Ebro Darden says that major labels are no longer focusing on singing rappers and have turned their attention to Afrobeats and Latin music.
It’s no secret that Afrobeats, Latin pop, and reggaeton are some of the genres that have surged in popularity over the past few years. Apparently, the shift was enough to catch the attention of some of the biggest record labels in the music space. While hip hop is still the most dominant genre in the world, some stakeholders in the space feel that Afrobeats, in particular, is posing a threat to its dominance.
On Thursday (August 17), Ebro shared on Twitter that he received a phone call from someone in high places relaying the news.
“I got a call saying ‘It should be noted many major record labels have deprioritized signing Rappers’,” Ebro tweeted. “The focus is now African Music & Latin Music. Rappers better stop being boring and talking about the same sh*t over and over, chasing TikTok success and comment sections.”
With the mention of singing rappers, Ebro is referring to rappers like Drake and Nicki Minaj, who can both sing and rap and have been shown to move big numbers with their music.
Urban Islandz reported in July this year that Afrobeats saw a surge of 550% increase in streaming on Spotify over five years and, as of 2022, was at over 13 billion streams. The genre is being fueled by artists like Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido, Tems, and Rema, who released some massively popular singles over the past few years.
The Latin music market has also seen a huge surge in popularity in the United States and global streaming markets, with artists from Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Central America breaking into the mainstream music market, including Bad Bunny, Luis Fonsi, J Balvin, Farruko, Karol G, Anuel AA, Becky G, Ozuna, and more seeing mainstream success.
Perhaps this is Ebro Darden’s way of putting the new generation of rappers on notice, or maybe he is just relaying the information as he gets it. Nevertheless, other pundits in hip hop like Charlamagne Tha God and DJ Akademiks have been saying that Afrobeats stars are making a bigger impact on the music space than rappers these days.
