Making music with your favorite artist may hurt your career

Since the revolution of music, artist have collaborated in order to exchange fan bases and create new sounds. Collaborations ultimately benefits both parties, most of the time one star isn't as popular in the media and the other needs to remain relevant in the media hence the collab.

Recently major artist like Drake, Nicki Minaj, Kanye West etc... have been criticized by audiences addressed as vultures for hopping on popular songs and instead of helping the artist, stealing their artist identity while the artist rapidly declines in status. For example Kanye remixed Chief Keef's "Don't Like" Keef remained popular the entire year and now he's unknown, Drake hopped on Fetty Wap's "My Way" and completely took the Migos flow after "Versace." Although they all were great songs, the business of music definitely left a bad taste with hip hop fans. We're seeing more seasonal artist versus long term hip hop develop in the industry. Back in the 80s and 90s there were a lot of one hit wonders but the balance of consistency in rising artist were very much present.

Theirs only a handful  artist that comes to mind as consistent leaders, Drake, Future, J. Cole, Kendrick, Wiz and Nicki (kinda). All of which has been at the top since 2008 and/or 2011. As for the 80s and 90s there was a plethora of artist and many who are still relevant to entertainment today. For instance Ice Cube, Tupac, Biggie, Nas, Wu Tang, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Run DMC, Common, A Tribe etc... the list can literally go on. These people and so many more are legends because decades later they're still known and they're music are getting listened to. How many Drake songs do you know? Ok, how many songs do you know that Drake was featured on? Now, how many of those features have you actually gone back and listened to that artist music, or even know the artist name? The day I met someone who thought Drake made up the migos flow is when I began to question if major features cause more harm to the artist than good, at least in the long run.

Nicki Minaj decided to release her version of Rae Sremmurd hit single "Black Beetles," titled "Black Barbies." Although Nicki stayed true to the sound and lyrics that we're all use to hearing from her, audiences responded negatively towards the release. Once again hip hop fans are saying that she's trying to steal the shine from the young group, in exchange for once again being relevant to entertainment. Yes this may be the case, however I think Nicki is at a critical position in her music career, nowadays she's more known for her relationship with Meek Mill than music. Also when she does put out music, such as "Black Barbies" the content is so predictable that it really doesn't make fans want more. Yes, Nicki is a great rapper but she's going to need a little more than a gimmick to truly earn her place as one of the greatest female artist.