Scarface Believes Hip-Hop Is Being ‘Dumbed Down’ By Streaming
May 2, 2024
Scarface urges rap artists to pull their music from streaming platforms due to low payouts.
Rap legend Scarface has been around far too long to accept the outsiders who “dumb down” hip-hop culture and streaming platforms that reap the most profit.
The “My Block” rapper recently appeared on “The Fly Zone Radio Show” with Trick Trick where he unleashed his gripe with the current state of hip-hop that allows “people that don’t look like us” to control the industry.
“It seems like the whole culture is being dumbed down now, and I want to be as offensive as I possibly fking can when I say this, again… The culture is being so fking dumbed down and manipulated and controlled by people that don’t look like us,” Scarface said.
“So these motherfkers don’t look like me, they’re not creators of this culture, but they want to control it and dictate who come in, how they come out, the stream… We don’t fking stream, man, we buy records, we ride this shit around in our car.”
The Houston native directed his rant against the streaming platforms that have altered the amount an artist can make from their music. What used to be dollars has turned into cents and Scarface isn’t a fan.
“We can’t sell a $10 record no more, we got to sell an under-a-penny stream, you tell me where the dk is and how we *uck this dk,” he continued. “We getting f**ked. … Ain’t no money in the streams for us, but it’s money in subscriptions for them.”
What’s the solution? Scarface is encouraging a boycott from streaming platforms where artists pull their music and force the companies to pay them their worth. He also would like to see the return of record stores and small businesses that were wiped out by streaming.
“Pull that sht off them fking platforms, and don’t allow them to stream your sht for free,” he said.
“You fked a whole lot of people when you fked over the mom and pops. You fked them. You knocked them people out of jobs. Ain’t no records being sold no more.”
Times have changed since Scarface’s music debut in 1989. He remembers a time when an artist could set themselves up for life with the release of one album. Now streaming giants like Spotify get away with paying an artist between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream and receiving a 30% revenue split.
“If I sell 65 million albums, then I ain’t got to make no more fking albums,” he said. “If I sell 65 million fking singles at a dollar, then why am I rapping? I ain’t got to do it no more. … You’re not finna prostitute me. And I wish that they would stop letting them prostitute my f**king people, bruh.”
Apple Music pays double what Spotify pays with artists receiving an average pay-per-stream rate of $0.01–one cent. With the current rates, a single requires 150 million streams to reach platinum status and an album needs 1.5 billion streams for the same accolade.
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