What Does The Future of Music Look Like?

The Pigeons & Planes team spends most of the time thinking about music as it’s happening. It’s fast, scrappy, constant work that fuels us. If you engage with our writing, social content, and video work, you'll see that we largely focus on spotlighting emerging artists while breaking down industry news and important cultural moments.

This collection of essays is something different; our own spin on the crystal ball. You’ll find predictions from the Pigeons & Planes family and beyond, where we zoom out for a second and consider the kind of future we’re set to document with this new iteration of the site. When examining the future of music, what emerged was an urgent plea for the art we love to continue representing the ideals that feel more tenuous than ever before: diversity, community, living wages, and understanding.

These are tenets we also hope to foster as P&P picks back up. We aim for it to be a space that highlights artists eschewing safety for experimentation, eccentricity, and unconventional sounds. Below, check out some of our hopes, wishes, and predictions for the future of music. — Gabby Bulgarelli

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The Future of Black Music Genres in America

By: Kiana Fitzgerald

I’ve recently spent a lot of time looking into the history of Black music genres, and it never fails to shock me how often the camera is not pointed at the pioneer, but at the emulator. The credit of impact, too, goes to the successor, while the innovator far too often dies unknown and/or penniless. This is what creatives of color must deal with, to this day — especially African-American artists. The world constantly has its eyes on Black culture, picking it apart with grubby hands and cashing in the scraps as tickets to go viral.

We’re already seeing an open and unabashed shift by labels and managers, who are signing acts that don’t traditionally come from a Black cultural background to create within Black genres. A prime example of this transition is the BuVision label, founded by Akon’s brother Abou “Bu” Thiam, who signed white rapper ian and Vietnamese-American R&B singer SAILORR.

I can’t help but see a shimmering vision coming into fruition in my crystal ball. If I had to make an informed prediction based on the history and present status of music, it’s this: I don’t think a majority of the hip-hop and R&B of the future will be created by Black people.

Over the next five to 10, 25, and 50 years, these genres will continue to become a lot more diversified, which isn’t altogether a terrible thing. People from all walks of lives have free will and they’re welcome to pursue whatever art makes them feel content. But just as we have seen with dance music, country, and rock and roll — and their offshoots — Black progenitors are often cast to the side, in favor of a white or non-Black public-facing representative. There’s a reason why Elvis is a household name and not Big Mama Thornton. (Do your research on “Hound Dog” if you haven’t already.)

So, where will the original creators of these genres go next, after they're pushed out?

You have to follow the pain.

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The source of the next movement of Black music will come from an underground space where meaningful connections and tangible advancements can be made, freely and without constant observation.

Since enslavement, Black American artists have found novel ways to create through struggle and strife. From field/work songs sung by our ancestors to Negro spirituals recited by our grandparents to the anguish expressed by the musicians who have paved the way for contemporary hip-hop and R&B, there is an inextricable link between the trenches of Black America and the music created by those trudging through it.

The source of the next movement of Black music will come from an underground space where meaningful connections and tangible advancements can be made, freely and without constant observation.

I don’t mean quite literally “underground” — but the inspiration for this vision does come from a subterranean source. The Tunnel, a Manhattan nightclub that opened in the ‘80s and reached its heights in the ‘90s, had a gargantuan impact on the propelling of hip-hop culture. Acquired by club owner and party promoter Peter Gatien in 1992, the Tunnel eventually became an IYKYK mecca for young Black musicians and partygoers on the East Coast. A who’s who of artists that performed at the Tunnel included regional favorites-turned-rap giants Jay-Z and Nas, and West Coast legends Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. Compared to a boot camp, the Tunnel was a space where artists prepared for the next phase of their careers. It was the platform that made you official and solidified, an outlet for the streets. “Hip-hop had a heart — that shit was one of the main arteries,” Big Panna, a former Tunnel security guard, said in The Hip-Hop Nucleus: A Documentary on the Legendary Tunnel Nightclub of NYC (2017).

We needed strong arteries to pump through the heart of hip-hop to bring it to its prominent status today, and we need it now to build our iterative future in dance, R&B, and beyond.

