Welcome to Listening Habits, a column where I share the music I’ve been fixated on recently.
What makes an industry plant? Apparently this is the music internet's greatest concern. The train of thought is well-established: Is that big artist really as big as everyone says? I don't listen to them, and I like to believe I've got my finger on the pulse. How can I verify what's organic and what's artificial?
TDE star (and Florida's own) Doechii is the rapper of the moment. Her breakthrough album Alligator Bites Never Heal has been a success; she made a celebrated performance at the Grammys and even took home three. She's on the cover of magazines and is gearing up to be on labelmates SZA and Kendrick Lamar's stadium tour. In other words, Doechii is getting the major label push, striking while the iron is hot and making the most of this moment. Predictably, the people who aren't into it are searching for some kind of conspiracy behind this supposedly out-of-nowhere rise, crying about whether this is an example of the apocryphal "industry plant." An inorganic artist concocted by labels in order to ... profit? It's hard to know what really separates a plant from a traditional artist, except the vague notion that one is being forced onto you surreptitiously.
There are a few things happening here. Sexism, for sure. Colorism, for certain. But even beyond the particulars of this case, the industry plant idea has really exploded over the last decade, instigated mainly by people who spend too much time on the internet and are therefore most at risk for celebrity overexposure. As a result, "industry plant" has become a catch-all for any artist you just kinda don't like or don't understand. In an era of the almighty algorithm, where streaming services train themselves on your taste and then train you on their assimilated version, it's easy to feel paranoid right now. This isn't to say there is no such thing as plants. There have always been artists who the powers that be have given a big push for reasons that have nothing to do with talent or organic followings. There's no big conspiracy to it. These people are trying to sell stuff, and it's helpful to have artists willing to play along without letting that whole "artistic integrity" thing get in the way.
I'm just not sure that's what is actually happening here, and ultimately this unhealthy fixation with accusing everyone of being a plant is like some boring version of McCarthyism, and misunderstands what the music business is and how it works. For those of you who spend more time on the sports internet than the music one, I assure you that people spend all day envisioning themselves as front-office executives there as well. Because the internet has destroyed the middleman between artists and fans, there is a misguided belief that music success should be transparent. If people really like an artist, the thinking goes, we should be able to see their rise more clearly.
The music business will never work that way though, not completely. We watched artists like Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar build their followings online and in real time, but it's not hard to quibble with the "legitimacy" of even those. Drake had one of the more star-studded debut albums of his era as a method of establishing his star potential from jump. J. Cole got the same type of shiny, big-budget debut, but all he did with it was let Nas down. And everyone's favorite rap purist was doing verses for Taylor Swift and Imagine Dragons. Now was all of that just a "natural" progression for each artist, or did the big-time labels do their job by exposing them to as a wide a swath as possible and seeing if they could swim? I mean, this is a music business that gave us C+C Music Factory so they didn't have to put Martha Wash on the stage. When dealing with the true industry plants, it usually doesn't take much digging to find the Miracle-Gro.
Another thing here is that the people who seem to be the most accusatory are in the 30-and-up crowd. As a member of that age group myself, I try to stay on top of the different directions music is going in, aided in large part because it's my literal job to do so. It seems to me that many of these plant-spotters are having a difficult time with the fact that they've aged out of the zeitgeist and no longer know what or who is happening. Any notion that Doechii just came outta nowhere is flatly incorrect. You can trace the entire progression of her sound right there on her online footprint. Personally, my introduction to her was about three years ago, when she stole the show on an Isaiah Rashad song. I can assure you that while she had star power and charisma then, there was no indication that she would blow up to be where she is now.
TDE, to its credit, has dedicated itself to running like an old-school record label. They take a long time trying to develop their artists into complete packages, as comfortable locked in the studio as they are up on stage. Because of this, TDE consistently produces fully formed artists in a way many labels don't anymore. This also kinda pisses their artists off at times. But it seems that people have forgotten that this was once the expectation rather than the exception.
Labels invest a lot in their artists, and it is in their best interest to help them succeed. But in the age of "authenticity," many constantly fret about whether a new artist's popularity feels "earned." This ignores the fact that there is nothing natural about music industry success. Sure, you can have a grassroots movement and build a following slowly but surely, but none of these things get you on stage at the Grammys or headlining the Super Bowl halftime show. Success (usually) requires talent and luck, but it still has to be worked for, manufactured. It's only after success has been attained that history is rewritten, the pulled strings are erased, and we get to pretend that it had been preordained the whole time.
