How Kanye West Killed Rap and Rock Music

Trigger Warning: If you hate hip-hop in all its forms, you’re not going to like the rest of this post. Kindly close the tab now and walk away.

I’m what the kids would call an oldtroon when it comes to hip-hop. I know the history more than I’m willing to post about on X. The audience just isn’t there.

The Golden Era of hip-hop was 1994-1996. Nas’ Illmatic, Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt, and Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die are timeless classics from that era. But nearly 30 years have passed. There hasn’t been a timeless classic since Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. That was 15 years ago.

Nas released an album titled Hip Hop is Dead in 2016. A man ahead of his time. But now hip-hop is actually dead. It’s really dead. It’s officially dead.

Who was the last big hip-hop artist? Can you name any rising stars? That’s because there aren’t any. The most listened to hip-hop artists on Spotify are Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Post Malone. They’re ancient.

What about new rock music? Remember bands? Can you name any new rockstars? The most listened to rock artists on Spotify are Imagine Dragons, Linkin Park, and Arctic Monkeys. Rock music is just nostalgiafuel for millennials now.

So what happened? Why don’t people go to rock shows anymore? Why are hip-hop artists rapping about going to therapy? What happened to rock bands? What happened to rap?

Kanye West happened.

The Golden Era

Before we get into Kanye, let’s take another look at the Golden Era. Hip-hop went from “boom bap” rap with DJs scratching records and breakdancing beats to a more elevated genre, with layered production, jazz sampling, and prolific lyricism through storytelling.

Notice the peak:

Dr. Dre - The Chronic (1992)
Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)
A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders (1993)
Nas - Illmatic (1994)
Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die (1994)
Mobb Deep - The Infamous (1995)
Fugees - The Score (1996)
Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt (1996)
Outkast - ATLiens (1996)
Puff Daddy & the Family - No Way Out (1997)

These albums were so innovative you would think decades of great music could spawn from them, but it sputtered out after just a few years.

Let’s take a look at the most listened to hip-hop artists in 2025:

1. Drake

2. Kendrick Lamar

3. Post Malone

4. Travis Scott

5. Eminem

6. Kanye West

7. Chris Brown

8. Future

9. Lil Wayne

10. Tyler, The Creator

You’ve heard of most of these artists before. None of them are new.

So why aren’t there any new rappers pumping out new timeless classics? This requires us to turn back the clock.

There were three big “moments” in hip-hop after the Golden Era: Eminem, 50 Cent, and Kanye West.

Eminem

The Parental Advisory sticker started being pressed onto CD’s in 1990. They would have created an entirely different sticker if they knew The Marshall Mathers LP was coming out 10 years later.

Eminem, a shameless poor wigger from Detroit, went harder than any black rapper of the past. None of them rapped about murdering their ex-wife in front of their daughter in gruesome detail.

Eminem was the Donald Trump of the early 2000’s. At his peak, he was the most famous and notorious man in the world. Parents were rushing to stop their kids from listening to Eminem. They were storming PTA meetings to blame their kid’s bad behavior on Eminem. He was the most radioactive artist by far and we listened to him anyway.

Eminem was a force of nature. Now he’s a lesbian. Sad.

50 Cent

Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. were the pioneers of Gangsta Rap, which resulted in both of them getting murdered. After that, Gangsta Rap basically died, then 50 Cent revived it. After being shot 9 times and surviving he had the credibility. He was the real deal. If you listen to 50 Cent’s mixtapes prior to his first album, you could hear a lisp. That’s because part of a bullet was still submerged into his tongue.

When Get Rich or Die Tryin’ came out in 2003, it was all everyone listened to. And I mean everyone. Including white kids. Especially white kids. Gangsta Rap was back, it was cool, and it was here to stay.

Kanye West

I remember watching a documentary about Jay-Z’s The Black Album (2003), and this hyper, weird guy named Kanye West started yelling into the camera “I’m going to be the most famous man alive!!” This was 5 years before his first album.

Hip-hop heads knew who Kanye was before he became famous due to his exceptional production ability. His beats had a very distinct sound. He used sped-up, high-pitched “chipmunk” vocals from R&B/gospel records. The beats he produced had a soulful and optimistic vibe. A few examples:

Jay-Z - Heart of the City (2001)
Scarface - Guess Who’s Back (2002)
Talib Kweli - Get By (2002)
Ludacris - Stand Up (2003)

Kanye was already changing hip-hop before he started writing for himself. His vibe started to become the standard. Jay-Z’s The Blueprint (2001) was defined by Kanye’s sound.

