It’s a good day to be a hip-hop fan. According to Forbes, hip-hop has just surpassed rock as the most popular genre in all of music for the very first time ever here in the U.S.
Nielsen Music recently released its annual mid-year report, which takes a look at how the music industry is doing halfway through the year and lists which songs and albums are performing the best. To no surprise, Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” & Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN reign supreme when it comes to the most popular song & album this year, but the biggest piece of information taken from the results is that the genre of "rock" is now second to hip-hop. That’s right, the combined genre of R&B and hip-hop have taken the crown as the most listened to genre, and while the two styles are fairly close to one another when it comes to percentages, hip-hop has pulled ahead, and it will presumably continue to do so in the coming months and years.
According to the report, R&B and hip-hop are now responsible for 25.1% of all music consumption in the U.S., while rock claims 23%.
Check out the tweet (below) and read the full in-depth break down right here if interested.