Truth be told, I'm not the biggest Doechii fan in the world. Her stuff is a little too art school for my taste in rap music, like Missy Elliott by way of Tyler, The Creator. If this were 20 years ago, I would've called it Mall Music (RIP Forever 21). But that's a taste thing, and I'm not so egotistical to think that anything that might appeal to a mass audience but not to me must be a Josie and the Pussycats-esque CIA psyop. Doechii's popularity actually makes perfect sense; mass audiences tend to enjoy that vein of corniness. It's poppy and infectious enough to appeal to kids and families, and has enough elasticity and rap bona fides to please those who want their rap music to make them feel sophisticated. Not for nothing, but it's a clear red flag that the plant debate always seems to bubble up whenever women find success in this genre. From Cardi B going from reality television to rap stardom, to Latto and Megan Thee Stallion twerking into the Hot 100, there is always a big wave of skepticism about how real a rise like that is, when in reality the appeal is pretty obvious. After decades of women having to put up with some of the ugliest misogyny in order to enjoy a rap song, you don't have to break out your tinfoil hats to figure out how music that doesn't condescend to or insult them might get big.
Rap Songs By Women Worth Checking Out
Rap fandom is full of negativity. So is everything right now, but at least we can try and solve one of these in the moment. Despite the present golden age of women in rap, the internet has never complained about them more, mostly out of pure misogyny. Rather than fingerwagging or getting bogged down over who is an industry plant or whatever else, let's be constructive and talk about what we do like. As something I first brought up on Bluesky but now want to highlight on the site, here are 10 records by women from the past year or so that I highly recommend, ranging from party records with mass appeal to some of the most experimental post-Soundcloud underground rap.
Pig The Gemini - "Window Pane"
Pig, like fellow Florida-by-way-of-New-York artist 454, combines the autotuned chipmunk style of South Florida with the melodic etherealness of their cloud rap predecessors and comes with something magical and swaggering. Plus, I'm into the Dej Loaf vibes.
Megan Thee Stallion - "Bigger In Texas"
Megan is not the greatest beat selector in the world, and her desire to be a pop star can lead to questionable choices. But when she's on, she's one of the best rappers out there. And I much prefer her as Houston's torchbearer than Travis Scott.
Baby Osama - "If I See U Wit Her"
Baby Osama has appeared in this column before, and I really enjoy her as the best example of NY's underground rap scene, bouncing between drill and more experimental post-Soundcloud production.
JT, Doechii - "Alter Ego"
If I have to choose a token pop-rap record, I think it was either this or Flo Milli's charming "Never Lose Me." I give this the nod, though, because I think the '90s dance music vibes work well for both rappers, a platonic ideal for fashion week music. Azealia Banks might be a madwoman, but she continues to influence rap over a decade later.
Bktherula - "Shakin It"
It's always fun when the ladies jump on Cash Cobain's slizzy beats and bring their own lusty rhymes to the party. It's a nice change of pace, and Bktherula's single was one of the best songs from her standout project last year, LVL5 P2.
Hook - "Calamity"
Calamity is a good word for Hook's rap style. A very fun, irreverent spin of post-Lil B rhyming, unafraid to careen off beat but always finding her way back home.
Babyxsosa - "Chanel"
Babyxsosa tickles the same part of the brain as Baby Osama—she's just as experimental, though more melodic and more inclined towards electronic sounds. She also brings a bratty style that is charming and humorous in the way it plays off her shit-talking.
TiaCorine - "Different Color Stones"
TiaCorine's Almost There was one of my favorite rap releases from last year, and she keeps the energy going here. She has an ear for pop records, but brings so much personality that everything she makes is distinctly hers.
Vayda - "Demon Dance"
Only three months into the year and Vayda has already released two impressive projects, Vaytrix and the EP Put Your Clothes On. This song comes from the latter and has a dreamy quality that acts in opposition to its pounding drums, a dichotomy that mirrors Vayda's rapping: at once sweet, raspy, and baby-voiced, but with real aggression.
Anycia - "Drive Thru"
Anycia's deep-voiced Cali swagger has as many detractors as fans, but I like its chilly, standoffish style. Rappers not rapping on beat will always alienate people, but there are many ways to be effective musically. And as someone who went through a major Curren$y phase, I don't mind a rapper with low energy.
Bonus: BbyMutha on Kelela's "Raven (Agazero remix)"
BbyMutha is one of the best rappers of the last decade. Her natural ascension to that La Chat/Gangsta Boo throne felt natural and not just like empty copying—she brought her own style to it. She's taken a step back from the limelight in recent years, so when she appeared on Kelela's Rave:n remix album it was a pleasant surprise and a real thrill to hear her again.
Reader Mail
Hi Israel,
What are your thoughts on the state of, broadly speaking, conscious rap these days? It seems like we have a lot of great avant garde rap (August Fanon, Armand Hammer, Fatboi Sharif, etc) and a lot of hotep rap that I don’t really care for (jay electronica, supreme cerebral, wise mathematics, etc) but nothing close to the backpack rap era that dominated the radio.
