In the late 1970s there was a cultural revolution in New York City. Hip Hop is an urban African American subculture created in the South Bronx. Some elements of this culture included street art, poetic rhyming ability, fashion and terminology. This genre of music was used to express the struggles of living in urban communities. Some of the initial issues Hip Hop music addressed included urban poverty, police brutality, racism, gang violence, drugs and government corruption. Hip Hop artists such as Mos Def, Public Enemy and Lauryn Hill would “rap” in order to shed light on institutional racism and encourage intellectual freedom. In the Song “Mathematics” Mos Def used wordplay and rhyme scheme in order to describe institutional racism. Mos Def stated “I’m blacker than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle, Hip-Hop past all your tall social hurdles, like the nationwide projects, prison-industry complex.” In the quote Mos Def is telling the listener that he is a proud black male and will overcome any societal obstacles. Mos Def grew up in a New York City housing project complex. These apartment buildings are typically filthy due to overcrowding. In addition, while growing up in New York City, Mos Def experiences police brutality and observed mass incarceration. These lines from the song “mathematics” subliminally addressed a large issue and contained rhyming pattern. In addition, hip hop artist have to rhyme in unison to the instrumental to the song. For this reason many people viewed Hip Hop artists as geniuses and modern poets.
Music genres often transform overtime due to a constantly changing younger demographic. For example, before Rock and Roll there was the Blues. In addition, Metal was an offspring of Rock and Roll created in the 1960s. Hip Hop has been undergoing a transformation over the past decade. In the United States, Hip Hop has become the most dominant genre. In the previous decades of the 1980s and 1990s Rock music was the dominant genre. Hip Hop has become mainstream in the past two decades. Due to this, there has been a lot of experimentation to this genre. New artists are using their personal musical influences and combining it with Hip Hop’s modern popularity. Some modern artists such as Lil Peep, XXXTentacion and Scarlord are classified as “Hip Hop” artists even though their music contains more aspects of rock music. Gustav Ahr also known as Lil Peep is known for introducing “emo hip hop”. He is considered an emo Hip Hop artist because his songs contain some yelling, the referencing of depression, drum kits and the acoustic guitar. In addition, Gustav states some of his musical influences included My Chemical Romance, Avenged sevenfold and Paramore. XXXTentacion music can be classified as indie rock and Scarlord’s music contains all elements of heavy metal. Consequently, these artists are all still labeled as “rappers”. Lil Peep and XXXTentacion have both publicly rejected the title of “rapper”. Many aspects of the Hip Hop Culture such as fashion, production and art are currently evolving. In addition, people within the Hip Hop community would like music labels not to associate the new hip hop music with the old hip hop music. Some members of the hip hop community want to label new hip hop as “sound cloud rap”. The reason it is called sound cloud rap is because most of these artists gain popularity on the music app sound cloud. New York times published a feature story describing the new state of Hip Hop as “a swelling subgenre that takes its name from its creators’ preferred streaming service — which in the last year has become the most vital and disruptive new movement in hip-hop thanks to rebellious music, volcanic energy and occasional acts of malevolence.”
Lil Peeps debut album “Come over when you’re sober” was released on August 15th 2017. In this album Gustav addresses topics such as depression, anxiety, social conformity, suicidal tendencies and drug addiction. All of these topics are dark and have never been addressed in Hip Hop music before. The previous Hip Hop “gangsta” persona would laugh at Lil Peep expressing his emotional distress. In the song “the Brightside” Lil Peep states how he tries to view life in a positive light even while battling depression. This song also is Lil Peeps attempt to pay respect to one of his favorite band The Killers and their famous song “Mr. Brightside. Another song of notice on this album is “Better Off’. This song contains very serious content. In this song peep describes how he is unable to sustain a relationship because of his drug addiction. Lil peep states that his partner is better off without him and he’s “not gonna make it”. Lil Peep can be seen numerous times in his music predicting his own death. Gustav died due to a drug overdose on fake Xanax pills. His death caused an uproar in the Hip Hop community. Many artists began to abolish and warn their fans of Xanax. In addition, Lil Peeps death also reflected the depression and drug addiction problems many modern rappers face. An article publish by the Los Angeles Times about “Sound cloud rap” stated “”Some music can glamorize addiction and substance abuse. There’s a difference between speaking out about your troubles and glamorizing that lifestyle,” said Adam Leventhal, the director of USC’s Health, Emotion & Addiction Laboratory.” Gustav Ahr also known as Lil Peep is a modern musical pioneer. In 2017 Lil Peeps album “Come over when you’re sober” was ranked 7th of album of the year by New York Times magazine. Gustav was born in Long Beach, New York in 1996. Long beach is a township on Long Island, which is considered to be the birthplace of emo rock. In addition, Long Island is 15 minutes away from New York City, the birthplace of Hip hop. Gustav Ahr stated that his musical influences contained numerous genres. Gustav’s favorite genre of music was alternative rock or “emo”. Due to Hip Hops mass appeal, Gustav adapted his sense of music into modern Hip Hop. This was a very creative tactic. Gustav’s music was called “the future of emo”. Essentially, Lil Peep made it “cool” to be punk and emo. Gustav died November 15th, 2017 at the age of 21. During his rise to fame, Lil Peep wasn’t considered a serious hip hop artist. After his death, Lil Peep gained mass notoriety from fans and fellow artists. Gustav was honored in a memorial at the 2017 Grammy Awards. In addition, many African American hip hop artists acknowledged peep and were saddened by his death. The Hip Hop culture generally dislikes when white rappers “invade” their culture. The idea of culture appropriation is when one race of people replicates another race’s culture for financial gain. Vanilla Ice is an example of an artist people accused of culture appropriation. The Hip Hop community calls these artists “Culture Vultures “. Nevertheless, Lil Peeps music transcended racial boundaries and had mass appeal. Lil Peep’s legacy inspired many modern artists’ music and style. Many aspects of Hip Hop are now evolving into rock and emo style. Hip Hop artists such as Lil Uzi Vert, Trippie Redd and XXXTentacion contained rock based styles. These Hip Hop artists often and can be seen wearing skinny jeans, spiked chokers, combat boots and even designer purses. These clothing items are common in metal culture. This image of metal was created by Marilyn Manson. Notably rapper Lil Uzi Vert references Manson as one of his musical inspirations. An article published in Los Angeles time’s contained a statement from Rolling Loud festival co- founder Tariq Cherif. In this article Cherif States “Rappers are the new rock stars. If you want high-energy concerts with crazy mosh pits, you find that at rap shows today.” Rolling Loud is one of the largest musical festivals in the United States that takes place every year in Miami. Cherif is literally implying with this quote that rappers are modern day rock stars. I can agree with his statement. The previous implications of rappers were urban gangsters wearing bagging clothing. Modern day Hip Hop artists prefer to known as rock stars.
2016 and 2017 are years that will be remembered in Hip Hop’s history. Almost every element of Hip Hop’s culture was changed entirely. The aspects of Hip Hop culture that were noticeably different included fashion, rhyming ability and terminology. The rappers that emerged those years were complete opposites of what traditional rappers were in previous years. Lil Peep was an artist that pioneered a new wave of rock integrated with Hip Hop. Gustav’s legacy influenced the production, fashion, content and drug policies in the Modern Hip Hop Culture. The “rock star” persona was created by Gustav and many future artist will reference him as an influence.
Citations
www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-hip-hop-depression-20180128-story.html
http://www.timesrepublican.com/opinion/columnists/2018/03/in-defense-of-cultural-appropriation/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/arts/music/soundcloud-rap-lil-pump-smokepurrp-xxxtentacion.html
