Ice Spice, Why All the Hate?
Talent and good looks are a recipe for envy.
Update: For the video essay version of this article, click here
Nicki Minaj, Megan the Stallion, Cardi B, and Latto all took between four and 7 years to achieve mainstream viability. Today, it isn’t uncommon for a solo artist to ascend the ladder to massive fame in under four years. In fact, the time it takes to become enormously popular is steadily decreasing, with some artists reaching global success in under 3 years.
To give you some perspective, it has been much more common for artists of every genre to regularly spend as much as ten years developing their craft before they reach mainstream success (taken into account here is the time necessary to learn one’s instrument or vocal craft, write popular music, perform and eventually garner enough fans to become a “thing” culturally speaking). In the past, the absence of the internet and social media platforms now common prevented artists from reaching larger audiences with their material.
Of course, for bands and groups, the time to reach success is typically lessened due to the collective musicianship and experience of each of the members. Black Sabbath released Sabbath Bloody Sabbath after being together for between three and four years.
