Record labels often don’t care about these rappers. In an industry that is ruthlessly dedicated to discovering the hot new thing, pastoral care can be nonexistent. There are a lot of guns and bullets flying around Jimmy Duval
The rap game isn’t like any other industry. “Peep went from having no manager to being managed by a very large company that deals with high-profile artists, and with that came more money and more pressure,” says his friend and collaborator Adam McIlwee, who performs as Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. While earlier generations of musicians might spend years gigging before being spotted, DIY rap stars have circumvented the record industry’s gatekeepers to accrue wealth and success – often while still in their teens – leaving them struggling to adapt to sudden fame. One problem lies in the way these rappers’ careers have built with unprecedented speed. So why did the nihilistic pose become a self-fulfilling prophecy, ending the lives of young people barely out of their teens? And what can be done to arrest it? But while some of them did experience mental illness and addiction, their death wish was as much of an aesthetic as the pink hair and facial tattoos. Looking at such lyrics, you might reasonably conclude that these rappers wanted to die. Smokepurpp posed in a coffin in the artwork for his mixtape Deadstar, and Peep – often called the Kurt Cobain of his generation owing to his cherubic face, placid manner and dedication to his ever-spiralling nihilism – intoned: “Everybody tellin’ me life’s short, but I wanna die,” on his 2017 track The Brightside. Death is everywhere in SoundCloud rap: the genre’s unofficial logo is a teardrop. Many of these rappers engaged with their own mortality in lyrics that talked about death, drugs and depression. Lil Peep, who died from an accidental fentanyl and Xanax overdose. In March 2019, Nipsey Hussle was shot dead outside his Los Angeles clothing store. Two weeks later, 21-year-old Canadian rapper and Drake tourmate Smoke Dawg was killed outside a Toronto nightclub.
#RIHANNA LOVE ON THE BRAIN SOUNDCLOUD MAC#
Pittsburgh rapper Jimmy Wopo – touted as the heir to local forebears Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller – was killed in a drive-by shooting the same day. Despite being accused of horrific abuse by an ex-partner, XXXTentacion enjoyed massive popularity before being killed in 2018 aged 20 as he was robbed outside a Florida motorcycle dealership.
On New Year’s Day, a rare female death: Minnesota rapper Lexii Alijai, the victim of yet another accidental fentanyl overdose.Īlongside these deaths by misadventure, there are the victims of violent crime. It is believed he swallowed multiple Percocet pills in an attempt to hide them as police raided the plane. Juice WRLD died late last year after a drug-induced seizure aboard a private jet. Lil Peep died at 21 in 2017 – an accidental fentanyl and Xanax overdose. Mac Miller died in 2018 aged 26 after consuming cocaine and counterfeit oxycodone containing the synthetic opioid fentanyl. Many young rappers have died in the past few years. Fourteen days later, on 27 June 2019, Thureson died. Things were very bad, and they should come to the hospital now. Shortly after Erik left for work, Judy received another phone call. There would be no further plan of action. He had recently relocated from the family home in Texas to Los Angeles after being signed to Atlantic Records.Īs Erik drove to work, he cycled through a mental list of options: more inpatient treatment? Thureson had already been to rehab, twice. Thureson, who performed under the name Hella Sketchy, was among the wave of emo-influenced trap rappers who came up using the music platform SoundCloud. It had happened a couple of times already and the 18-year-old rapper had always made it out of hospital in one piece. I t might sound callous, but Jacob Thureson’s parents, Erik and Judy, were not too worried when they heard about his latest overdose.