The Nepo Baby Index: Part One

My attempt in making a definitive guide as to who truly benefits the most from the music industry's rampant nepotism.

The term “nepo baby” has become an oft-used phrase to describe children of famous and wealthy parents, almost always in a derogatory fashion. And with very few exceptions, the “nepo babies” themselves obviously haven't been too fond of the label either. Many entertainers in numerous fields have been brandished with the label, and most often for good reason because nepotism can frequently a massive component to success in many industries. But I have always been of the belief that not all “nepo babies” are created equal. For example, if two sports journalists were both the son of a famous & legendary sports broadcaster and the son of the billionaire CEO of Starbucks, that’s not quite the same in my book. So I want to try to apply the same principle to music - who truly has benefitted the most from nepotism? Ideally, as a critic and writer I like to view music as a meritocracy where people have wholeheartedly earned their spots due to hard work, but that is unfortunately not the reality of the business. Being a benefactor of nepotism is one of the most surefire ways to get ahead in music, and I am attempting to create a formula to determine who truly has benefitted the most.

So I am creating a two-pronged index in order to create a hierarchical system regarding who benefits the most from nepotism. There will be two scores out of 50 to combine for a possible 100 - the first one being how directly the musician benefited from nepotism - for example, 10 being the child of a respected session musician and 50 being the child of the president of a major label. The second score, however, is far more subjectie - it asks the question, “Is this artist good or talented enough to be as popular as they are if not for nepotism?” which is tricky because musical talent is not as quantifiable as something like sports - there is no statistic like ERA in baseball for musicians. So that component is completely subjective on my end, and so this statistic is something like QBR in football - the human element plays a major role. But despite the subjectivity, I feel like a statistic like this should definitively exist, and I’m stunned that (to my knowledge) this hasn’t been created before. But I think it’s a fun exercise to think about, and I want to explore this more in further posts (and potentially take requests).