In the music industry there are many controversial artist whom many may hate for their personality or their political cause but there are also some artist that people do not mind listening to. It has became a question whether the music is affected by who the artist is or who they are for their music? Some controversial artist who are extremely known for their drama are Kanye West, Taylor Swift, 6ix9ine, Russ, Chris Brown, and R Kelly. Many people do not believe that who they are can affect their music, however there are some people who would not listen to them because of their personality.
Junior, student Brian Martinez Jimenez believes that people have to seperate the art from the person. “At times what the person does for a living does not really connect to them as a person” One controversial artist that he believes this goes for is Kanye West, he says in his opinion Kanye does everything that people would not want him to do. “For example, yeezy’s, people thought season 1 of yeezys were going to flop but in one week they sold out completely. I feel like the new artists are more controversial than the old artists.”
Another student who also enjoys listening to a controversial artist is sophomore, Andrew Macias. He is a fan of 6ix9ine and believes that nothing will stop listening him from listening because his music is art. “There are other artist that I don’t like. Tupac is one of many controversial artists because he was accused of rape unlike 6ix9ine. I believe that newer artist are more controversial than the old ones because they know what will get the people mad.”
Junior Natalie Collantes still listens to artists that have done wrong, except for the artist Russ. “Although there are artist who are horrible people, I still listen to them. XXXtencacion for example he was a woman beater, but there is many people that still listen to him and I am one of them. I listen to 6ix9ine sometimes, he’s okay but I dislike him as a person a little bit because he was beefing it with YG, which is one of my favorite rappers.” She believes that both older and newer artists are controversial. “Migos was beefing it with some old heads so i think it just goes both ways”.
Another junior, Fernando Vasquez on the other hand would stop listening to the artists if he dislikes them as a person because of what they do specifically. “Every artists have their own lyrical tone. Some people create music just because they like making historical content.” To him, the upcoming artists are more convertial because let’s say Blueface, Ymn Melly, 6ix9ine, have more experience about what would get the people’s attention.
From what we have observed, we noticed that those who enjoy listening to controversial artists typically feel as if the music is separate from the artist. They believe that the artist that people dislike as a person do those things to get more clout. However we have also noticed that more people would not listen to artist that they dislike as a person because they feel what they have done is wrong and believe that the artist affects the art.
