The deepest pockets control the industry these days, the little guys don’t stand a chance against Apple, UMG, the RIAA etc. It’s about the money first, music second.
Back in 2014, I had an exec @ Apple tell me WE were their competition, little us vs a $4B company 😔
The effects have been felt. The music is watered down, bland, vanilla. Hype is gone, rarely exciting.
Hiphop desperately needs a mixtape/soundcloud like platform in order to be healthy. There needs to be some place the labels dont own where copyright doesnt matter