Its reign was short, though. After just one week, it was knocked out of the top spot by a rapper working the polar opposite of the moral spectrum: XXXTentacion, the most versatile artist of the SoundCloud rap generation, and also the one with the most heinous allegations of criminal behavior.

These two artists are both successes of modern internet-driven fandom. And even though their musical and thematic approaches are very different, they have things in common that might not be evident from a surface read, in terms of the emotional language they deploy and the way they connect with young hip-hop fans.

To discuss these artists, and how they relate to examples of male frailty in earlier generations of pop music, Mr. Caramanica is joined on this week’s Popcast by Lindsay Zoladz, a staff writer at the Ringer and former pop music critic for New York magazine.

Email your questions, thoughts and ideas about what’s happening in pop music to popcast@nytimes.com.