similar they're part of the motion. Streaming numbers are cool, simply there's mode more to it."

Though the eyes of streaming and the digital download era are like, the best practices are not. Atlas cites Wale, who achieved significant commercial success in the late 2000s and early on 2010s, every bit an example of someone who needed some strategy adjustments to thrive in the streaming ecosystem. First, they focused on getting some of his before mixtapes onto streaming platforms, a move that has besides been washed past artists like Wiz Khalifa, Drake, and Future. Wale likewise found success by collaborating with streaming-friendly artists and releasing music in a more timely fashion. In 2019, Wale's Jeremih collaboration "On Chill" became his highest-charting solo single since 2013, and his album Wow… That'southward Crazy debuted in the pinnacle ten, with 38,000 album-equivalent units moved (against simply 5,000 pure sales), a marked increase over his 2022 LP, Smoothen.

"Equally we were releasing these records, we were building his streaming and consumption appointment, and putting new music out in a way that's timely for how his fans were consuming information technology, while also picking up new fans at the same time," Atlas says. "If yous employ streaming the right way, yous're appealing to your current base of operations but picking up new fans, which led to 'On Chill.'"

Having an overarching evolution programme is of import for new acts who skyrocket to success in today'south more chaotic landscape. A song becoming a meme on Twitter or through the video-sharing app TikTok can lead straight to it leaping onto the mainstream charts, as shown past records like Lil Nas Ten's "Former Town Road," Y2K and bbno$'s "Lalala," and Blanco Dark-brown's "The Git Upwardly." But a successful out-of-nowhere hit isn't a surefire path to a stable career, something that industry veterans like Atlas emphasize: "Nosotros've seen a lot of huge artists that exploded off of streaming. Simply once the trend moved or the sound changed and that evolution didn't happen, they're gone."

The Futurity

Streaming acquirement grew by 26 percent in the first half-dozen months of 2022 lonely, though its growth may begin slowing soon because of overall saturation. A projection from Hypebot hypothesizes that the year-over-twelvemonth increment will brainstorm to taper in 2020, but projects $45.3 billion in streaming revenue in 2026, which would be more than than all recorded music earned in 2018.

As on-demand listening occupies an even larger share of the market and radio continues to adjust to the predominant mode of consumption, the difference between a mainstream striking and a "streaming hit" could completely erode, and genres will go along to flatten. "I recollect hip-hop music is turning into pop music," Martin says. "I think that every bit music ascends, it'due south going to go harder to make a format into whatever genre people remember information technology is."

As physical releases keep to decline, and artists similar Drake release bodies of piece of work as "playlists," the term "anthology" may no longer exist the industry standard. Niche mediums like vinyl will likely still exist popular for audiophiles and diehard fans, simply use of the term "album" might fade. So start thinking near what's going to be on your Best Projects of the 2020s lists. Even music'south oldest institutions are beginning to adjust to the new reality. In 2017, Risk the Rapper became the first artist to win Grammys for a streaming-only release (Coloring Book), and it'southward likely plenty more than artists volition follow suit in the years to come up.

As the streaming industry matures and develops, experts predict the low barrier for entry that was leveraged by artists similar Chance or Ski Mask the Slump God is likely to be raised. "I retrieve information technology'south going to get harder to enter this infinite, instead of easier," Zingler says. "You're going to have to go through a lot more steps to get apportionment, considering there'due south only then much content people tin absorb in a day. And all the platforms are controlled, realistically, by algorithms, and by all this other shit. SoundCloud used to exist free. That shit ain't costless anymore."

Streaming will almost surely remain the master way people consume music in the adjacent decade, just as the novelty wears off, industry insiders warn that a cognition of how to use streaming won't be the matter that breaks a new artist. "When everybody starts doing that aforementioned thing, it becomes similar the situation nosotros used to be in with radio, pre-streaming," Cherif points out. "A new way of popping off will have to come nearly."

Until that new mode of popping off emerges, though, streaming will continue to reshape the industry, fueled by intense competition betwixt platforms. Spotify sued Apple in Europe, upping the dues in a streaming state of war nearly as heated equally the one betwixt video services like Netflix and Disney+. And upstart services like Resonate, a streaming co-op, are also launching, with the claw of greater payouts to artists, though they'll likely struggle to learn much major-characterization itemize.

For at present, the momentum behind music streaming in the 2010s seems poised to build in the next decade. In the 2020s, expect to see the reverberating furnishings of streaming continue to fleck abroad at genre concepts within hip-hop, shape the picture of a more egalitarian music industry, and alter our perception of what a rap album tin can wait and audio like.

Circuitous is celebrating the best in music, pop civilisation, style, sneakers, and sports this decade. Check out the residue of our 2010s serial hither.