Month: September 2018

While music has taken many different forms and changes over the years, a few things remain constant topics: love, parties, and drugs. The latter more than anything else has boomed in popularity among musicians, especially rappers. Almost every rap song that comes out nowadays includes references to marijuana, cocaine, etc. A perfect example of a project that represents this drug culture, Future’s 2015 album DS2 actually stands for Dirty Sprite 2, with ‘dirty sprite’ referring to lean, a mixture of codein-based cough syrup, soda, and usually alcohol or other drugs. This mixture alone demonstrates the glorification of reckless drug usage in pop culture, and the consequences have already been felt across the industry.

On November 15, 2017, popular rapper Lil Peep, who became famous from the music-streaming platform Soundcloud, died from an overdose of Xanax laced with Fentanyl. Only 21 years old, his death shocked many and scared even more about the fatal effects these demanded prescription drugs like Xanax could have. Fentanyl, an extremely addictive and very strong opioid, has blown up recently as a laced component in other drugs, as it is much cheaper in comparison. Lil Peep was one of the first demonstrations of fentanyl’s deadliness in the music scene. While many of his contemporaries gave their condolences through social media and mourned his death, nothing was done to stop the actual drug craze.

Similarly on September 7, 2018, rapper Mac Miller was found dead in his house due to an apparent drug overdose, just a month after the release of his latest project Swimming. Aged only 26 years old, he adds to the list of famous rappers to die young due to opioids. Much like with Lil Peep, many people were morose with his death, but still nothing has changed about the praising of drugs in music; earlier this summer, Lil Pump released a song titled “Drug Addicts” that did just this, and it became one of the most popular tracks of the month 92,000,000 views on YouTube alone to date.

While drugs have been popular with musicians for decades now, the strength, accessibility, and dangerous mixtures of them has risen exponentially. Juice WRLD sings on his song “Legends“, a tribute to the recent deaths of many artists, “What’s the 27 Club? We ain’t makin’ it past 21”. Drugs have become so much more available and deadly among younger generations of people that the future for many musicians and their fans is only becoming gloomier. We can only hope that something will come soon to change the culture against hard drug use; I only pray that it isn’t another death of a young, talented artist.

In the era of music streaming, virtually anyone can upload songs onto most platforms. While it may be easier to get content out there, it’s much harder to actually get your name recognized in such a big pool of up-and-coming musicians. Producers, though, have it even worse. In the rap genre, there are hundred of thousands of people who use FL studio and other programs to make beats, and its generally very accessible to do. With such a high accessibility, and very low variation to actual production sound in the trap industry, becoming someone well-known and recognizable is difficult. However, some famous figures have found clever ways to make sure they’re name and face stay relevant in an ever-changing

One way producers make themselves known to the public is with producer tags. Tags are essentially a producer’s motto (usually containing their name) that is inserted either at the beginning or end of a track. While they have been around since the early 2000s with Just Blaze and The Alchemist, tags have been popularized in recent years by Metro Boomin, London on da Track, Mike WILL Made-It, and others. The social media era has made tags almost a necessity for producers, as some of them have turned into very popular and trending memes and pop culture references. Generally speaking, the more creative the tag is, the more likely it is to be remembered by audiences. Similarly, if a tag is paired onto a song that blows up on the charts, the producer’s phrase is bound to become just as popular (for example, Jahlil Beats’ tag “Jahlil Beats, holla at me” became trendy solely off the wild success of his produced song ‘Hot ***** by Bobby Shmurda).

Another newer method of producers making themselves known to music audiences is through music videos. In 2016, Metro Boomin’ could be seen in Lil Uzi Vert’s video for “You Was Right“, one of the most viewed visuals of the year. It was a very groundbreaking and clever move by Metro, as many people began to recognize him by face after this promo. Other producers have caught on, too, with Murda Beatz being featured recently in the music video for 6ix9ine’s hit song “FEFE”. However, producers getting their faces recognized isn’t limited to videos, but actual album covers, too. Metro Boomin’ has been seen gracing the cover of multiple records, including Gucci Mane’s ‘DropTopWop’ and Big Sean’s ‘Double or Nothing’. In doing so, he’s managed to get his image onto many different forms of media, raising his brand as a producer.

With so many producers becoming more and more relevant in the public eye, it’s nice to see many of them beginning to get the credit they deserve for their work. Without their beats, many artists wouldn’t be nearly as popular as they are now, but many fans of these artists don’t realize that. Hopefully this networking by producers can make the business much more profitable in the near future, allowing for many other people to turn production into a career. With this, music even in the near future could improve greatly from it, which is a very exciting thing to imagine.