Deconstructing the groundbreaking hype around rage rap.
illustration by Ricardo Santos, retrieved from Billboard Magazine.
Since the dawn of popular culture, every generational cohort has sought a musical movement to attach to, something that they feel is theirs. Kids in the 2000s had Eminem: through him they rebelled against the culture, inspired by his scandalous threats and unobstructed individuality. Kids in the 2010s gravitated to the SoundCloud wave of rappers, rallying behind the spontaneous ethos of the sound. Feeling was prioritized over lyrical substance. In each of these eras, there was a significant horde of naysayers who sought to limit free expression. Now in the 2020s, we have rage rap, a subgenre of trap music characterized by buzzing synths and aggressive, confrontational vocals. The transition from psychedelic repetition of the late 2010s to the growls and yelps that dominate rage represent a significant shift in the psyche of today's kids, the forefront of a new generation that demands to be heard.
An undeniable appeal of rage lies in its mystique. There's something fascinating about Yeat, who normally remains hidden behind his idiosyncratic balaclava. Destroy Lonely obscures his face through a shadow in his 2022 breakout album NO STYLIST. Playboi Carti, arguably the originator of the rage, kept his social media presence low in the rollout for his 2020 release Whole Lotta Red, speaking only in cryptic riddles and unintelligible symbols. Evidently, part of the appeal of rage rap is the idea that outsiders wouldn't understand, an us vs. them mentality rooted in the criticism that the genre has received thus far. For most kids in the modern age, this is the first time they've been at the front of a musical movement. They want the music to speak for itself, free of external aesthetics. This trend toward minimalism reflects a rejection of the oversaturation of content we're experiencing right now.
Furthermore, breaking out from the COVID-19 pandemic, teenagers and those in their early 20s felt they had been robbed of most of their formative experiences in high school and college. They wanted to let loose and rage in insane moshpits, calling back to the moshing movements of the 1980s. This perhaps explains why so much of rage rap bears unfiltered, raw aggression, with little tolerance. Ken Carson boldly sticks his middle fingers up on the cover of his 2022 breakout X against a stark white background that reflects rage rap's turn toward minimalism. Repetition of the same threatening phrases is key for music that's meant to be played as loud as possible in a crowd. At the same time, the beats are insanely chaotic, spawning a new crop of producers like Clayco and F1lthy crafting production with a lot going on. The vocals are often drowned out behind these bass-heavy beats. Playboi Carti popularized this style when he had crowds screaming about mobbing after Whole Lotta Red.
Meanwhile, lyrics move from monotonous, as they were in the 2010s, to borderline unintelligible. Rap is moving further and further away from poetry and lyrics as its driving force. With each passing year, the zeitgeist seems to move further away from lyricism. This isn't a bad thing, just that the idea of what makes someone a “good rapper” is constantly changing. All of a sudden, teenagers want their music to be weird. Yeat makes up words like "twizzy," which means "twin," creating slang that the youth necessarily attach to. His borderline meme song for the Minions sequel in 2022, "Rich Minion," continues this trend of individuality, where Yeat compares him and his friends to minions. But you would be mistaken to think of rage rap as a joke, or a passing fad. The idea of a subculture that rejects meaning and focuses on ridiculousness is in line with the blatant absurdism of Gen Z culture. Where are we to find meaning when the world seems to be growing crueler around us each day?
Despite their apparent lack of meaning, lyrics in rage rap are still reflective of much of the general trends in 2020s culture. Ken Carson's track "Fuk 12" is straightforward in its support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Simple lines like "If I see the police and I make a right, they make a left." Again, absurdism is the key to understanding rage rap. We've come to a time where esoteric lyricism is no longer required because the conflict of the world around us is too pressing.
Increasingly, rage rap is becoming the modern zeitgeist. Every artist seems to be piling on their chance to experiment with the new sound. We are truly in the midst of a new era, the modern version of the Soundcloud era from 2015-2016. It's almost a form of collective effervescence: if you're not in the know, it's hard to understand the hype. The personalities of Ken Carson and Destroy Lonely are drawing hundreds of young teens to associate with their music. Perhaps it's because they're younger, and simply more relatable. Trippie Redd released his version of a rage album with Mansion Musik in January. Lil Pump tried his hand with Lil Pump 2 in March. Both those albums flopped. The lesson: rage is more than just a fad. You have to be good at the style to succeed, and do more than just rote copying.
Yeat, for instance, released his long awaited album Afterlyfe on February 24, 2023. There are few artists with as rabid of a fanbase as the California native. Instantly, people flocked to the meme-inducing feature of the Talking Ben App on "How it Go." Yeat takes a lot of cues from Young Thug, with his effortless ability to flow through a plethora of voices and cadences, even going so far as to develop different names, such as Kranky Kranky or Luh Geeky, for his different personalities. With this album, Yeat proved that rage rap could be something deeper, with the incorporation of melodic guitars in tracks like "Back home" or even his interpretation of a club track on "Nun id change." He maintains the spotlight on Afterlyfe single handedly, proving a laser-dedicated focus to his craft.
Additionally, Destroy Lonely released his debut studio album If Looks Could Kill on May 5, 2023. The defining moment of his career so far, the album incorporated horrorcore-esque themes with Lonely's voice more subdued than ever, his monotone dribble obscured by swirling guitars and reverbing psychedelia. His muted voice is so antithetical to the brazenness of rage rap that it's unclear if his newest effort can even be defined under the same genre. At this point, however, it's clear that rage is more about the aesthetics than it is the sound, made clear by his teenage fanbase comparing him to heroes like Batman. He recedes into the shadows on the cover, adopts dark colors and even the murderous moniker of "Look Killa." There's still very little quality control in the genre, with both Yeat and Lonely's projects being over an hour long and both of them utilizing little to no features. However, these mysterious, minimal aesthetics are almost starting to get as played out and repetitive as the music is.
The current pressure for rage rap is to evolve towards a recognizable but varied style, but the scene is as much about the characters as it is about the music itself. Only time will tell how the scene continues to develop, but don’t worry: the kids will be fine.
edited by Kristen Wallace, Copy Editor.
illustration by Ricardo Santos, retrieved from Billboard Magazine.