Lil Duval is not pleased with the current state of Hip-Hop and he has an idea of what is causing the decline in quality. The 45-year-old believes that podcasting has taken precedence over actual music.

 

“Seem like hip hop has become more about podcasting instead of music now,” the “Smile (Living My Best Life)” artist tweeted on Thursday (Feb. 2). The Jacksonville, Fla. artist’s mentions and quotes were flooded with responses, but a lot of users seemed to agree.

 

“The conversations just better than the music. 90% of the songs are made in 15 minutes with no thought put into it. Microwave raps,” one user said. Another user seemingly supported the efforts of rappers to get behind another type of microphone. “Everybody just tryna make a way for themselves, they wrote. “Gotta respect the hustle.”

Seem like hip hop has become more about podcasting instead of music now

— lil duval (@lilduval) February 2, 2023

 

The conversations just better than the music. 90% of the songs are made in 15 minutes with no thought put into it. Microwave raps.

— Cool The Playmaker (@playmakercool) February 2, 2023

 

Everybody just tryna make a way for themselves.. gotta respect the hustle

— Stylezz (@iamstylezz1) February 2, 2023

Podcasting has become very lucrative over the years. Verge projected that podcasting will become a $4 billion industry by 2024, in large part due to the number of advertising dollars spent to reach specific audiences. Joe Budden and N.O.R.E have been two of the most successful rappers-turned-podcasters and recently spoke about how others have tried and failed to replicate the same fortune. “You know what’s crazy? I’m looking at these rappers trying shows now, rappers from our era” the Drink Champs host said in a recent episode of The Joe Budden Podcast. “And they are so failing. They doing sports shows, they doing comedy shows … They talkin’ about, ‘Yo, I’m up. I’m just doing this for fun.’ No you are not!”

 

Budden and the “Nothin’” artist, on the other hand, have inked major podcasting deals in the past. Drink Champs signed a distribution deal with Warner Music Group in January and The Joe Budden Podcast was signed exclusively to Spotify from 2018 to 2020 before they had a falling out. Though other rappers have been able to transition their audiences to support them in creating content in a new medium, very few have seen the same success.