As of August, only Taylor Swift’s 1989 and Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late have managed to go platinum or more this year. To be fair, traditional music sales and digital downloads continue to plummet across the board. Aging gracefully in hip-hop’s forever-young world is about as easy as running for governor of Arizona on the Democratic ticket. Other rap acts, like T.I., Ja Rule and Nelly, have jumped on the reality show bandwagon as their recording careers have waned. The Get Rich or Die Tryin’ rapper’s last studio work, 2014’s Animal Ambition, was an unmitigated bomb out of the box, pushing a meager 47,000 units. Or consider 50 Cent, who recently filed for bankruptcy he has struggled mightily to recapture his multiplatinum mojo. Rapper 50 Cent performs during a taping for 'MTV Spring Break 2003' at the Surfcomber Hotel Main Miami Beach, Florida. Singular artists, like Jay Z, can “navigate through the changing times and sounds,” Miller says, and there are other examples of comeback success - like Thursday’s much-welcomed return of rap goddess Missy Elliott. “Hip-hop has become a very trendy culture, so if you can’t adapt to those trends, you kind of fall by the wayside,” he tells OZY. Dot” Miller, Rap Radar’s content director, blames the fast pace of hip-hop evolution. After all, if Dre, the iconic, near-billionaire co-founder of Beats By Dre, struggled to make a proper musical comeback, the rest of the grizzled rap contingent plotting a return to glory face an even more daunting future.īrian “B. Indeed, the album’s so-so performance was yet another reminder of hip-hop’s Achilles’ heel: the comeback. While by no means a flop, first-week sales were surprisingly low for such a mammoth “ event” record, timed to coincide with the movie Dr. And the Good Doctor’s patient followers were finally rewarded, in a way, in August when he dropped Compton. Dre” Young had clung to evaporating hope that his mythical “Detox” album, a comically long-in-the-making project, would finally see the light of day. For nearly two decades, fans of Andre “Dr. It was a strangely subdued reaction to hip-hop’s longest-awaited, most-talked-about return to the spotlight. His work has appeared in VIBE, the New York Post, Billboard magazine, Essence and The Root. Keith “Murph” Murphy spars with brazen hip-hop moguls, Hollywood rebels, revered thespians, redemption-seeking pugilists and more.

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