Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Rap is broken, and its Young Moneys fault.
The changes Drakes moves kicked up in their wake are only just now coming into focus.
The last two Srem projects were a svelte 11 tracks apiece.
The Migos new albumCulture IIis about as long as TarantinosReservoir Dogs.
These developments feel retrograde, like tech informing culture when it should be the other way around.
This happened once before, and it didnt end well.
The bloat served neither artists nor fans, and thankfully everyone slowly came to their senses.
In 1998, word got out about your album being shaky, and sales could suffer.
Its hard to imagine Rae Sremmurd, Drake, and the Migos getting their first Hot 100 No.
1s as lead artists without a chart that tracked the artists appeal across platforms.
Culture IIby the Georgia rap trio Migos feels like the first deliberate artifact ofBillboardchart gamesmanship.
Choruses run as long as some of the verses ought to.
Everyone gets a turn, and the chorus plays again at the end.
Now, warm-ups can impress if a players in peak form.
He keeps his buzz warm by attacking the popular beats of the day in his mixtapes.
The tandem mixtapes are packed to the brim with breakneck rhymes and crackpot lines.
Hes trying to let everyone know hes great without exactly selling them anything.
Its an album in name only; the sequencing doesnt feel visionary.
Its a data dump.
What happened to quality control?
*A version of this article appears in the February 5, 2018, issue of New York Magazine.
