Over the past five years, the hip-hop world has lost an extraordinary amount of figures, which Cyhi the Prynce touched on in an Instagram post.
On Monday, Cyhi shared a video that featured a host of rappers and actors who have recently passed away, including Young Dolph, Juice Wrld, Drakeo the Ruler, and FBG Duck. He started off with his caption, "Man this is Sad!😢 This art form was built to bring our families out of poverty and low income situation. I want to let all my hip hop artist know that being a “real nigga” ain’t worth it. Sometime death is inevitable but we should be more loving to each other. The streets don’t love none of us I don’t care how loyal you are."
Cyhi then turned his attention to labels, stating, "I understand that the music industry is a 'independent' game now so artist have to make their own money to promote and record records. But these record labels know what they’re doing when they say 'get yourself hot in your city or go get your buzz in the streets' that means go back to that dangerous environment you’re from and conjure up some paper to put behind your music then if you survive come back and see us!!! That’s bullsh*t."
Chyi called out several labels, including Sony, Universal, Def Jam, Columbia, Warner, Atlantic, and Interscope. He then told them, "y’all gotta do better. Reopen your artist development department, hire A&Rs who were former artist/managers/influencers/CEO’s to help search for up and coming talent. we need more showcases on and offline."
When it comes to artists trying to create a buzz on social media, Cyhi warned against going certain routes, writing, "Don’t just rely on social media to break a artist because to go viral or break a song on social media you have to do some outrageous shit like beef with other artist, or make a fool of yourself, or tap dance for the world just to get a buzz." You can read his full post above.