Kanye comes from a line of rappers that hip-hop heads would call “backpack rap.” Talib Kweli, Common, Mos Def, and later Lupe Fiasco and J. Cole. To be called a backpack rapper was a slur in comparison to the violent vibe of 50 Cent and G-Unit. Backpack rap was more intellectual, introspective, and “safe” in contrast. Kanye West’s first album The College Dropout (2004), was still considered backpack rap, despite how good it was.

However, The College Dropout was unlike anything anyone ever heard before. All backpack rap before Kanye was mediocre at best. But The College Dropout was packed with absolute bangers.

Through The Wire was Kanye’s first big hit. It wasn’t just a banger, it was infamous. He wrote and recorded it while his jaw was wired shut after a car crash. If you listen closely, you can hear the spit in his mouth while he’s rapping. Then came the undeniably good Slow Jamz, featuring Twista and Jamie Foxx in his prime. His next big hit was Jesus Walks, which had people scratching their heads. A hip-hop artist rapping about his faith in Jesus? Who is this guy? And lastly, the hilarious The New Workout Plan, a song written for fat girls trying to get in shape. It’s still hilarious to this day.

Kanye’s fame continued to surge through his next album Late Registration (2005). A few bangers, but nothing life-changing. His next album however, Graduation (2007), took Kanye to another level.

Graduation was officially “safe” for white people to listen to. It wasn’t particularly “black” in any real sense. It was very distinctly Kanye. This put him into his own category, and put him into his own genre. Graduation sounded triumphant. Songs like Stronger, Champion, and Flashing Lights were written to fill arenas. Feel-good party music was officially back.

Compare this to the other music white people were listening to in Brooklyn at the time. Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, and MGMT. Hipster millennials could play Foster The People and Kanye West at a party without anyone turning their heads. Hip-hop was now officially blended into white culture.

Kanye West grabbed hip hop by the scruff of its neck and turned it into his own genre. In his prime, other rappers barely existed. They were afterthoughts. He became the most famous man in the world due to his public outbursts and embarrassing stunts, from declaring “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina to interrupting Taylor Swift at the Grammy Awards in 2009 and saying it should have gone to Beyonce. Then a year later, he released his magnum opus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Similar to Trump, Kanye is a master at manipulating the media and making everything about him.

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The Death of Rock Music

Here are the most listened to rock bands in 2025, excluding classic rock:

1. Imagine Dragons

2. Linkin Park

3. Arctic Monkeys

4. The Neighbourhood

5. Gorillaz

6. Tame Impala

7. Paramore

8. Twenty One Pilots

9. The Killers

10. Fall Out Boy

This list is surprising, isn’t it? Imagine Dragons? Linkin Park? Gorillaz? Seriously? Who’s still listening to Fall Out Boy? I like most of the bands on this list (besides Imagine Dragons) — but none of them are new. Most of these bands aren’t even making music anymore. What happened?

Hip-hop shows were never really a thing, besides seeing huge artists at stadiums. Rock shows were absolutely a thing. That’s how people found out about new bands, and how those bands grew in popularity. But rock shows aren’t a thing anymore.

Rock is no longer with us for a few reasons. Rock artists stopped innovating. Streaming services replaced local shows to find new music. But it ultimately comes down to Kanye replacing rock with hip-hop in white culture. Rock music is dead.

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The Death of Rap

The energy from hip-hop has completely evaporated. In hindsight, it’s now obvious that rap music is at its best when it’s written by actual criminals. Nas wrote Illmatic while living in the projects in Queensbridge. Jay-Z wrote Reasonable Doubt while he was still selling crack. Did you know he shot his own brother when he was 9 years old?

Since Kanye submerged rap into white culture, it’s now incredibly gay. It’s gone through the standard HR filters that white people love so much. If you don’t know who Lil Nas X is, I wouldn’t look any further. Hip-hop’s latest beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar included Kendrick accusing Drake of being disrespectful to women, and suggested he should go to therapy. No wonder hip-hop is dead.