Kaiden Ciongoli, Staff Writer
Post Malone released “Beerbongs & Bentleys”, his second studio album, on April 27.
“Beerbongs & Bentleys” appears to be the most popular rap album at Penn-Trafford, with students seeming to know at least a few songs by Malone.
In addition, Malone’s album streamed 48 million views on the first day on Spotify, and it was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America three days later.
This album comes in the wave of popular rap projects that have been dropping like wildfire all year.
In addition to Post Malone, emcees who have dropped albums just in the first five months of 2018 are Migos, XXXTentacion, J. Cole, Cardi B and Logic.
Rappers have become the rockstars of days past, with Migos tying the Beatles for the most concurrent Top 100 track releases for group.
Cole’s “K.o.D” had three songs go top 10 on the Billboard Top 100, while every song made the chart altogether .
Although J. Cole is a very well respected and well-known rapper, the true champion of streams is Drake.
Despite not dropping an album this year at all, Drake is No. 1 overall on Spotify with 50 million monthly views, beating out second place by seven million.
Drake’s album “Scorpion” was announced for June of this year. The album will feature the singles “Diplomatic Immunity” and the record holding “God’s Plan” for most streams on first day release on Spotify and Apple Music.
Cardi B’s “Invasion of Privacy” debuted first on Billboard Top 100, a prominent goal for a female rapper, only done prior by Nicki Minaj.
This commercial success of rap makes these artists more than just musicians, but public figures.
The racial issue is spoken of more than in the rap industry today. When politics and raw emotion of rap mix, controversy is bound to follow.
One example of this came about when Kanye West took to twitter to give his praise to Donald Trump.
“You don’t have to agree with Trump but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does…” tweeted West.
This post garnered West much backlash, which he is used to at this point. Adding on to the already controversial statement, West piled on this in a TMZ interview by calling slavery a “choice” of the enslaved.
West is another transformative rapper with 21 Grammys and 68 nominations. In addition to this, he is certainly an influence with almost 30 million Twitter followers.
West’s comments were followed by those of Chance the Rapper who said “Not all black people have to be democrats” on Twitter.
Rappers like West are currently some of the biggest influences in the world.
With millions of people hearing their ideals and their art, 2018 is a year loaded with new releases and controversy for the rap industry.