(RIAA) reported that rap music’s market share was 6 percent. The
numbers from the report could be read in at least two ways. For
some, the market share was an indication that the genre, despite its
relatively short career, had established itself on the pop music map.
For others, however, the numbers suggested that for all of its noise
and high jinks rap’s popularity was still somewhat localized, if not
ghettoized. In 1989, more than half, 57 percent, of all music pur-
chased in the U.S. was purchased by consumers between ten and
twenty-nine years old. Rap music’s fourth-place share was an indica-
tion that the genre’s impact, though commendable, was not neces-
sarily formidable among its youthful audience.

Ten years later, however, rap’s impact was undeniable as it was

routinely producing some of the top-selling recordings of the year
and establishing a prominent presence in the pop music landscape
and beyond. Between 1990 and 2000 rap’s market share more than
doubled while its rival genres—rock, pop, and R&B—actually lost
market share and the industry as a whole came face-to-face with
declining sales. In the RIAA’s 2000 Consumer Profile, rap’s market
share was second only to rock, roughly 13 percent compared to 25
percent. But even the most casual observers of pop music culture
knew that rap’s influence reached far beyond its own generic bound-
aries and o‰cial market share.

Rhythm and blues, a staple in American pop music for decades,

had come under hip hop’s spell as it began gravitating toward the
grittier street-oriented beats and ghetto-theme lyrics that bolstered
hip hop’s aura and appeal. The resonance of hip hop was also de-
tectable in more traditional pop fare. Just before the boy-band craze
faded in the late 1990s, multiplatinum acts like N Sync and the Back-
street Boys adopted some of the edgier styles and lyrics typically as-
sociated with rappers. Even pop princesses Britney Spears and
Christina Aguilera, in their bid to go from teen idols to more mature
artists, began working with some of hip hop’s most sought after pro-
ducers, performers, and choreographers in order to stay relevant in
the movement’s widening orbit.

H I P H O P M AT T E R S

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