Childhood

9mo

I don't disagree with you saying Che and Osama strive for that, but I think this discussion is part of a larger conversation about what it takes to get to that "level" and the components that one needs in order to achieve such.

To kind of simplify this, I feel like it does take building a "world" around your music and I think that all these artists that you named here try to do that. However, it's also a much larger task than it seems and requires an insane amount of agency from the artist standpoint to curate everything at a high level.

Now, I don't think this is an impossible feat or anything, but looking at it from an "underground" perspective, it makes sense as to why there seems to be a ceiling that few seem to be able to solidly breakthrough.

The biggest factor most likely will probably be that aspect of subversion and having this sort of utmost confidence and belief that what you're doing is different and stands out and is really f***ing good. I have hope that someone will do it, but once again when you're this kind of internet artist starting from somewhat ground zero and are expected to shoot at all cylinders without the support and infrastructure of a label... it could get tricky

I think Yeat obviously is the closest to kind of do this properly and really reach such a high level, but even that has caveats in terms of him capitulating to outside noise.

This is honestly a really multi-faceted topic, but at the end of the day I do believe it is possible and seeing s*** like last year and how all these Pop artists or whatever broke through confirms that for me but it just really takes a lot of effort and actual thought for an artist of this sort of stature/position to really do and not fold.

Childhood

9mo

That's fair and yeah I do give credit for Osama ushering his own "sound" because that's actually something he accomplished for himself on Flex Music which many others went on to be inspired by... even Carti himself on MUSIC lol

I always had an issue with the name "Rage" because I feel like it never really encapsulated just how multi-faceted the subgenre was at the time and especially now with how it's evolved. You can argue about who actually started Rage, but I'm not really concerned with that because we all know that the hallmark project for the genre is WLR and that will never not be the case.

You can point to Trippie, but he never would've leaned more into things such as dedicating a whole project to the sound with Trip at Knight if it wasn't for Carti. You can point to Ken, but Ken doesn't make that first Teen X EP if it isn't for him being at the WLR sessions and rapping on Carti's throwaway beats when he isn't around.

Also, the review speaks to Carti's influence outside of just the music that's on DSPs which I agree with more and was kind of alluding towards more when I'm referring to Osama because I don't think he sounds much like Carti on Psykotic.

Andre Jaquet

9mo

i do want this and i for the most part agree. tbh i thibnk che is very effectively building that world every album is so wildly different and imo cinematic on sayso says and the guy JUST turned 19 he made rest in bass at 18 he just has the resources to release musi at this age unlike carti who was lowkey just making asap rocky and sgp rips at the time, for osamason i think this album is his first where he really effectively kinda makes a world

HOWEVER, at the same time, it bothers me how so many of these conversations about these aritst's art centers around them being able to commercialize it more effectively and get bigger, when i feel like its pretty clear atleast at most of their career these guys simply dont gaf about that really and i think thats okay honestly. Its specifically with this section of the ug where people do this, i think because they just want others to love it and because they see so much potential and cult like love for these artists but its like trying to impose something that it doesnt seem this artist nor their fans care much about. I dont know if che and osama are really aiming to be mainstream superstars like that,at the end of the day ur talking about two like around 20 year old weirdos who make experimental trap music.

Childhood

9mo

I agree with you in regards to Che and his music, but I think he has like no real branding/identity that feels like it belongs to him.

Which like... I give him grace in that he's really young and the music has already proven to be there with RIB, but semiotic branding really is super duper important and I just feel like he doesn't have anything to himself

An example of this is like I saw people associating him on twitter with the crystal castles madonna avi but that's just always gonna be to crystal castles and the reference/usage of it was already pretty shallow during the sayso era

he has time tho so i won't get too caught up on that but compare that to like the inception of Yeat who had created a whole ass world upon his introduction

Andre Jaquet

9mo

real af good points
i lowk agree with all this

with ken tho im p sure teen x was made esp yale when carti was still in v2 im p sure he wasnt really getting beats like that and even earlier ken was very heavily like close to rage on the boy barbie and lost files 1 era no?

I see it as ken and lone actually influencing carti esp oh yeah, also ken was making those beats himself and his iconic square bass pluck is on yale. before late late 2020 he wason pierre, richie souf, art dealer and jetsonmade beats. I would say tho i always thought the more tread stuff on wlr ofc did influence ken whem he got around X era and eventiually agc quite a bit.
i mean, miss the rage was also trippie's beat no?

i mean for rage tho id just say like, sofaygo and yeat were on p clearly rage beats before carti ever put out a rage song. cochise, ken as u said, midwxst, trippie's affiliates.

video says 2021 but he acc uploaded it like july 2020

vocally sunny bites carti but lol

Childhood

9mo

I don't disagree with you saying Che and Osama strive for that, but I think this discussion is part of a larger conversation about what it takes to get to that "level" and the components that one needs in order to achieve such.

