I think it comes down to the allure of spoken accents. Since the times of at least John Lennon's apologetically English elocution in the '60s, or perhaps Sinatra's brutish crooning decades earlier, popular music has been dominated by artists who affect a peculiar accent. This sets the artist apart as distinct while sounding new and exotic to the listener.
In hip hop, we have a genre which strips away almost everything except the vocalist's accent. What you really have is an audio sample of the interesting way a person pronounces words.
I believe the benefits of this are two-fold. First, I believe listeners from the same region subconsciously identify with certain key signifiers in the vocalist's pronouncation, providing a core fanbase. Second, I think other listeners who are high in openness are intrigued by the new way of talking.
I think this model works for both hip hop and country music. Other types of pop and indie music also seem to feature bizarre forms of singing. For instance, that dance monkey song that was #1 for a while. Contemporary indie-rock and new-folk musics seem to focus on sounding like an alien.
In hip hop, we have a genre which strips away almost everything except the vocalist's accent. What you really have is an audio sample of the interesting way a person pronounces words.
I believe the benefits of this are two-fold. First, I believe listeners from the same region subconsciously identify with certain key signifiers in the vocalist's pronouncation, providing a core fanbase. Second, I think other listeners who are high in openness are intrigued by the new way of talking.
I think this model works for both hip hop and country music. Other types of pop and indie music also seem to feature bizarre forms of singing. For instance, that dance monkey song that was #1 for a while. Contemporary indie-rock and new-folk musics seem to focus on sounding like an alien.