Moving forward, I believe Black artistry will depend almost entirely on a community that isn’t readily visible or available to nonmembers. It could be a physical compound, or, there may be specific apps, new sites, or even a secure group chat that can emerge from this world. Whichever format it takes, communal artistry will be held together by tighter creative collectives with deep-seated aversions to outsiders.

When I think of physical common spaces, I think of tucked-off experiences like the Tunnel. When I think of digital spaces, I think of SoundCloud and what was possible through that platform at its height in the mid-2010s. As an early fan of underground artists like SpaceGhostPurrp and his Raider Klan crew, I watched this movement organically sprout wings and take off to absurd heights. Respect the subgenre of SoundCloud rap or not, it remains a documented era of hip-hop’s evolution. The emo and punk rap movements kicked off by the late Juice WRLD and XXXTentacion connected with a generation that felt unheard, not unlike the audiences who took to the streets and parks of New York in the ‘70s during hip-hop’s creation.

The only way forward, it seems, is to build from the ground up and create anew, away from prying eyes. As time presses on, Black creatives will continue to feel, morph, grow, and transform. Similar to how rock and roll was birthed from rhythm and blues, the music that flows out of those artists’ mouths and fingertips will inform how the world moves from that point forward.

The work of Black artists has always been celebrated, but the artists themselves have too often been ignored. Then, now, and in the future, the main concern is cultural appropriation and its effects on the people who are being cast aside. Maybe, just maybe, the creators of the next genre/s will figure that one out.

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Pop Music is Going to Get a Little Weird (As It Should)

By: Jacob Moore

Some of the most dramatic shifts in music history came as a reaction to something else happening at the time. Punk rejected the rise of increasingly commercial rock. Grunge was created by a generation tired of hair metal and flashy pop. The underground hip-hop scene of the late ‘90s and early 2000s was fueled by artists who saw rap getting watered down and controlled by the industry. SoundCloud rap and bedroom pop proved that internet gatekeeping couldn’t stop DIY culture. There are so many other examples. Newton's Third Law holds true for music.

If you’re ever tired of hearing about the next big thing happening in music, there are probably artists out there feeling the same way, ready to react and preparing to disrupt. So what are we all tired of hearing about right now? If you answered AI, I’m with you.

Right now we can’t avoid tech bros yapping about how their AI slop is going to stuff money in the pockets of anyone who jumps on board. Label executives trying to sound like they’re on the artist’s side in press statements explaining how AI is “simply a tool to enhance the powerful vision of true creatives.” Ungifted musicians pretending to believe that their computer-automated pollution is groundbreaking art. It’s all exhausting, and outside of people who stand to profit from it, I haven’t met a single music fan who’s excited about the future of AI in music. We all want music to feel human, and that’s being threatened.

Sadly, there’s no denying that AI will have an impact on the music we hear in the future, but the reality is that most people don’t want to knowingly listen to music made by AI. The predictions that in the near future, pop hits will all be manufactured by AI are exaggerated. The sad reality is that AI will start by replacing some of the crucial behind-the-scenes characters that bring life to music: session players and hired instrumentalists, composers and arrangers, background vocalists, engineers, writers. The Hot 100 chart won’t be filled with blatant AI hits, but as more roles are outsourced to a computer, we will see AI-assisted songs become commonplace in mainstream music. We might not even know it in most cases, but we’ll hear it. That will mean a lot of really boring, soulless, formulaic music.

So what’s the equal and opposite reaction?

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It’s all exhausting, and outside of people who stand to profit from it, I haven’t met a single music fan who’s excited about the future of AI in music.

We're starting to see indicators already—more appreciation for instruments, gear, craftsmanship, and artists who deviate from the formulas and favor a human touch. Dijon and Mk.gee are on Justin Bieber's album(s). 2hollis is carving out a new archetype for pop stardom. PinkPantheress has gone from anonymous TikTok hitmaker to an international force, without sacrificing her distinct approach. Jane Remover has us questioning the very definition of pop music. Geese are perhaps the buzziest band in the world right now. There are more subtle signs too: Billie Eilish co-signing Oklou, Chanel Beads touring with Lorde, Fakemink hanging out with Drake.

