Some just aren't humble.(those are the ones that get the most exposure) They don't let the music speak for themselves. They over saturate with interviews, youtube videos like they are somebody. Its the day of age where if anyone wanted they can make a song, a video, a website with zero meaningful content just being braggadocios .
Then you have legit dope artist with integrity that will straight out refuse to pay to open for an artist. I respect that. But you have those dudes with $$$ who pay their way to the fore front. That's not being a hustler , that's not being business savvy , its straight up hurting the game. But as long as they get the exposure and they get the 15 minutes of fame they don't care nor respect how they negatively affect the game.
So unfortunately $$$ hurt the underground. I always say I cant wait for hip hop to get off of TV and the mainstream and everyone truly goes pop or what ever the fuck the new sound is. Because the artist's that truly love hip hop, self expression, creativity, and have something meaningful to say will still be around and all the attention whore fuck boys will be wearing dresses and singing about designer drugs killing people and being sad or what ever the fuck these half men wanna rap/ cry about will be doing that flavor of the month shit.
I could be wrong. But that's how I feel. We pay attention to those peacocking instead of those actually creating content with merit. Because the media, websites, magazines want more viewers, readers, followers, likes NOW!!! So they tailor their medium to whats hot/popular NOW. Everything is one big advertisement for the next big nothing and the fans allowed it.