Talib Kweli is a bad guy, Kanye is off the rails, Badu less publicly. Yasiin Bey rarely puts out anything. YG’s “FDT” is more transgressive than anything J Cole or Kendrick has ever put out. So what is the future of conscious rap in this day and age? Or is it a dead subgenre?
Remy
Conscious rap has always been a fraught category. On one hand, rap has played a pivotal role in bringing black revolutionary culture and politics to the forefront in ways nothing else in pop culture has matched. On the other, there has always been a level of suspicion by me toward the expectation that rap should be the voice of black plight in America. It feels partially like a burden placed upon it by white critics to justify their own interest in the genre. Conscious rap has always existed alongside party rap and gangster rap, and they've often even meshed together. Rap, like people, is not a monolith.
With that said, there's clearly a lack of anything that could reasonably be called "conscious." I am mostly indifferent about that, as I do not need music to be homework, but I also recognize that some people apparently prefer it that way. And what passes as consciousness today is supremely lacking. Kendrick Lamar's self-actualization and therapy-raps are introspective, but they're certainly not as grating as his attempts to give history lessons on wax. J. Cole's shtick of being rap's everyman is more cloying than conscious. Earl Sweatshirt, the son of an educator and jazz artist, brings a higher-ed sensibility to his music, but like an actual intellectual his raps are filled more with anxieties and irreverence than any attempts to try and enlighten. In fact, it feels like the kind of rappers that 20-30 years ago would've been into radical politics, wearing dashikis, and talking about supreme mathematics are now really into art exhibits, wearing suits, and rapping about self care.
Is this bad? Or is it really any worse than the alternative? It certainly doesn't help that everyone we once thought of as "conscious" turned out to be kind of a fraud. Common once railed against commercial rap and then became a staple on actual TV commercials. Talib Kweli is fighting with women online. Ice Cube sold out decades ago. The hotep politics of the neo-soul movement is a lot less appealing when it's not carried by J Dilla beats. Yasiin being MIA has probably been good for his mystique, if nothing else. And the less said about Kanye, the better.
If anything, I find myself more radicalized by drill rap and the ugly circumstances that have caused gang politics to infiltrate rap so thoroughly over the last 20 years. It may not have been the intention, but gangster rap has always said more about America and what's happening to the lower class than anything else. When you look at it from a wide enough vantage point, the myth of conscious rap is a lot easier to move on from. Music is about vibes and sometimes the vibe is a song that poetically captures the seriousness of the black experience in America, and sometimes the vibe is one line in one of Future's best choruses.
Now, what we could use more of is "message rap" though. Songs meant to make a specific statement is a fine art, and takes a lot of skill and finesse to pull off in a way that doesn't feel corny. "Born in The USA" works; "We Are The World" doesn't. Similarly, message rap can be effective when executed well. One of my favorite message raps is Eve's "Love Is Blind," her take on domestic abuse and femicide. It's a rare record acknowledging the violence women face in relationships in a way that pulls no punches. Both the song and the video had a profound effect on me as a kid.
This sort of record continues to appear sporadically, usually by other women (GloRilla's last album was a good recent example of this tradition), but not enough to my mind—particularly now as men are becoming even more radicalized by online right-wing culture. Even a song like "Runaway Love," whose message of teenage runaways is undermined by the goofiness of Contemplative Ludacris and over-the-top Mary J. Blige theatricality, has its own sort of strange charm. 2Pac's "Brenda's Got A Baby," meanwhile, is a much more effective commentary about teens in crisis and poverty.
This is the storytelling that rap could use more of, and it's more useful than some amorphous idea of "consciousness." 2Pac was always the platonic ideal of a conscious rapper, and it's no coincidence that he was also the platonic ideal of a gangster rapper. The two seemingly opposing poles kept him from being a caricature of himself. There is always a risk of extreme corniness in this realm—just the thought of Nas's "I Can" makes me want to throw up. But if you were five years old when it came out, it probably means something to you. I shudder at the thought of someone having those same feelings for Lil Baby's "The Bigger Picture" or Drake's "God's Plan." The thing about a message song is that you should believe that the messenger truly believes in what they're saying, otherwise you might get something like Lil Durk's "All My Life," which feels like a rapper trying to get ahead of a potential fed case dropping on their head. It's a fine art, but maybe that's why Kiss is as hard as it gets.
The Non-Rap Song of the Moment
Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins will be inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame this summer after 30 years' worth of contributions to R&B and pop music. But there's exactly one song of his that will pop up in your head every time you think of the name Darkchild.
If you would like to contribute something or ask a question for future installments, email me at israel@defector.com.
