Music is massive and it is really to the beholders eye on what they enjoy hearing and what they want to hear. But there is no denying the surge that rap has made in the music industry as of late. The culture has really shifted and things have begun to turn in that direction and a lot has to do with social media. With all the clothing and cool looking image these rappers are portraying every kid really wants to dress like them talk like them and sound like them. A few of the major artists to really play a role in this shift is drake, the migos and guys like jay-z and kanye west. They built the foundation for the hundreds of rappers that exist now. Toronto as well as London has really helped shape the way we look at rap in Canada. Something else that can be said about rap is all the different ethnicity that come together. Especially in Toronto where you get a heavy dosage of Caribbean music and reggae music because of the high rate of diversity. 20.2% of Canada’s visible minority population, live in the city of Toronto which is quite a bit considering it only accounts for 3 million people out of Canada’s 35 million. Now a lot of people when they think about rap they tend to think about drake. Just because he is one of the more influential artists in the world and also very global. Drake really embodies what Toronto rap is about. He merges the r&b vibe with a lot of the hard Atlanta type rap to make a perfect combination that really shows how we in Canada mesh together. Just like his music a combination of different things and different people. Modern rap really controls the way now but if it wasn’t for rappers like tupac and biggie smalls help pave the way it wouldn’t be around like this today. There is still an old school train of thought tho that rap music now mentions way too much about drugs and robbing and killing that it really shouldn’t be popularized as much as it is. Former record store owner and advent hip hop listener Darius brown explains” rap these days it talks about too much sh** and too much about violence that’s what is really tugging this battle” but hip hop really hasn’t changed. Original hip hop was really originated in 1979 with artists like busy b, the sequence and jazzy jay. But the rap music back then although had a much simpler tone to it still emphasized party related subject matter. But it also had artists out there who were using their platform of rap to try and change peoples minds about world issues such as Brother D’s “How We Go Make the Black Nation Rise”, and Kurtis Blow’s “Hard Times” (both released in 1980), that explored socially relevant ideas. Something we don’t see very much anymore. Now although there are a lot of genres in music rap must be doing something right as it is the top genre in all of the music. A Lot of it has to do with marketing though and where we are headed. We are the first ones to really master the aspect of social media and really come up with the recipe to become rich and famous of using things like Instagram as your main platform. It plays a huge part in how we think today. Music is for always evolving and I’m sure we will see another genre make a push
