Ruby and $crim were two cousins who rapped on their own songs separately, but neither of their careers didn’t really get off before they started writing songs about their life troubles, formed a duo and started calling themselves “$UICIDEBOY$”. The group’s career started on Soundcloud in 2014, where they got a good amount of traction, and today they have reached some kind of underground rap legend status. I listened through all of $UICIDEBOY$ EP:s (all 35, there may be more or less of them depending on how you count) and most of their albums, and this is what I got out of it:
“PARIS” by $UICIDEBOY$
- Their lyrical themes are both very hiphop and very not. Mainstream rap may think they’re breaking taboos when they rap about drugs and murder (which has been mainstream for 30 years), but I doubt they would say yes to having a photo of a person killing himself on an EP cover. $UICIDEBOY$ don’t really have that mental barrier, and they don’t seem to care about if they’re “hiphop” or not. This is, apart from their musical quality, what makes them more interesting than most hiphop acts. Talking about suicide and mental health the way $UICIDEBOY$ do isn’t the usual deal – they’re not polite and light about it, they’re brutally honest.
- They are balancing on a thin line between radiating bottomless depression and not doing it. Ruby and $crim rap about how they feel bad, are bad and do bad things, but I’m not sure they propagate for it. They just talk about it. They’re not ashamed of who they are and what they do, but I don’t think they want you to be and feel as bad as they are (this is what I mean by them both sending out and not sending out depressing vibes).
- Even if the duo’s rap is largely based on monotonous flows, they rarely get repetitive. You can’t predict exactly how Ruby and $crim are gonna anchor their rhymes on the beat when you hear an intro, nevertheless, their rap always sits right in the songs. After hours of listening, I still haven’t figured out what they do to always sound this good.
- Yes, the music reminds of Memphis rap, emo rap, trap and horrorcore, but they turn it into their own unique thing. They’ve sampled Memphis rap a lot, but it’s only used to build something different on top of it. If you understand this and don’t compare them to your usual rap music, you should be able to appreciate $UICIDEBOY$ for what they are.
- Negativity in music can be tearing, but if you do it as honestly and extremely as $UICIDEBOY$, I like it. They are suffering artist, and while you don’t have to suffer to make art, it may help to have some kind of strong feeling. So if you’re going the negativity route, why be nuanced and balanced when you can be the whole deal? I like the extremes in both ends more than the middle, and that’s why I like $UICIDEBOY$, because they go 100% into their depictions of anxiety and depression, when others go 25-45%.
- $crim is a beat god and has an awesome voice. And his robot dance is unquestionably the best thing $UICIDEBOY$ have brought to the table.
“Dead Batteries” by $UICIDEBOY$
The boy$ of $UICIDEBOY$ have released EP:s and albums in a lot of different themes, and their huge catalog touches many genres. However, the dark, melancholic and homicidal vibes are what they’re best associated with, and their songs get the best when they go into murder, nonchalant drug use and random satanism on heavy beats, like they do on the two releases “G.R.E.Y.G.O.D.S.” and “G.R.E.Y.G.O.D.S.I.I.” (which both features the rapper RAMIREZ), and in these songs:
Fuck a hoe II
Let ’em burn
Limp wri$t
Omen
It’s about a six hour drive
Sarcophagus
Now, it’s your turn to dive deep into the $UICIDEBOY$. Start with these bangers, try out some EP:s and find out what you like about them.
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