Artists Helping Artists From Other Music Genres

This week, I am discussing a topic on music artists helping out one another. In my most recent post, I mentioned an idea that artists collaborate with each other in order to increase the success of a new artist; to prove this theory, I gave insight on how Ed Sheeran’s career was greatly influenced by none other than the amazing Taylor Swift. With this post, let’s look at another theory which describes how featuring pop artists in songs belonging to different genres increase the popularity of said music genre.

During this post, I will be going off into a bit of a tangent from pop music (not a big one though, I will probably still talk about Taylor Swift); this time I will be discussing rap songs that feature famous pop artists. Why would a rap artist want to have a pop artist singing a chorus or a hook in their song? According to another music blog, artist collaboration is good for expanding an artist’s musical horizons for bringing diversity in an artist’s work. Rap music has very different sounds, beats, and lyrics compared to pop songs. A rap artist might use a pop artist to appeal to other people who might not usually diverge to a different music genre such as rap. If a rapper features a well known artist in their song, the popularity of the song would most likely increase.

Let’s look at a song by a rap artist that features a pop artist. Rapper B.o.B has an album called “Strange Clouds”, where he features many artists. On this album, he has a song called “Both of Us” which features Taylor Swift. Naturally, I was overjoyed when this song came out. However, being a “Swiftie”, I bought this song simply because it features Swift. I can recite her part of the song by heart: “I wish I was strong enough to lift not one, but both of us. Someday I will be strong enough to lift not one, but both of us. If you ask me to recite any of B.o.B’s lines, I can’t because I don’t know any. Since I don’t really listen to rap music and am not a huge fan of B.o.B, I probably wouldn’t have bought this song if it didn’t have Swift in it. To any fans of him reading, I’m not a hater. I’m just not very familiar with his music and don’t have the desire to branch out. Even if these facts are true, I willingly paid for the song because it had my favorite artist.

So why would B.o.B want to collaborate with famous artists like Taylor Swift? According to his discography, he has only a few albums. Perhaps he really wanted to this album to get more attention and sales. Perhaps he also wanted to gain more fans outside his music genre. Whatever the real reason is, he created a successful album featuring some pop artists. There's the thought that Taylor Swift, once again, helps out an artist outside of her normal line of work.