Hip-hop is a fascinating genre and culture. After rock, it is the most consumed music category worldwide and is estimated to be an industry worth over $10 billion. Rap music can provide individuals with vast amounts of wealth and fame, often very quickly. Unsurprisingly, millions of individuals compete to get a slice of that $10 billion pie. Some are more desperate than others.
However, to enter, be respected and, more importantly, maintain relevancy in the genre requires hard work, talent and usually at least some prior connections. More often than not, some without these criteria slip through the net and manage to reach the heights of fame, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they stay there. Others meet all the criteria but bring about their own demise through pure stupidity.
With the internet allowing people to instantly upload music to websites such as SoundCloud and even buy followers, more and more talentless artists are getting flung into the limelight. However, many artists launched into the culture get tossed out twice as fast. The phenomenon is painful for true hip-hop fans to watch. Still, it is even more agonizing to hear the cringeworthy garbage these individuals release under the guise of rap music.
In this article, we’re going to look at some of the recent acts hip-hop has had to endure, who (for better or for worse) achieved fame and lost it due to the fact they didn’t work hard, didn’t have talent or brought about their own downfall through idiocy. Below you can see our picks for the five biggest rap flops of all time.
The five biggest rap flops of all time:
5. Azealia Banks
Azealia Banks is one of hip-hop’s lost talents. Most known for her 2011 smash-hit ‘212’, the rapper, who can sing and act as well, was one of the only performers in the world who could rap over house music without sounding inauthentic or disingenuous. Banks was a true fan of house, knew house music and wasn’t just using it for fame.
However, one thing that the young 20-year-old Banks didn’t understand when she found fame is that when you find fame, you can’t unleash that inner-city fire on people because, unlike before, you now have millions of people watching you. The Harlem rapper has had feuds with every artist in the music industry and vilified herself as an envious, toxic and spiteful hater. Guilty of almost every atrocity there is, Banks has been overtly homophobic, racist, and antisemitic and is a frequent body shamer. Having called T.I. a “coon,” Perez Hilton a “F*cking F*ggot” and Sia a “pasty bitch” Banks destroyed herself with three years of fame.
4. Iggy Azalea
Many people hated Iggy Azalea when she first emerged on the scene around 2012. A white, Australian female rapper who was from Sydney but rapped in an American accent, many people couldn’t connect with her or her music, from Azealia Banks and Nicki Minaj to Eminem and even Snoop Dogg. Hip-hop seemed genuinely disgusted with Azalea and her brand.
The ‘Fancy’ rapper did a variety of things that contributed to her tragic demise. When Azalea first emerged on the scene in 2011, she released a track entitled ‘D.R.U.G.S.’ A remix of a Kendrick Lamar song, the original song saw the white female rapper state, “When the relay starts I’m a runaway slave….master.” Based in the confederate state of Georgia, the African-American community across the US were livid and repulsed by slave master reference. Furthermore, the rapper even performed a whip motion in the music video, eluding to a slave master whipping a black person.
From here, things only got worse as real hip-hop fans knew she couldn’t rap and was just talking nonsensically. Azalea entered Twitter feuds with Azealia Banks, Snoop Dogg, T.I and Britney Spears. Her entrance into hip-hop was enshrouded in pure hate and she was just mocked, it was never going to be sustainable. Akin to Banks, Azalea faded away within the span of three years due to her unlikability and lack of talent.
3. Bhad Bhabie
Bhad Bhabie’s rise to fame proved what many already knew which was that the music industry was in a dire state and had no respect in the slightest for hip-hop or people with actual talent for that matter. Before taking on the stage name Bhad Bhabie, many knew the artist as Danielle Bregoli or the ‘Cash Me Outside Girl.’ The latter was due to a television appearance she made.