It all paints a picture of what could be the beginning of a larger shift in popular music. The cookie-cutter hits are still dominating, but how long will that last? My prediction is that more of the grit and the craftsmanship rewarded in indie music will be pulled into the pop world. Soon enough, the formulaic, potentially AI-assisted hits will be sniffed out, and even the biggest commercial darlings will seek out credibility by leaning into a human touch and tapping artists who are known for it. That means leaving in some of the mistakes, singing off-key, not syncing up the drums so perfectly, and welcoming a little chaos.

This is a wish as much as it is a prediction. I hope that by this time next year, every hit pop song has at least one mistake in it, if only to prove that it’s real.

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Pop Music Must be More than Marketing

By: Ross Scarano

Recently I heard from an industry friend about an artist who began name-checking popular new television shows in their song lyrics in an effort to get traction on TikTok. A bid for virality, this songwriting approach intended to hitch a ride on the much-discussed medium of our time. In an effort to spread the word about their talent, they had made free marketing materials for someone else’s work with HBO, Netflix, whatever. This artist was in the major-label conversation, by the way. It wasn’t just anybody. At levels never before seen in history, we are awash in marketing, which is why it would occur to a young musician to create marketing materials to get an edge in the first place. But music shouldn’t only be marketing. This is less of a prediction and more of a plea: Please, let’s not let pop music become just marketing.

“Kiss” by Prince and the Revolution, verse three, after that funky-brittle bridge and beautifully executed “whoo”: “You don’t have to watch Dynasty to have an attitude.” Released in February 1986, “Kiss” went to No. 1 on the Hot 100 in April. In early ’85, when the song was written, the primetime soap opera about feuding families was a top-rated, appointment-viewing series in its fifth season. “Kiss” was Prince’s third number-one, after “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy.” He’d been here before, and he did not need the conversation around the ABC series to build energy for his song.

Radio play, cassette singles sales, and eventually album sales—Parade arrived in March—powered the rise of “Kiss.” That’s on paper. When you turn up the radio after “Kiss” comes on, you do it because it’s a hot song. Hot songs become hits. Not always, of course, but in an ideal world that’s the paradigm. Prince understood marketing and promotion in his own inflexible way—especially later in life, he had strict rules about his engagements with journalists and was unafraid of splashy, conceptual bids for attention.

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This is less of a prediction and more of a plea: Please, let’s not let pop music become just marketing.

Of course, there are songs written to promote AI tools and songs written for hamburgers, and from the outset these creations are marketing. The DNA for these songs appeared on decks in well-attended meetings, decks that had been workshopped, and probably the individual slide listed a number of artists who might be willing to participate. One accepted the check and now the song exists. It’s not like marketing can’t lead to something genuinely good, but when it does it is a happy accident. (My favorite story in this vein: Luther Vandross developed one of his signature vocal moves while singing a fast-food jingle. He only used it once, vowing to save it for his own music.)

I’m talking about pop music because there will always be vibrant, exciting, challenging music happening outside of the major label system, or at its fringes; music that doesn’t fit easily into contemporary radio formats or DSP playlists. Maybe it gets written about on Bandcamp or Pitchfork or Pigeons and Planes, maybe it doesn’t. But the music exists, is more accessible than ever, and if you have hard-working friends who care about finding art—or if you are in fact that person—you will hear it.

Life is better when pop music is good. Brilliant talent meeting opportunity to create something totally immediate. Sometimes this looks like the fulfillment of an idiosyncratic point-of-view, as in the case of Prince, and sometimes it’s the right meeting of artist and producer or songwriter to express an idea with clarity and aplomb.

If the music industry becomes about marketing savvy over all else, we all lose.

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Farm-to-Table Music Tastes Best

By: Dylan Green

Getting people interested in the music you’re making is one thing, but doing it without the support of a major label, viral antics, or payola is something else entirely. I always take notice of artists who are able to make an impression outside of the big machines and create something self-sustaining without compromising their morals. If I had to make a call on what music needs more of in the future, it’s that DIY drive to work against the grain and build something unique that will last a lifetime. Musicians going farm-to-table with their work wherever they’re able is the future of musical stability.

One of the biggest recent success stories I can think of is an artist like New York rapper-producer MIKE. He’s spent the last eight years since his 2017 breakout May God Bless Your Hustle building momentum on the fringes, with the occasional cosign and strategic behind-the-scenes maneuvering helping to turn his label 10k into a mini-empire dedicated to a scrappy and heartfelt brand of indie rap.

