it's not so much piracy as it's low barriers to entry. it used to take more effort, more money, and more additional resources to make music and to have your music heard en masse. also, i don't know if it's the fault of the rappers or the fans (probably a combination of both) but we've come to expect artists to drop music constantly. you get prolific rappers like curren$y dropping tons of music all the time. as the result, there's not much attention paid to craftsmanship and really making the best possible song you can. now it's more about just making sure you're dropping as many as possible because people are scared to lose the original buzz they created. I hear a lot of mediocre beats and shitty hooks, just peep pusha's last mixtape.

