In the past few years, we've seen a worrying trend in the hip hop scene that hasn't been seen since the geography wars of the 90s, more and more young artists are dying too early into their careers, or confessing to crimes within their music and getting prosecuted for it. With the murder of XXXTentacion, the accidental suicide of Juice WRLD, Lil Peep and Mac Miller's tragic drug lacing overdoses, and the incarceration of artists like 6ix9ine, we are seeing the consequences of these lifestyles in real time thanks to social media. You can write off the genre for being exploitative to these types of people, who get caught up in the action and lose their life as a result, but this is a part of a larger issue.
These are all young people with a clear potential in the future (okay not 6ix9ine) who have had their time to shine and create important or positive works of art for people to admire and look up to. When they untimely pass, the rights to their music get passed on to their families, and in the case of artists like XXXTentacion and Lil Peep, we've seen a gross overuse and merchandising of their unfinished music, where other artists are purchasing features with them that can be as simple as a 15 snippet of them screaming, or a verse that the artist would never have let out into the wild because of its quality. In the case of Mac Miller, on the other hand, his family has started numerous charities in his name and makes sure to honor his name, and makes constant public statements of the dangers of drug abuse. His first posthumous album, Circles, was already near full completion before his death and was a complete departure from his previous work. Almost entirely brooding, soft singing about the perils of his life, it stands as a reflection of the good person that he was, the gripes he had with life, and how he was feeling up to the point he had passed away. It was not just a passive way for the family to make a dollar from D-Sides he never wanted to release, it was a clear tribute to him.
How do you feel about the handling of music after the death of the artist?
In the past few years, we've seen a worrying trend in the hip hop scene that hasn't been seen since the geography wars of the 90s, more and more young artists are dying too early into their careers, or confessing to crimes within their music and getting prosecuted for it. With the murder of XXXTentacion, the accidental suicide of Juice WRLD, Lil Peep and Mac Miller's tragic drug lacing overdoses, and the incarceration of artists like 6ix9ine, we are seeing the consequences of these lifestyles in real time thanks to social media. You can write off the genre for being exploitative to these types of people, who get caught up in the action and lose their life as a result, but this is a part of a larger issue.
These are all young people with a clear potential in the future (okay not 6ix9ine) who have had their time to shine and create important or positive works of art for people to admire and look up to. When they untimely pass, the rights to their music get passed on to their families, and in the case of artists like XXXTentacion and Lil Peep, we've seen a gross overuse and merchandising of their unfinished music, where other artists are purchasing features with them that can be as simple as a 15 snippet of them screaming, or a verse that the artist would never have let out into the wild because of its quality. In the case of Mac Miller, on the other hand, his family has started numerous charities in his name and makes sure to honor his name, and makes constant public statements of the dangers of drug abuse. His first posthumous album, Circles, was already near full completion before his death and was a complete departure from his previous work. Almost entirely brooding, soft singing about the perils of his life, it stands as a reflection of the good person that he was, the gripes he had with life, and how he was feeling up to the point he had passed away. It was not just a passive way for the family to make a dollar from D-Sides he never wanted to release, it was a clear tribute to him.
How do you feel about the handling of music after the death of the artist?