To kind of simplify this, I feel like it does take building a "world" around your music and I think that all these artists that you named here try to do that. However, it's also a much larger task than it seems and requires an insane amount of agency from the artist standpoint to curate everything at a high level.

Now, I don't think this is an impossible feat or anything, but looking at it from an "underground" perspective, it makes sense as to why there seems to be a ceiling that few seem to be able to solidly breakthrough.

The biggest factor most likely will probably be that aspect of subversion and having this sort of utmost confidence and belief that what you're doing is different and stands out and is really f***ing good. I have hope that someone will do it, but once again when you're this kind of internet artist starting from somewhat ground zero and are expected to shoot at all cylinders without the support and infrastructure of a label... it could get tricky

I think Yeat obviously is the closest to kind of do this properly and really reach such a high level, but even that has caveats in terms of him capitulating to outside noise.

This is honestly a really multi-faceted topic, but at the end of the day I do believe it is possible and seeing s*** like last year and how all these Pop artists or whatever broke through confirms that for me but it just really takes a lot of effort and actual thought for an artist of this sort of stature/position to really do and not fold.

tupacarti

9mo

Your last point is spot on...

Pop artists have full on teams, and build out the creative / image that they plan to reveal to the world months in advance

Charli XCX had Brat in her mind a year prior to releasing it, and spent that year curating exactly what she was going to do

No one in the underground has that drive / vision / wants to build a team like that around them, it's always very last minute, all hastily put together prior to release

It really frustrates me because rap to me should be look at and regarded highly, and be just as taken seriously as pop is by the masses, but it's not due to the lack of care put into new releases

I can't recall the last maximalist rollout in rap in...years, everything is so extremely minimal, bare bones, and part of that blame lands on Carti

The last artists to still put care are TDE affiliated artists and Tyler...unless I'm missing anybody else. Jack Harlow's Jackman project release was also pretty cool to me, that whole era.

Again

9mo

n vampire hour? all his melodic sht b poppy imo

Andre Jaquet

9mo

man the people iun the underground DONT WANT TO they arent trying to be the biggest s*** they wanna make their music their way authentically they are anti that s*** most of them arent and dont wanna be signed. its not bare bones its rebellion and ethos thats NOT a carti thing that is an underground thing these guys just are bigger than someone like duwap was. charli is a POP artist ur talking about two completely dif spectrums of intent, charli also was on the same timing tho to a lesser degree for 10 straight years before brat and brat wasnt even intended to be as big as it was.

if commercial appeal is what makes people take rap serious after years of dominance then f*** those people why care what they think lol. damn near the entire new wave puts deep care into their music and passion and they very deeply desire to make the best art they can its pretty clear. you can see it in their videos, experimentation, etc etc, thats the dif between someone like mink and a industry machine like harlow. i dont get it. Not everyone needs 2+ years to make something they love, thats just a restriction. yall are thinking like A&R's.

tupacarti

9mo

I heavily disagree these new artists do want to be the biggest, I mean a lot of them are literally instantly pigeon-holed within a comparison to a bigger act, much like how Osama Season caused instant comparisons prior to Ken dropping AGC, and then facing instant backlash + industry blackball behavior with Ken telling producers not to give him beats lmao

Che & Osama have been pretty public too about wanting to be big, in their recent interviews, from Osama saying he wants to headline not just be a name on a festival list, and Che saying he intends on going mainstream around the release of RIB and even went on to say that he hates the underground term because he feels like it places him in a box

I don't think commercial appeal is what will make people take rap serious, I just think it's time for a new unavoidable face like the 2010s had. The 2020s don't have a Tyler, Rocky, Kendrick level figure yet, is all I'm saying

And part of the reason a lot of these new artists don't think in that punk manner like you described anymore, when it comes to them not wanting to be "big" and anti-label (pretty much any new rapper that's bubbling is signed to something nowadays) is because of how fast the discovery is for these acts, causing a lot of labels / A&Rs having such a fast point of access in pursuing these underground acts

Now that you bring up that first point about the underground not wanting to be that big / tied to labels, it makes me miss acts like Black Kray who were purposefully anti that. Imo that ideology has faded since labels are not very important anymore, hold little weight when it comes in the actual momentum build / blow up of musicians, and really just is a bank to musicians at this point.

