The costliest signals of authenticity? How iconic deaths transform audience reception in hip-hop

• Main Author: Ma, Xiangyu
• Other Authors: School of Social Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2025
• Subjects: Social Sciences; Authenticity; Death
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/182078
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The death of an artist can act as a costly signal of their authenticity, and cause enduring changes in audience valuations of their work. Drawing on novel digital trace data of audience evaluations from a major online music community, we show how the death of an hip-hop artist induces improvements t...