If you watched the video segment we shot to accompany our recent list of "25 Rappers to Watch Out for in 2014," you've already seen that we've declared this "the year of the undiscovered rapper." Whereas 2013 was the summer of Yeezus, Born Sinner, My Name Is My Name, and "Control," this year's buzz belongs to novices such as Dreezy, Bobby Shmurda, and, Young Thug, the latter having just played his first network television booking on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.
Assuming you're a million clicks deep into the hip-hop internet, no doubt you've read at least passing mention of Shmurda as well as Yung Lean, the latest darlings of the rap blogosphere. They're talented, they're enigmatic, but I doubt either of them will be dropping a classic or otherwise mind-blowing album anytime soon. "Vine hype-chaser" and "weirdo white boy rapper," is how many will diss Shmurda and Lean, respectively.
Given Trinidad James' ejection from his Def Jam contract last week, Bobby Shmurda's lightspeed signing to Epic Records reads rather like deja vu: Trinidad James, for one lucky minute, was a mixtape bumpkin one minute who blew up in the blink of an eye. He lost his bearing just as quickly, and he lost his record deal before teasing even a title for his debut album. For better or worse, "hype" is a tricky metric in this era when global pop culture (not just hip-hop) is digital, instantaneous, and apparently infinite.
James was an extreme case: supposedly he'd only been rapping for 10 months before releasing "All Gold Everything" as his breakout hit. Chief Keef, in contrast—though purists resent his freewheeling, amateurish approach to songwriting—was a Chiraq trap prodigy with local hits and mixtape buzz as the foundation of his eventual internet fame. In this sense, Keef was a hype hybrid. "I Don't Like" dropped in spring 2012, followed by Keef's Interscope debut just before Christmas of the same year. Just a few months ago, Finally Rich exceeded 400,000 units sold and went (finally) gold.
Regardless, rap purists insist that Keef is/was a fluke designed by hype from executives and editors keen to exploit teen wretchedness for all the pageviews that's worth; that even the most compelling of such sensational rappers are here today, gone tomorrow. Chief Keef's enduring impact, then, must sound rather like a slap to the face. Keef, Durk, et al. thrive by the power of a real fanbase, despite whatever bitching that Chicago drill's popularity is due to the hipster cabal that (you'd imagine) runs New York media. Likewise, the write-ups of (and tweets from) Yung Lean's U.S. debut at Webster Hall in Manhattan all stressed the heavy presence and enthusiasm of young music journalists. Noisey hosted Lean's Manhattan set, further complicating your investigation of whether Lean is a legit crowd-pleaser or rather a media fascination.
Former Warner Music chief Lyor Cohen's new music label, 300, peruses exclusive online data to identify viral hitmakers while they're still simmering, before they really pop off. Cohen's guiding realization being that "hype" is a motherfucker in 2014, and that with many teen and "street" artists such as Keef and Shmurda, the best record labels can do is guess, wager, and pray. A la Trinidad James, there will be busts. Superstars are rare. Entertainers are plenty, even now, when record sales are distressingly meager. Much of your favorite music is unsponsored. Hits rain from Soundcloud, DatPiff, and the strangest corners of Atlanta or else Swedish YouTube, where artists, fans, and writers alike will always be chasing the latest wave; maybe it crashes, maybe not. All bets welcome.