Not every artist has to really put that much thought into each release, but the ones that aim to be this huge, unavoidable star do. At the moment many have the thought to be, but ultimately go with the flow, and don't plan grandiose rollouts. I'm just of the opinion that if someone did, it would be pretty legendary and in my opinion: punk. It's something that not even someone like Carti was able to do (WLR and Music were messes of rollouts). But in a way...Carti being so haphazard with his releases is legendary and rebellious in it's own way...
So much to think about...

Andre Jaquet

9mo

I agree with a lot of this actually a few things tho cuz its interesting

"lone and ken are meandering since ILCK/AGC"
ken went #1 on billboard om his last album that was a part 2 to agc whenhe never reached top 10 before that and while i feel the same thing about sound we dont rly know yet

lone artistically had fallen off with one album yet it was still his most comemrcially sucessful yet last year, this mixtape is being beloved across the board and is a mixtape so isnt promoted the same. If u acc look at lone's progression commercially hes only gone up every year since 2020, other than this mixtape. I do agree that i dont think hes going at star status anymore tho. he was p close at one point tho and i do think its still possible and if he doesnt hes still a legend to me and id rather get the best music from him i can

osama and che arent focused on being cool really they just dont really listen to their labels and purely just make music they like like a lot of new artists. I dont think having "stars" matters nor is it necessarily true there arent any new ones, yeat is a star.

however yes there is a lack of the grandiosity, im not sure if this is just a rap thing i do think the whole star thing only applies to pop rn, and i do think for that its more like you would need someone whos very willing to do commercial moves and sacrifice what they wanna do for label manufactured commercial moments, because tbh thats what basically all stars did, other than carti. Even carti did it a bit.

You gotta be the type of guy to sacrifice an album you may love like asap rocky did for hits and clout, while also being talented and authentic. damn near all those guys got songs directly from the label and had song ideas in cages they had to origami into something they kinda like. Although maybe not, mink is shaping up to be a star if he gets signed and keeps going how he is but his version of a commercial song is his entire own lane and hes the face fo the uk underground

how would asap rocky turn out if the label didnt force him to reach for radio, if he didnt have the industry where he couldnt just make the album he wanted? how would long live asap look? the thing is even on ktt, a very pro commercialization and old industry board, mans still dont like when someone is an industry plant or reaching or whatever and one bad move can lose ur good will, its contradictory, because these have always been industry machine pieces of music for the most part and not just someone making a song they like for the most part, the era of 2010s everyone glazes is a product of that. Yea blog era was full of great authentic work but the commercial aspect was very beholden to that and its thing ALL of them talk about years later. not just that, a lot of ppl like mink deadass just dont even want to be on a label or are on like an indie label

i dont think being a superstar is that important like a lot of artists just arent interested in that and the sacrifices u have to make on ur art and freedom for that. nobody ever mentions that. Lone couldve made his most poppy acessible ass album even with the ILCK sound but he turned left and made the most inacessible pit of ambience, noisy guitars, and droning atmosphere when he had the most eyes on him ever. even though that was the least popular s*** on NS.

then again, its a weird world with a dif industry rn, psykotic could actually be bigger than we imagine because every album and star rn is made by an album that doesnt sell much first week and grows in love overtime like agc and becomes a moment. doechii and yeat good examples of current stars onnat. i looked at the google stats of osamason and psykotic is his peak of interest rn (other than the leak) its 3-4x what it was when jumpout dropped.

Andre Jaquet

9mo

i never realized how sad get away is. that song is depressing like damn

Maximus

9mo

Sorry but songs like In It, Get Away, She Woke Up, Made Some Plans all wayyyy better than those examples, and more popular as well.

In that melodic lane I don't think anyone does it better than lil o in the underground

Maximus

9mo

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment but man ILCK was not left field or ambient at all especially given how Carti fans basically willed that sound into existence with the love they gave to the guitar versions of WLR and the guitar riff "song intro"TikTok edits.. it was just half-assed and lone was at the backseat of the whole thing letting the great beats go to waste

hayabusa

9mo

they having deep discussions in the osamason album thread

hayabusa

9mo

they having deep discussions in the osamason album thread

Again

9mo

get away is generational but half those picks r just cos of recency ken just got more variety when it comes to that melodic/chill sht imo

Andre Jaquet

9mo

Yea ngl made sum plans, worst part, get away, kills are better than these to me a lot tbh
Overtime, the end, and nightcore 2 tho… generational

Again

9mo

nightcore 2 clears most of those kills the only generational osama melodic song tbh