The first time I saw MIKE was as part of the sLUms collective, opening for Deem Spencer at the now-defunct Brooklyn bar Muchmore’s, barely two months after Hustle’s release, to a modestly sized crowd in a backroom. This past May, I saw MIKE during the homecoming finale of his intercontinental 71-date artists of the century tour—a sold-out Irving Plaza show where fans, artists, and media professionals of all ages gathered to welcome him back. Fans breathlessly rapped every word back at him—at one point, during his performance of “Pieces Of A Dream,” the crowd recreated the beat a cappella as MIKE ripped through it. Despite this, it took me getting to the merch line and seeing it snake through a small room — not much bigger than the one I’d seen him perform in eight years ago — to realize just how far he’d come with little more than talent, a dedicated team, and a dream.

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There are few surefire ways to succeed in the music industry, but the most effective ones involve two important things: quality music and fan enthusiasm.

The success of artists like MIKE has reinforced the notion that building your own world, and ushering people to it with intent and care, will always pay off in the long run. Of course, MIKE is far from the first rapper to embrace this model. MCs and DJs have gone direct-to-consumer since the genre’s beginnings, and as rap became more of a cultural and commercial force, others got in where they fit in. Bay Area legends like E-40 and Too $hort’s legacies began with music sold out of their trunks. Houston’s DJ Screw created chopped and screwed music and sold it piecemeal, one mixtape at a time. That sense of propriety increased in the 2010s, when artists from the late Nipsey Hussle to Mach-Hommy sold their work for hundreds and even thousands of dollars, cutting out the middle man and directly serving passionate fanbases. Nipsey and Mach have respectively parlayed their savvy into major-label deals and creative freedom cosigned by rap royalty, without giving up a shred of their dignity or agency.

Artists are realizing the power they have as individuals, and I can imagine a future where more of them invest further into developing infrastructure capable of sustaining smaller but more passionate support that will go directly to them. Vallejo, California’s LaRussell utilizes a unique “proud to pay” system for his music, concert tickets, and merch where supporters can pay what they think an item or experience is worth (within reason). That trust of accessibility has made his label Good Compenny more appealing to consumers. New York-via-DC rapper billy woods founded his label, Backwoodz Studioz, in 2002, and stayed the course through a decade’s worth of industry indifference before his 2012 album, History Will Absolve Me, caught people’s attention. Now, woods and Queens rapper-producer E L U C I D, who rap together as the duo Armand Hammer, have collaborated on albums with Alchemist and turned bleeding-edge indie rap from across the world into a cottage industry that thrives on extensive world tours and limited-edition vinyl.

There are few surefire ways to succeed in the music industry, but the most effective ones involve two important things: quality music and fan enthusiasm. Great music exists wherever you look in 2025—you hear some of it on the radio or on editorial playlists, and some of it thrives in sizable niches. The reality is that you no longer need the biggest machine to be heard, felt, or understood. You need the appetite to create and build for the audience you want to see in the world. Whenever I’m talking with other music fans, or taking note of fans at shows or in merch lines, a question always dances around in my head: “Would you rather have a million listeners stream your new album, or a thousand listeners pay for it?” It’s the difference between passive and active participation, and the artists willing and able to bring their audience to their side—to get them out of the house and ready to support something bigger than themselves—will be the ones to dominate the future in music.

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Remix Culture Powers Music Discovery

By: Clarissa Brooks

If the internet runs on Black youth culture then it damn sure can't keep up with it these days. Everyday a new dance trend, sound, or meme is going viral at the speed of light.These are not just shaping but directly impacting the meme based internet language we've all learned by proxy.

Apps such as TikTok, Triller, and Twitch are building second and third waves of rediscovery for artists through remixing. Oftentimes DJs and producers with popular mixes will put their work on SoundCloud and YouTube for safe keeping — far from the rigidity of licensing laws that remove any content using licensed music. It's become clear that the music industry is struggling to keep up with the times as fans are unable to access their favorite viral mixes on streaming apps. I’d like to see a future of music discovery that finally includes and pays the TikTok producers and DJs leading the charge.

