It Only Took a Year for Miley Cyrus to Pivot Back to Hip-Hop

A year after leaving hip-hop behind for more hypothetically lucrative pastures, Miley Cyrus is staging her return. It looks like there was more money to be made in the genre that brought her the most success she’s seen in her career, despite her very public capitulation to folkier (and whiter) sounds. During an interview with 95.5 PLJ, Cyrus explained that she’s working with Mike Will Made-It, the executive producer of 2013’s Bangerz, again on her upcoming album.

“We’ve got songs with Mike Will that lean more hip-hop and songs with Andrew Wyatt that lean more pop/alternative,” Miley said. “I just have kind of everything.”

This comes just one year after Miley made a point to distance herself from hip-hop in a tone deaf 2017 interview with Billboard.

“But I also love that new Kendrick [Lamar] song [‘Humble’]: ‘Show me somethin’ natural like ass with some stretch marks.’ I love that because it’s not ‘Come sit on my dick, suck on my cock.’ I can’t listen to that anymore,” she said. “That’s what pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little. It was too much ‘Lamborghini, got my Rolex, got a girl on my cock’ — I am so not that.”

After critics started to label Cyrus a culture vulture, she responded in a since-deleted 2017 Instagram post that also lacked nuance, opting instead to dabble in respectability politics that evinced a deep misunderstanding of hip-hop culture. “I have always and will continue to love and celebrate hip hop as I’ve collaborated with some of the very best,” the post read. “At this point in my life I am expanding personally/musically and gravitating more towards uplifting, conscious rap! As I get older I understand the effect music has on the world & Seeing where we are today I feel the younger generation needs to hear positive powerful lyrics!” However, the allure of cashing in on the United States’ most consumed genre must have been too great, just one year later.

The quick pivot back is unsurprising. The response to her country-tinged next effort,Younger Now, was lackluster. Miley’s sixth studio album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold 45,000 units in its first week. That’s compared to Bangerz, which went number one with 270,000 in sales its first week. Bangerz is certified triple platinum; Younger Now has failed to go gold.

The world doesn’t need any more hip-hop-inspired Miley Cyrus music, but history shows that it, at the very least, sells.

CONFIRMED: Miley Cyrus’ new album will be hip hop vibes with Mike Will Made it, Modern/classic and rock music with Mark Ronson & Pop/Pop-alternative from Andrew Wyatt. pic.twitter.com/7sQy1fTnz9

— Miley Cyrus Charts 💔 (@CyrusOnChart) December 11, 2018