Day 32: nothing,nowhere— Reaper
Maybe it was only a matter of time before emo and Soundcloud rap spawned someone like nothing,nowhere. Though not the only person fusing trap beats with tortured angst, he’s emblematic of the trend that Lil Peep brought up from the depths of the internet late last year. And signing to Pete Wentz’s record label is proof that at least one major “emo” tastemaker thinks the kid from Vermont has what it takes to make rap fans nod their head and women weep.
Over the course of the nine tracks that make up Reaper, nothing,nowhere borrows tropes from the two disparate musical realms, holding them together with little more than the force of his sincerity. Though “emo rap” as a discernible genre is scarcely more than a year old, all of its hallmarks are here: there’s the 808’s and high hat rolls, the moody guitar instrumentals that sound like they were plundered from (Sandy) Alex G’s hard drive, and the (often autotuned) tales of heartbreak that oscillate between vengeful fantasy and histrionic self-loathing. At times his “fuck the world” attitude and unorthodox sonic experiments are compelling. But at other turns, one can’t help but wonder if n,n’s musical identity crisis is at all related to his less than clearly articulated personal struggles.
“Clarity in Kerosene” is a good example of what can happen when things go right. nothing,nowhere showcases his talents as a vocalist and more versatility of rap flow than one would assume, letting things build to doing his best take on pre-Skrillex Sonny Moore vocals on a chorus where he “hope[s] you choke in your sleep while you’re dreaming of me,” a line so pitch-perfect that it feels like a parody of Hot Topic melodrama. It’s the kind of track that would feel ready-made for emo nights if not for the fact that the rest of the song would leave the audience unsure of how to react. “Hopes Up,” which pairs nothing,nowhere with Chris Carrabra of Dashboard Confessional , is another example of how the format can work, with n,n’s more-sung-than-rapped verse giving space for the guy who introduced a generation to sadboy music with “Screaming Infidelities” to hop in and do his thing. In short, things tend to go better when the hip hop acts as a sort of modifying influence.
But if there’s a problem with Reaper, it’s that nothing,nowhere can’t decide if he’d rather get a slot at Rolling Loud or onWarped Tour. “Funeral Fantasy” — which takes a much different approach to envisioning how others will react to one’s death than Touché Amoré did — starts with a voicemail (what would a rap album be without one?) imploring n,n to make some Hot 97 shit that Ebro would like. The end result is slightly sadder than normal white boy backpacker rap that sounds like Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda trying to impersonate Kendrick Lamar. Conversely, MaryKate feels like that one bleak song on every emo album that tries to convince you how serious it is by stripping the drums out. The application of autotuned crooning to that template feels odd, and it shows how things can go off the rails without any concessions to the hip hop heads.
Songs that forcibly mash the “emo” and “rap” ends of the spectrum together have trouble finding a middle ground, leaving listeners searching for better takes on the styles nothing,nowhere tries to approximate.REM adds a feature from Lil West, who sounds like if Lil Yachty listened to too much self-titled era Attack Attack!. “Nevermore” borrows the air raid-ish sound Southside made famous from his work producing for Future and oddly juxtaposes it with lines like “What’s the point of waking up? Why can’t I give a fuck?”, a juxtaposition that’s only slightly funnier than Future talking about sticking his thumb in a butt.
From a subject matter standpoint, nothing,nowhere could at times do a better job articulating the sadness that plagues him. There’s no doubting the earnestness of his pain (and far be it from me to tell someone how they should be depressed), but for the most part his lyrics lack specifics. There are rare instances when he takes aim at Soundcloud rappers whose clout won’t last, but his rhymes frequently feel like they’d fit better over a blurry photo of a pier on Tumblr than on Genius. Instead, nothing,nowhere has to rely on the forcefulness of his delivery to convince us that what he says carries weight. He often pulls it off, but it’s pretty hard to redeem lines like “yeah I’m a fuck up, motherfucker,” etc.
Reaper is rough around the edges, but the music that played behind the closed bedroom doors of millions of anxious, isolated teenagers in the 2000’s was always more about vulnerability and sincerity than proficiency or clarity of vision. It’s hard to predict what kind of shelf life such a niche scene (if you can even call it that) will have. But you can either be the kind of person who chooses to laugh off someone like nothing,nowhere or hope that his vision becomes clearer over time. Maybe it’s because I’m a millennial snowflake raised on a steady diet of participation trophies. Maybe listening to Reaper so much over the past 24 hours made me so sad that I can’t help but root for him. Either way, I’d rather hope he finds a way to better articulate his vision in the future than to give up on him right now.
TL;DR Reaper is much better than Falling in Reverse, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