The delight of a place like TikTok is that young people simultaneously move the culture forward and back around to old and new classics. Songs like Victoria Monet's “Alright” or Janet Jackson's “Someone to Call My Lover” became our own vocal stims of the week thanks to social media remixes.

When Snoh Aalegra's single "In Your Eyes" was remixed by Kay Archon (a producer who has been making viral beats and remixes since 2020), the mix became the soundtrack to the latest New Orleans/Baton Rouge and Philly fusion dance trends with over 560,000 plays on SoundCloud and nearly 836,000 views on YouTube. Kay Archon's “In Your Eyes” remix has amassed millions of views.

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The delight of a place like TikTok is that young people simultaneously move the culture forward and back around to old and new classics.

These mixes that might have stayed local on other platforms but are now becoming national club hits and getting back to the original artists. Some artists who see these mixes often add them to their tours or participate in the dance trends to capitalize on the moment. Seeing the likes of Victoria Monet, Beyoncé, or leading choreographers such as Sean Bankhead taking the mixes on and clearing them for streaming is a huge nod to what's possible for producers who often fight for recognition once their work goes viral.

The question of how record labels will adjust to this new way of music discovery is still up in the air. More specifically, will these entities share their huge profit margins with the 20 year old producers making viral bedroom remixes? This same problem of whether or not the big machine of culture will finally pay and acknowledge the people making the culture is a long standing one. The concept of corporate greed has thankfully been unpacked before. The 2020 Vice News package on the perils of the music industry called “Unpaid Royalties” clearly explains licensing contracts and exploitation: "The music industry has been set up to benefit corporations and build gates between artists and audiences—gates that are often kept by the same market leaders that control media and technology," writes Jaime Silano.

Because record labels own all registered use of the music that they distribute from the artists under their purview, they can continue to hoard resources and profit share. DJs and producers alike will have to find new places to share their work as licensing legislation gets stricter and regulations grow. That turn of events could also mean the downfall of youthful content creation on apps that rely heavily on licensed music use. The licensing game leads to a sterilization of the apps we all love so much — unless the big wigs up top let artists (big, small, and unseen) in on what they deserve.

In some ways, Tiktok is the great equalizer. The very gates built by the music industry to keep artists and consumers separate doesn't exist on apps where artists and their teams are easier to reach online than ever before. The mixes being produced have a stronger pull as creators are able to build viable careers from their virality that can live outside of the major label system. There will always be an underground culture that music and streaming executives are desperately chasing. My money is on the DJs (specifically Jacob Dior, Antwigadee, Mo Nikole, and Ashley Younnia) to keep making the art that keeps our faith in music alive.

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Microscenes and the Future of Regional rap

By: Ryan Cocca

From Milwaukee to Memphis to Florida, conversations about place are front and center as a new generation of artists and collectives pop up on our radars and emerge from the ether. Fans, writers, and artists alike are talking about regional subgenres, area sounds, and a proliferation of new and exciting scenes, sometimes using the words interchangeably. It’s all well and good, but for one small problem: the “scene” — at least in the sense which we’ve long known it — doesn’t really exist anymore. As much as we still understand hip-hop through the lens of overarching, region-centric communities, its future almost certainly lies in the hyper-niche, location-agnostic microscenes that are taking their place.

In his exhaustively researched book on UK grime, Inner City Pressure, British journalist Dan Hancox describes the east London environment of 2001-2003 as maybe “the last truly local scene,” a relic of a time “before social media and web 2.0 collapsed distances between strangers.” Hyperlocalized out of necessity, grime’s singular identity was a portrait of the time and place it was from — specifically, a modernizing London that had little room for the wily, abrasive music of the Black teens in its crumbling council estates. It unwittingly birthed an underground network of record labels and pirate radio stations as a result.

One can hear in this origin story the obvious echoes of geographically distinct, highly communal hip-hop enclaves from decades before and thousands of miles away, from the block parties of the 1970s Bronx, to the insular, car stereo-assisted mixtape culture of early 1990s Memphis. Even as recently as 2015, there was enough of a sense of regional institutionalism in Chicago that when Chance The Rapper and Saba came together for the Windy City homage “Angels,” two of the Chi’s local radio stations, WGCI 107.5 and POWER 92, were prominently shouted out in the lyrics.

