How Covid-19 Killed Live Shows and Rappers’ Incomes
With touring accounting for more than half an artist’s income, people have been forced to get creative
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Over the past few years, Blimes Brixton and Gifted Gab have watched their rap dreams blossom. As West Coast duo Blimes and Gab, the two have been co-signed by Method Man, worked with major brands such as Converse and Pandora, and graduated from small venue performances to festival stages like Austin City Limits and the Uncool Festival. And when their song “Feeling It” was featured on the season four premiere of HBO’s Insecure and their debut album, Talk About It, launched, they were poised for another, more significant upgrade.
Instead, they sat home.
Thanks to Covid-19, the duo had to cancel a handful of prominent festival shows booked between March and late June — and with those live shows went half of their annual income. “I don’t know when that moment was when I realized shit ain’t finna be the same,” Gifted Gab says, “but I do know we weren’t getting those deposits and everything was postponed until the unforeseeable future.”
