>who is popular, that doesn't have a significant female
>fanbase?
>
>
>or does that not prove the point?

Who is popular that doesn't have a significant WHITE fanbase?

Whenever you talk about "who defines a genre", you gotta think about it from the hip hop perspective.

There are no slow burners in hip hop music.
You either go big your first week, or you go home.

So the question is going to become, who are the tastemakers and who are the early adopters, that send signals to the record companies to keep pushing the record.

Is it white kids?
Is it black females?

Or is it really that same ol core audience, the block, the streets - young black and latino males that live in the city that are generally closest to the artists themselves?

AT the end of the day, women and white kids buy lots of records.

The questions are, 1) when do they buy it, (later rather than sooner), and 2) and why do they buy it? (because young black men define cool)

Ultimately, this question is decided on what part of the economic process you want to focus on.

Do we start at the beginning, or do we focus on who went platinum and why?

one
k. orr