This is Vince Staples. Ask Me Anything. - HipHop

So a while back I had a project called Rappers to watch from every state in 2017 to feature some lesser known artists in every state. I figured I'd go the extra step and actually track the growth of my artists to see what sort of nostradamus ability I had. Spoiler alert: Might as well have thrown darts at a fucking board because as it turns out - I do not know dick about cock. Still give it a read if you want, there's some great artists in there.

In addition to the 50 artists I wrote about, I also tracked over 150 others, either from y'alls suggestions or the XXL nominees, some runner ups for my project and just some random picks I wanted to make. I tracked their Soundcloud, and if I could find it, Spotify followers. You can see the raw data for that in the sheet below.

Raw Rapper Data

So we'll skip right to it because I utilized my word count for the year on the last project. I analyzed the rappers based in 4 groups. The first group are the 50 rappers from my project, the second are my personal picks and the XXL Freshman nominees, the third group was y'alls picks, and the fourth group were just some bigger artists so we'd have a baseline for the growth an already successful artist would expect.

Here's these 4 groups in graph form.

Soundcloud graphs

Spotify graphs

Any really major falls and rises are attributed to an artists soundcloud url changing/me being a dumbass and grabbing the wrong one in the first place.

So how were the stats for all artists compare? Well, the median artist initially had 19719 followers and improved by 10.9% over their time period, or at 0.12% per day. The average artists improved by 22.04% over their time period, or at 0.24% per day, showing that there were definitely a solid set of outliers. A lot, actually. Turns out a lot of people really don't make it. Check it out.

Average growth per day for each artist

Definitely not a normal distribution huh? Alright so let's use the average value to compare again. How many artists were over the average? 56. So not too bad. Let's see how that compares to my list and the XXL Freshmen.

My project is a pretty quick overview. Exactly 3 passed the average on soundcloud - Warhol.ss, Khalid, and Caedo, in that order. On spotify we're doing a bit worse, just 2 - Warhol and Khalid. But only 21 artists were above the average of 0.141% growth per day for spotify. Spotify was much more affected by outliers. Thanks Bill $aber, for your whoppin 300 follower growth

How about these new XXL freshmen though? Out of the 10, only 4 beat the average in soundcloud - XXXtentacion, PnBRock, Playboi Carti and A Boogie. In Spotify it was understandably worse with only 2 making it, XXX and Carti. With the XXL list representing 10 people in this list of about 220 artists, just randomly selecting artists would have at least 2 in Soundcloud and 1 in Spotify. While it can be forgiven to a point - XXL can't predict the future, the wealth of resources they have and the effect they have on the growth of artists, you would expect a more accurate selection.

So, looking at the data, who chose well? and who should the freshman list actually be?

Well, y'all chose well. Redditors beat the average in soundcloud and spotify, with the average growth per day being 0.39% and 0.425% respectively. With the Bill $aber outlier, this drops to 0.131% - significantly larger than spotify without Bill $aber at 0.078%. So congrats guys.

What should the XXL freshman class actually look like then? Well, this is definitely a discussion to have, since this is just the first year of me doing this, but up to this point the list should be (in no particular order).

Artist	Followers (SC)	Followers (SP)	Growth/Day (SC)	Growth/Day (SP)
Tee Grizzley	71292	75269	4.18%	4.55%
Lil Pump	279116	63595	2.20%	12.63%
XXXtentacion	999766	375166	1.21%	3.27%
Playboi Carti	352218	134847	0.48%	2.67%
6lack	186354	213180	0.52%	1.27%
Ski Mask the Slump God	279456	49877	1.11%	3.98%
Smino	64895	36793	0.40%	1.48%
A Boogie	428220	327317	0.30%	0.88%
Nav	327437	102640	0.20%	3.70%
PnB Rock	259799	232541	0.38%	0.82%

All decisions were made in a combination of existing fanbase and regular growth. I was a bit hesitant to include Nav since it seems he's petered out since his release. Also hesitant to release Smino due to his fanbase size but he's also been gaining a lot of traction and getting a ton of press lately so I figured I'd have one homer pick in there. While I realize for many of you this is the worst list you've seen, I'd just like to take this moment to direct you back to the 2015 freshman class.

This shit is by no means a comprehensive list or the definitive answer - I can understand subbing someone out for YFN Lucci, Rich Chigga, NBA Youngboy, or others, but I feel like this is at least a start towards a better list.

Let me know what y'all think and if you have any questions.

edit: congrats to /u/zapcannon, /u/scholoy, /u/____25____ for guessing XXXtentacion, Khalid, and Lil Pump which I'm gonna call the artists with the most growth in the first 3 months in the year, from this I'll hit y'all with gold or a $10 donation to a charity of your choice within the week, just send me a message if you want a charity.

submitted by /u/Kaotus
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Possible NYCk @ Knight tracklist

Posted: 13 Jun 2017 02:51 PM PDT

submitted by /u/therealmeyhemlauren
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Brockhampton by Tyler Mitchell

Posted: 13 Jun 2017 07:36 PM PDT

submitted by /u/hardastacos
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Kid Cudi - Red Eye (feat. HAIM)

Posted: 13 Jun 2017 04:22 PM PDT

submitted by /u/eyeamjigsaw
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Westside Gunn says he didn't want XXL Freshman cover

Posted: 13 Jun 2017 03:39 PM PDT

submitted by /u/GOODIceCream
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Check out Hannibal Buress' podcast features Chance The rapper, Dj Premier, Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Joey Purp, and more.

Posted: 13 Jun 2017 02:57 PM PDT

The Handsome Rambler has been way too slept on, features a bunch of great conversations with rappers/producers.

submitted by /u/GonnaCarry
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Daily Discussion Thread 06/13/2017

Posted: 13 Jun 2017 09:35 AM PDT

Welcome to the /r/hiphopheads daily discussion thread!

This thread is for:

objective questions with right/wrong answers (e.g. "Does anyone know what is happening with MIXTAPE?", "What is the sample in SONG?")
general hip-hop discussion
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Do not create a separate self post for these types of discussions outside of this thread - if you do, your post will be removed.
Please be helpful and friendly.
If a question has been asked many times before, provide a link to a thread that contains the answer.

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There are a number of other ways to interact with other members of HHH:

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This is Vince Staples. Ask Me Anything. - HipHop

This is Vince Staples. Ask Me Anything. - HipHop

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