Music
How Soundcloud rap outgrew itself and found the mainstream
All thanks to a young Swedish kid we'd soon know as Yung Lean.
In years to come, we will look back on 2017 as the year the rap industry changed.
While SoundCloud rap (or mumble rap) aren’t entirely new concepts, the chart success of artists like Lil Pump, Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty, among others, has proven you don’t always need to look to the past for inspiration. However, mumble rap wasn’t built in a day. A lot of these rappers can thank an awkward boy from Sweden for leading the charge.
To his parents, he’s Jonatan Leandoer Håstad. To us, he’s Yung Lean. Emerging with the utterly bewildering music video for Ginseng Strip 2002 in 2013, Yung Lean seemed determined to stay one step ahead of the curve in both music and fashion. Indeed, he along with Lil B would serve as the pioneers for a counter-culture within hip-hop, one that eschewed lyrical dexterity (depending on who you ask) in order to use the voice as another instrument rather than the focus of their music. This is especially true with Yung Lean, with a lot of his early success attributed to his producers, Yung Gud and Yung Sherman. Together, they formed the Sad Boys, and a whole generation of hip-hop heads suddenly reconnected with their emotions.
What happened next would serve as a formula for future SoundCloud rappers: he grew up. While many dismissed his first studio album, Unknown Memory, as more of the same, 2016’s Warlord forced people to take notice. Lean had matured from rapping about obscure Pokémon references and ‘mosquito tits’ to confronting the emotions that had consumed him during a tumultuous year. To put it simply: Yung Lean wasn’t so Yung anymore.
This was solidified with the release of Stranger last November. Where many would look to Yung Lean and poke fun at past releases, this one was taken seriously – and for good reason. A long-held criticism of the Swedish rapper had been that he wasn’t making fully-fleshed out songs. He tackled this on arguably his most introspective song to date, Agony, which includes the lyrics, “I’m the last page in your book /Can’t write a song only do hooks.” Backed by an Icelandic children’s choir, Yung Lean evolved before our very eyes.
Just to prove the crossover Yung Lean had with this record, here’s Beach Fossils’ recent cover of the aforementioned song. Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, Beach Fossils are an example of the kind of reception Lean’s latest album inspired.
On the other end of the scale, Lil B has and always will be a ‘joke rapper’. Despite (arguably) not having the technical skill of many of his peers, Lil B found his way into people’s consciousness through out-there music videos and self-promotion. To many, Lil B was one of the first internet rappers, and sparked a trend that we are still seeing the effects of today. Yung Lean and Lil B are two sides of a warped coin; where Yung Lean espouses sadness, Lil B promotes positivity.
Interestingly enough, Lil B actually comes from a background of somewhat more conventional success. His first exposure was as part of San Francisco group The Pack, with the outfit releasing surprise hit Vans back in 2006. Since then, his sound has shifted towards the more non-conventional hip hop that he’s been releasing solo, as well as finding time to curse basketball starts Kevin Durant and James Harden (if you come at the king, you best not miss your mark).
Lil B may not be the most talented rapper alive, but he definitely is the most #based, and has progressively gotten more esoteric with his music.
However, these two examples beg the question - just how influential has SoundCloud been? Answer: very.
Take Lil Pump’s SoundCloud, as someone who hasn’t really got any radio/TV airtime, but has still managed to breach the mainstream consciousness. At the time of writing, the 17-year-old has 917k followers on SoundCloud, and 96.5M plays on his breakout song, Gucci Gang. Not numbers to scoff at, by any means. The world of SoundCloud remains relatively unexplored, because it often can appear like no-one is using it. Yet, SoundCloud had 329 million visitors to the site for the month of January 2018. More and more, rappers in particular are using SoundCloud to promote their music, before jumping out into the mainstream.
That’s where Lil Uzi Vert comes in. The Philadelphian rapper released his now global track, XO Tour Llife3, as part of his Luv Is Rage 1.5 mixtape exclusively on SoundCloud, where it amassed millions of listens. This transformed him into even more of a household name (having already collaborated with Migos on smash hit Bad & Boujee) and allowed him to release the aforementioned track officially, where it peaked at #7 on the Billboard Top 100. However, more was to come with the rapper releasing his long-awaited debut album, Luv Is Rage 2, on August 25, 2017, where it debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart, with the equivalent of 135,000 album units moved. Clearly, SoundCloud rap is a big deal, and everyone is noticing, from critics to labels.
A side effect of the success of SoundCloud is that it somewhat gives power back to the musicians, where rappers in the past may have been exploited. You don’t have to pay for distribution when you can tweet out a link to your music, and your marketing campaign can be your own personality. When the people serve as the A&R for searching out the next big thing, as long as you’ve got a well-thought out and well-presented social media presence, you don’t have to turn to the labels in order to push your music. Independent rap is the new punk rock, and SoundCloud is the breeding ground of this generation’s Sid Vicious.
So where to next for aspiring rappers? Many are pointing to Spotify as the natural successor to SoundCloud, with curated playlists forming new avenues for rappers to be discovered. It may not be long before we start hearing rappers referred to as ‘Spotify rappers’. YouTube seems to be dying off somewhat; while we saw Brockhampton establish themselves as a rising collective in hip hop, in part thanks to their narrative-driven music videos (such as the one below, GUMMY), there isn’t seemingly as much hunger for the music video as there once was. Indeed, while Rage remains a bastion of music programming, in Australia especially music TV is dying out (which is a bigger issue than it may seem). Online is the new place to get your name out there, and you can become famous all from your laptop.
Whatever the future holds, this much is clear: there’s never been a better time to release music from your bedroom. After all, Yung Lean started out producing music in a classroom, and now he’s conquering stages all over the world.
If you’ve got an idea, make it and put it on SoundCloud. You might just be touring the world a lot sooner than you think.