Until recently, regionalism was a natural byproduct of a landscape in which the leading arbiters of culture — like radio stations, mixtape DJs, and neighborhood venues — were all inherently tied to their geography. In an increasingly digital-first world, those old constraints no longer apply, and the same sense of community that once filtered through a handful of physical, shared spaces is being splintered across a vast constellation of digital ones instead. In 2022, Pitchfork’s Alphonse Pierre hinted at the creeping irrelevance of a phrase like “Florida rap,” writing that the state was best understood as a smorgasbord of disparate “microscenes that rarely cross paths,” including drill in Jacksonville, “laid-back street raps” in Tallahassee, Kodak Black disciples in South Florida, and more.

As someone who covers hip-hop in North Carolina, his description mirrors a quintessentially-2020s phenomenon I occasionally come across on social media: major hip-hop accounts making a declaration like “top rising acts out of the Carolinas” and invariably listing two or three artists whose names, when I ask other rappers in the state about them, often elicit simply a shrug. To be clear, it’s not that Big YBA or sosocamo (or MAVI) aren’t suitable figureheads for next-gen hip-hop out of NC — it’s that they all are, but to disparate, parallel audiences, each with their own idea of what “NC hip-hop” even means. In other words, Petey Pablo should be glad he was born in 1973 and not 1998. If he had, when “Raise Up” comes on in a stadium these days, only about a quarter of the crowd would know what the hell was going on.

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Until recently, regionalism was a natural byproduct of a landscape in which the leading arbiters of culture — like radio stations, mixtape DJs, and neighborhood venues — were all inherently tied to their geography.

More than ever before, being from a place does not mean being part of a scene. Today, in a place like North Carolina, or even the specific area codes within it, there isn’t a single hip-hop scene anymore — there’s a ton of them, all with some relation to physical place just like “scenes” of the past, but mostly defined (and distinguished from each other) by varying sub-interests stemming from somewhere else.

Within mostly-isolated spheres like alt hip-hop, trap metal, drill, “underground,” pain music, and more, smaller subscenes of a city or state are becoming worlds unto themselves — building up the kind of distinct lexicons of cultural touchstones, reference points, and creative inspirations that “hip-hop” writ large was once coherent enough to hold by itself. For the first time in the genre’s 50-plus years, it’s not just possible but totally routine for two hip-hop artists to be known to thousands of people, to live half an hour apart, and not know each other’s name.

Ask most hip-hop fans, and the most indelible sounds and styles of the past few decades are so enduring, in part, because of the ethos of the specific places they came from. For music characterized more by an expansive, widely-sourced collage of sounds than any geographical signature, will the cultural shelf life be as long? And with fewer hands on deck than in the scenes of the past, will it be possible for areas to have sustained intergenerational relevance?

These same questions around longevity also apply to the acts themselves. In a hypersegmented landscape, it’s easy to picture artists shining brighter but burning out faster than in generations past — less seasoned and versatile than predecessors who learned to win over mixed-interest audiences by playing weird, eclectic bills; who had to put hours and hours into live shows on local circuits, making real-life fans along the way, because going viral from their bedroom wasn’t yet a possibility.

On the other hand, given the crushing waterfall of content it lives alongside, modern-day art that’s spun up fast, cycled through quickly, and moved on from unsentimentally hardly seems out of step with its time. And for all the concerns about genre-wide Balkanization, there’s already signs that its accompanying freedom has created the conditions for a hip-hop renaissance, with a multitude of artists making exactly what they want, unburdened by responsibilities or obligations to any corner of the genre beyond their own. While a lack of connection to a broader regional identity has its drawbacks, it also leaves room for the kind of emotional investment and singleminded obsession that makes new ones possible — reminiscent of the conditions that created grime a quarter century ago.

What you’ve heard is true: regionality is back, and it isn’t going anywhere. But in the hip-hop of the future, it’ll be less defined by broad labels like “Florida, “Chicago,” or “North Carolina” than by small, close-knit factions within them — ones that speak in their own references, worship their own greats, and gather in their own meeting places. In other words, a scene. Just a bit different: more niche — and more numerous — than ever before.

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