sevyn streeter shoulda been there, part 1 album cover

Consider the ways she’s shaped the recent pop cultural landscape: Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith’s 2014 albums remain in or near the top 10 more than a year later, this after Swift publicly befriended and stumped for them both when they were still semi-anonymous fledgling talents. Swift’s taste isn’t nearly as exquisite as Drake’s, but she exerts even more pull - whereas Drake tends to help his fellow musicians get off the ground, Swift uses her clout to launch them into the stratosphere. The girls and I got to talking and I'm overjoyed to announce that will be joining The 1989 World Tour!! TOURING W/ SQUAD YESSSS It’s why his music works as well as it does. As our own Tom Breihan explained in yesterday’s Status Ain’t Hood column, the 6 God one has become rap’s most powerful curator: “He runs his career like a Tumblr, picking all this excessively tasteful shit and displaying it in the best possible light. Future, the Weeknd, Migos, Soulja Boy, iLoveMakonnen, Tinashe, and Fetty Wap have all benefitted from this phenomenon to some extent. One of the most common ways Drake does this is by showing up on other people’s songs, sometimes without the other artist knowing about it ahead of time. And both use their massive influence to nudge other artists into the mainstream, to the extent that in 2015, an endorsement from either artist is the surest route to fame and fortune. Both write songs as hyper-specific commentaries on their microscopically analyzed personal lives, each track the equivalent of a detail- and subtweet-laden social media update.

That’s not all the two musicians have in common: Both withstood awkward teenage stardom and rampant public mockery to become punchline-resistant superstars. They’re both dominant forces on Billboard’s singles chart, landing deep cuts in the Hot 100 on the strength of ceaseless purchases and streams from a voracious public fanbase that seems to include everybody at this point.

Last year, when the likes of “ Trophies,” “ 0 To 100,” and “ How ‘Bout Now” proved Drake could score a massive radio hit simply by uploading a song to SoundCloud, Gawker’s Jordan Sargent proclaimed him “ the Taylor Swift of rap.” Sargent’s thesis was that in an environment where even established stars have trouble getting heavily promoted singles on the radio, Swift and Drake are able to do it without even really trying.

Sevyn streeter shoulda been there, part 1 album cover