The tech ghouls don’t know me like they once did. Despite my attempts to coax the algorithmic overlords away from suggesting interview shows that oscillate between erstwhile D-list comedians, drugged-out rap newbies spilling eyewitness testimonies to be used at a court date to be named later, sanitized self-produced NBA mini documentaries, and whatever Anthony Fantano has to say, the bile of those who believe they’re more interesting than they really are still ends up populating my feed. To be online is to be surrounded this sludge and its creators; the same grifters whose profile photos cause your stomach to flip, shadowy clip farmers, the overpowering number of bots astroturfing engagement, and the casual scrollers who have too many real problems to think critically about what from these spaces aren’t worthy of their frustration. The internet can never die, but its parts can be zombified, infecting everyone that comes near them with a pathogen of rage and despair.
To feel the connection I once had with the internet—and specifically with the world’s premier video platform—slip away is both freeing and embarrassingly isolating. I worry that YouTube, with the lifetime of data it has collected on the whole of humanity, is doing everything it can to suit my customized algorithmic wants but simply can’t anymore. The well has run dry. Its home page has decayed into a wasteland, and that fallowness is most clearly seen when hunting for music videos.
Being one of the Rap-Up columnists for this site has me fighting through the digital malaise for new releases that are worthy of my time and yours. The instructions are excitingly vague as to what our weekly links can be, leading my colleagues and I to write about leaks, loosies, deep cuts without proper videos, and the hits that prove a coherent zeitgeist still exists. Personally, I scour the trenches for imaginative and engaging songs with videos to match. Despite the music itself having a healthy variance of rap sub-genres, to find a video that burns an equally vibrant image in my mind is a task that went from a few clicks to a few hours of digging. For most rap videos the environments are vague ideas of where these artists are supposed to be, revolving around the performance of “rapper” like motion activated stock images from Getty.
The point of music videos was to do the exact opposite. A promotional vehicle on TV stations that garnered millions of eyeballs a day, sure, but when everyone is watching this pre-recorded talent show you need to make sure they remember you enough to go out and buy your CD. The definition of an artist’s aesthetic came mainly from these videos, as other visual elements weren’t as immediately and repeatedly accessible. If you didn’t know how to torrent or have an iPod full of $1.29 singles, the music video was the average person’s way to not only hear music, but see it. Before Instagram was a mood board, 106 & Park, MTV Jams, and a magazine photoshoot was all there was. The electric blues that tinged “Hot In Herre” and the slow reveal of an opulent Renaissance painting in the “POWER” video invoked feelings in me inextricable from those songs and artists. Even decades later when Nelly appears in gambling ads without a sweaty gleam, or Ye is snapped by TMZ without a chain the size of an Egyptian obelisk, something feels off. They’re Clark Kent moving through the Daily Planet offices looking for lost memos rather than an alien zooming through the sky.
Now artists are overwhelmed with options to present themselves to the point they reject the idea all together. A music video is now a simple, low-budget affair doing the bare minimum to show us they belong to the marketplace definition of rapper. It’s film grain-heavy shots of a vocalist deep in thought beside the same luxury car 15 others have rented for their own shoots this week.(1, 2, 3) It’s hotboxing an LED lit recording studio, cup in hand, with the occasional cameo of another artist to spice things up. (1,2,3) Oh, you’re walking around a random city at night throwing rap hands to the camera in cool clothes? Popular loner vibes, 10/10, no notes everyone. (1, 2, 3) Maybe it’ll be some b-roll from a night on the town vlog that had to get scrapped once they saw your milquetoast personality in 4K? (1,2,3) The same lens flare transitions and shots of weed carriers throwing up gang signs are added into these morbidly palatable visual extensions of self to be uploaded on YouTube within the hour.
The rappers most successful on the platform (Youngboy NeverBrokeAgain, Rod Wave, Kodak Black, Lil Baby) have earned their standing by slow-dripping content in this phylum: indistinguishable slice-of-life videos. So we dig deeper; how much of this hollow content dumping is the fault of the artist versus the system?
The value of a play of a YouTube video is $1 per 1,000 views, except in certain instances when it’s $30 per 1,000 views, or any of the many hyper specific scenarios that unlock the numbers between $1 and $10. And all that only comes after you become a part of the YouTube Partner Program. How do you get in the program? At least 1000 subscribers or have your videos be watched for over 4,000 hours within a 12 month span. There has been research showing that certain genres of YouTube video (tech reviews, travel vloggers, real estate tips) garner more money due to high value advertisers choosing these high value niches to showcase their videos. How valuable music videos are comparatively is a mystery, but due to most music videos only showing ads in the beginning of a video, rather than multiple across the videos length, it can be assumed it’s in a lower tier. Those content creator videos and visual podcasts that push the 30-60 minute mark are highway billboards compared to a music videos QR code sticker sized space.
YouTube’s payout system is a vague algorithm based upon the length someone watches a video, what they click around on while watching, where they are watching from, and their own perceived value based upon another unknown data set. With the numbers inconsistent, the only control an artist has is in the flood. More videos equaling more money is a simple equation everyone can get behind.
Due to this in 2026 rappers display themselves as blank checks. They are the guys and gals who let the luxury clothes wear them, walking billboards for luxury cars, $400 torn-up zipper jackets, or whatever other corporate sponsors are asking them to make look cool. The music video is an opportunity to make a brown bag full of cash appear, which is in some ways the ultimate goal of rappers still vying for mass appeal; owning your image to sell it out to the highest investor, no middle man required. The Kodaks and Lil Babys of the world don’t need to build out a visual world anymore. They’re known commodities, street rappers with regional slang existing on opposite sides of a drug exchange and no one video will change that. For them the game has shifted to maintaining a level of rich that equates to cool enough. Really, this evolution towards slice of life dumps-for-cash damages the new chosen industry darlings most. How can labels or managers with world domination on the mind expect an artist to go global when they blend in to the pack? What brands are eye-popping enough to the casual fan to wash the need for a storyboarded vision or distinct project long aesthetic?
We’ve been backed into a corner. The only way a music video can be of any financial worth for artists is if it’s one of a million collecting pennies from the AdSense fountain or sold to the highest bidder. There is no TRL or 106&Park around to play your video in front of millions every week in an attempt to lure them into your fandom. Channels like Montreality DVD and Lyrical Lemonade have curated a house style that all of their favorite acts can play within, but at a point even those videos become formulaic. The only winners are those recklessly betting on the art.
Directors 1noachcore, LAUZZA and A$AP Rocky’s AWGE refuse to miss with their oddball creations. Rappers xaviersobased, Liim, Fly Anakin, along with a wide range of underground UK acts exist on a level where fame is understood as a bonus, while the art is what’s meant to be everlasting. Even Don Toliver, for as soulless his Travi$ Scott Lite records are, keeps doing things on camera I’ve never seen. There’s hope at all levels, but for how long can they withstand the affordable emergence of AI graphics or the monetary gain to be had from uploading a condensed Twitch stream and calling it art? Or worse, displaying the way their music can be best monetized by making tutorial videos for streamers and content creators.
Heat
Freaked it, tweaked it with ease