The media commentary on hip-hop’s decline is stronger than ever. Especially since it took six months for a rap album to top the Billboard 200 in 2023, and no rap song has topped the Hot 100 yet..Is hip-hop slipping? Or is there more to this story? is slipping or others are merely catching up?To break it all down, I’m joined by The Wall Street Journal’s Neil Shah, who has written about this extensively. 0:40 Our take on hip-hop’s “decline”4:51 Upcoming albums that may top the charts8:48 How Billboard charts work17:40 Hip-hop over indexed when streaming took off18:30 Was hip-hop held back in the past?20:26 Implications of chart performance22:55 Gaming the system with album bundles 32:49 Are album equivalent units the best way to measure success?35:13 Hip Hop’s market share in 5 years45:16 Music recycling IP vs. developing new oneListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Neil Shah, @NeilShahWSJThis episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fmEnjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapitalTrapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo.TRANSCRIPT[00:00:00] Neil Shah: While it looks like hip hop is suffering a little bit right now, or in this cooling period, maybe it's tentacles have stretched out So much, it's influences so total that it's actually become the bedrock of a lot of pop music. [00:00:12] Dan Runcie Intro Audio: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level.[00:00:40] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: This episode is about the state of hip hop, which has been quite the topic over the past year. So it was right around this time in 2022, when we started to see articles and stories and reports pop up about hip hop's decline in market share. This is specifically looking at the US listening consumption over time for hip hop artists that were producing tracks.And after a record number of years of growth in hip hop is eventually becoming the most listened to genre of music in the 2010s. We started to see that growth slow down relative to other genres. And there's a number of reasons for this, a number of reasons that are unfair, a number of reasons that require a little bit more digging into and to break it all down.I was joined by Neil Shah from the wall street journal. He's written about this himself. Him and I've talked about this both on and offline, and we decided to bring it together to talk about all the various factors. What does this mean for the music industry? What does it mean for the artist in the industry in terms of the budgets that they get?And is this even fair when we think about all of the factors in place with regards to streaming, where audiences grow, whether hip hop artists and their fans are more likely to be early adopters versus other genres, some of the rules that Billboard and other entities make that influence how these charts get factored in vinyl and a whole lot more. So let's dive into the state of hip hop.[00:02:05] Dan Runcie: All right. We're back for another episode this time. Neil Shah from the wall street journal makes his return. Welcome back.[00:02:11] Neil Shah: Thanks for having me.[00:02:12] Dan Runcie: And today we're going to talk about a topic. Both you and I have written about, thought about and has come to a head this past year. And that's the state of hip hop and where it lies relative to other genres right now.I'm sure many of you have seen the stats dating back as early as last year. When many outlets really started to talk more about hip hop's market share of its overall lis