In 2016 Danielle Bregoli appeared alongside her mother on the US television show Dr Phil. During her appearance, Bregoli called the audience “a bunch of h*es” and told them, “catch me outside. How ’bout that!” Brought on the show as a potty-mouthed problem child, whom her mum couldn’t control, the clip went viral. Within weeks of the internet wildfire, Bregoli had made a rap song to jumpstart her newfound internet fame. Before long, major record labels were looking to capitalise off Bregoli’s online ubiquity. Her music was and still is painful to hear, and even though her initial hype has now gone she still chooses to release music.
2. Island Boys
The mere fact that Island Boys were able to acquire fans is hard to comprehend. Comprised of two brothers, Franky Venegas and Alex Venegas, the duo rose to fame as a result of their viral TikTok video entitled, ‘I’m An Island Boy.’ Classified as “meme rappers” the twin brothers distinctive appearance, with their full-body tattoos, diamond teeth, and vertical dreadlocks turned heads online and even made people laugh.
Gaining viral notoriety at 19, the twins were offered a record deal by fellow Miami rapper Kodak Black. However, the duo declined under the impression they would only get bigger and were worth more than what the rapper was offering them. However, what Island Boys failed to realise is that despite their millions of YouTube views, nobody was actually streaming their music merely watching them on YouTube, laughing at them and then waiting for their next video.
While the South Florida rappers took to social media (mostly TikTok) to brag about how rich they had become, what they were not receiving was any offers with regard to real-life record deals. As a result of them spending so much time on social media and their stupidity, the brothers found themselves in social media feuds with the likes of Jake Paul, Bryce Hall, Kevin Hart and even Snoop Dogg, who trolled them. In a reaction video to their music, Snoop once sarcastically declared, “I’m speechless. Two goofballs in a pool.”
However, after 2021 the brothers were beginning to become tiresome. Furthermore, they had several live performances in which they couldn’t sing or rap their own songs. With the world laughing at the two even their manager left them. You can see the decline of Island Boys in the video below.
1. Lil Xan
Lil Xan is undoubtedly the biggest hip-hop flop of all time. His name makes reference to the drug xanax, a benzodiazepine prescription drug used to treat anxiety which rappers often abuse as a sedative as such, it is unsurprising that the California rapper was, quite literally, a drug addict who got face tattoos and happened to become famous.
Lil Xan let it be known how he was born and raised in the town of Redlands. In a documentary, he stated that it is commonly referred to as ‘deadlands’ because of how boring it is and, reflecting on how he felt about it, he stated that, “it’s where dreams [go] to die.” Lil Xan went from a nobody to a young star due to a music video (directed by Cole Bennett) uploaded to Lyrical Lemonade, a very well-known hip-hop YouTube channel. The visuals were for his 2017 track ‘Betrayed’. As of 2023, it has 294 million views.
‘Betrayed’ was a hit, and due to its floaty, melodic beat, the song became a beloved mumble-rap track. However, although the artist (Nicolas Leanos) had a fairly large following and was regularly selling out shows, following his debut album, Lil Xanarchy, people definitely began to question what he could actually bring to the table except for narcotics.
Akin to Island Boys, Leanos wasn’t afraid to talk about how rich he had become as a result of rap. However, like the adolescent he was, the rapper blew his money on nonsense including drugs, prostitutes and senseless property purchases. In an interview with with Adam Grandmaison for The Adam22 Show, the rapper spoke about having three apartments stating, “I bought the same one ten floors up now another one down the street and another one on the same floor!” When asked why he needs three houses, Leanos ignorantly responded, “One for my parents, one for me and Ely my hacker and then one for the hoes.”
Lil Xan smashed his own TV with a skateboard while giving a tour of his house for No Jumper, and also keyed his own car which was a Mercedes-Benz G-Class worth about $160,000. Lil Xan was in and out of rehab for the entire time he was in the limelight meanwhile investing his money in nothing but material goods. Simultaneously he was claiming that his debut album wasn’t put together by him but by his management team. According to many sources, including his former manager, Stat Quo Lil Xan is effectively broke and can’t even pay the $30,000 of debt he is in for the Mercedes. Lil Xan is truly the biggest rap flop there has ever been.
