Hip-hop’s future will be less American and more global
Fifty years on, the musical genre’s centre of gravity is shifting
TO UNDERSTAND HIP-HOP’S future, look no further than the lead single on the album “Utopia”, by Travis Scott. Mr Scott is American, but the song’s beat is part-Brazilian, inspired by bailes funk, a cousin of hip-hop born in the favelas. Featured on the track is the Weeknd, a Canadian sensation, and Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican who raps in Spanish and has been the world’s most-streamed artist for three years on Spotify. The song’s title is “K-Pop”, perhaps referring to the drug ketamine (but also generating interest from fans of Korean pop). One critic has called it a “diabolically stupid plan to create the most popular song in the world”, by bringing stars and elements of global hip-hop into a single tune. It worked: the song recently climbed American charts.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Going on tour”
Culture August 12th 2023
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