Welcome to Miami: Meet Four Pandora Trendsetters Representing South FloridaDuring the 90s, the most celebrated hip-hop artists with chart topping success were primarily located between New York City and Los Angeles.
Over the past decade, artists have sprouted from other markets like Meek Mill from Philadelphia, Mac Miller from Pittsburgh and Drake hailing from Toronto. Atlanta has become, as one critic put it, “Hip-Hop’s Gravy Chain” thanks to standout artists like Future, OutKast, T.I. and Young Thug.
Now it seems, the city of Miami is nurturing a new generation of emcees long after the days of early Miami rap pioneers like the 2 Live Crew, Trina and Trick Daddy. Following in the footsteps of Denzel Curry, a new class of young emcees representing Miami/Dade County are showing signs of breakout success, particularly on Pandora.
This week Pandora spotlights four South Florida emcees on the ‘Trendsetters Chart’, a program where Pandora ranks emerging artists who’ve seen the highest number of artist Radio Station adds over the past week. Previous ‘Trendsetter Charts’ have the predicted the success of artists like Lil Yachty and D.R.A.M., so it’s a good place to be featured.Read on for an introduction to each.
Like what you hear? Listen to Pandora’s Gunshine State: South FLA Hip-Hop Radio Station .
Lil Pump:Age: 17Chart position: #2Standout track: “Flex Like Ouu”Social network of choice: InstagramStats: Lil Pump has been on a rapid rise since the release of “Flex Like Ouu” in March.
Over the past month, he’s seen the most drastic growth on Pandora — almost doubling his number of artist Radio Station adds, and increasing his track Radio Station adds by more than 350% month on month.
Ball Greezy:Age: 31Chart position: #11Standout track: TKSocial network of choice: InstagramStats: While Ball Greezy has a pretty modest reach on social media — just 14,000 Twitter followers — he’s recently seen a rate of artist Radio Station adds of an artist with a much larger audience. Last week, the Bae Day rapper netted right around 3,000 artist Radio Station adds, allowing him to jump up two spots to #11. Smokepurpp:
Age: 19Chart position: #12Standout tracks: “WOKHARDT,” “Ski Mask”Social network of choice: InstagramStats: Like Lil Pump and Ball Greezy, over the past 30 days, Smokepurpp has grown the fastest on Pandora.
This month compared to last month, Smokepurpp has increased his artist Radio Station adds by more than 170% and nearly tripled his number of artist Radio Station adds. Elsewhere, he’s seen an increase in Twitter followers of 80% month on month. Pouya:
Age: 22Chart Position: #14Standout track:Social networks of choice: Instagram, TwitterStats: This week marks Pouya’s 33rd week on the chart, maintaining a very healthy number of artist Radio Station adds since last summer. But he isn’t seeing the same rapid growth as some of the new kids.
His metric trend is “stable” — not slowing down, but also not growing. But some of his more recent releases are still growing on Pandora. “Death by Dishonor,” which he dropped in February, saw a week-on-week increase in spins of over 100%.