Has Underground rap been ruined by TikTok? Many people seem to think so. 

The underground rap scene has benefited greatly from this social media app. Fan bases for rappers have grown exponentially. Tik tok has also given rather unknown artists a way to promote their music for free. 

On paper this sounds amazing, but is it really that good? 

With the rise in popularity, a lot of people are starting to get on the “trend”. There are now countless artists that copy ideas from or completely replicate another artist’s style. Smaller artists are getting their style ripped by much larger, more established artists. Some examples of this can be seen in Jace (Iazye) and Trippie Redd. Both of these artists have huge fan bases and both of these artists have stolen flows, and style from artists without giving any credit. Jace has acknowledged these smaller artists, but in a disrespectful way. 

Another issue which is fairly prominent is the overwhelming amount of underground rappers, a lot of which do not care about how their music sounds. This can take attention away from artists and producers who genuinely put effort into their craft. 

When these underground genres such as Jerk, Dark Plugg, and Ambient first started gaining attention, it was seen as something new and refreshing by many. With the recent influx of people discovering these genres and trying to replicate it, these genres have lost what makes them special. The underground has been flooded with uncreative ideas and slows that have been reused by multiple rappers. 

Some positives from tik tok like stated previously is that smaller artists can create themselves a name. Artists like Xaviersobased, Osamason, and Lazer Dim 700 have had their careers skyrocketed by this app. All three of these rappers had small fan bases until their music was brought to tik tok.  Lazer Dim 700 is an amazing example of this. He was unknown in January of 2024 and by March Lazer Dim 700 now has 200k monthly listeners on Spotify alone. 

Another positive is that rappers now have the ability to promote their music for free. Some artists may not have the fans to promote their music to and some artists may not have teh financial means to promote their music. TikTok can be seen as a solution to both of these issues. 

Overall TikTok has not ruined underground rap, but it has definitely negatively impacted the scene in many ways. Only time will be able to tell what direction TikTok will take the underground rap scene.