Lil’ Peep (Rewind): A new hip-hop and emo fusion; trap beats, tender lyrics, too much Xanax and an overdose that’s still mysterious.
DISGRACELAND
This episode revisits the 2021 'Rewind' coverage of the tragic death of rapper Lil Peep. It traces his journey from a struggling artist in N
Key takeaways
- Lil Peep was born Gustav Elijah R. and grew up in Long Beach, New York.
- He died at age 21 from an overdose involving fentanyl-laced Xanax on November 15, 2017.
Main topics
- Lil Peep's death
- Emo-trap music genre
Notable quotes
I just want to be everybody's everything.
Conclusion
A poignant look at the cost of fame and the intersection of mental hea
Transcript preview
Speaker 5 (0:01) This is exactly Speaker 2 (0:02) right. Double Elvis. Speaker 3 (0:13) Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwano. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (0:44) If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the Speaker 5 (0:57) same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (1:16) Dancing with the Stars is looking for a new pro. And since last season, I came in eighth place. I'm basically an expert. I'm Danielle Fishel. And Speaker 5 (1:24) I'm Val Chmerkovsky. Speaker 1 (1:25) And we have a new podcast called Stepping on Toes with Danielle and Val. Speaker 5 (1:29) Every week, we're breaking down Dancing with the Stars, the next pro, to find out who I'll be sharing the ballroom with next season. Speaker 1 (1:34) Listen to Stepping on Toes on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Stepping on Toes and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. Speaker 7 (1:45) Alright guys, welcome into another Rewind episode of Disgraceland. This one is on Lil Peep. I don't think we've ever, ever rewound this one. It was released way back in 2021. March 9th, 2021. Titled Lil Peep, a new hip-hop and emo fusion. Trap beats, tender lyrics, too much Xanax, and a still mysterious overdose. The circumstances around Lil Peep's death are dark, disturbing, and yes, a little mysterious. Lil Peep hasn't really been in the news. His passing, again, five years ago now, going on six. And, you know, an artist that what I identified with Lil Peep was his connection to emo music, because I'm obviously connected to emo in some ways. More that second generation emo from the 1990s, not so much the 2000s, 2010s emo. This gave us an opportunity in telling Lil Peep's story to sort of get into the origins of that genre of music. Something I was really into at the time and happy to bring to you guys. This is a crazy story. What an artist. What an individual. Gone way too soon. I hope you guys enjoy this. Hit me up, 617-906 Speaker 2 (2:59) -6638. Voicemail and text after you hear it and let me know what you think. All right, here we go. Lil Peep. Speaker 7 (3:07) Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. Speaker 4 (3:19) The stories about Lil Pete are insane. He died at the age of 21, the victim of an overdose that's still mysterious. He sometimes suffered from crippling anxiety and depression, but bared his soul on stage and online to millions of fans who felt a deep, empathetic connection to him. He self-medicated daily with a pharmacy-sized array of street-procured prescription meds and illicit drugs. He was a once-in-a-generation type voice, poised to become one of the mainstream's biggest success stories, but whose life was senselessly cut short. And of course, he made great music. Unlike that music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called Coke Straw Sazzo MK1. I played you that loop. Because I can't afford the rights to Rockstar by Post Malone. And why would I play you that specific slice of savage nudie suit cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 15th, 2017. And that was the day Lil Peep made his final Instagram post. An eerie post filled with anxiety and depression and foreshadowing his death that would come only a few short hours later. On this episode, crippling anxiety, DIY emo grime, too much Xanax and Lil Peep. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Given how close it was to Showtime, some friends grabbed video of him passed out in the back of the tour bus for their Insta stories as a joke. Little did the friends know, Lil Peep wasn't passed out. He was dead. Speaker 4 (5:33) The news was hard to contain. From Peep's road crew to friends and show openers, various members of Gothboy Click, to fans packed inside the Rock Nightclub in Tucson, Arizona, impatiently awaiting for their beloved little Peep to hit the stage. Speaker 4 (5:51) But nobody wanted to admit to themselves or to the fans that it was real. Gothboy Click group member Horsehead went on stage, likely he was in shock, and performed a couple songs to keep the restless fans entertained. But the energy was getting rowdy, frustrated, and footage of the unconscious peep on his tour bus was already making the rounds on social media. People began to wander outside to see what was really going on. Inside the tour bus, Peep's tour manager was on the phone with 911 while members of the roll crew laid Peep out on the ground and administered CPR. Nothing. Through the windows, they could see the crowd gathering, holding up phones, desperate to get a glimpse inside. The dispatcher on the 911 call insisted the EMTs were on their way. Outside, waves of fans crushed up against the sides of the bus. The bus began to rock, and then the paramedics arrived, the lights, the sirens on full blast. They added to the growing chaos of the scene by forcing their way through the agitated crowd gathered outside the bus. The arrival of the paramedics and their ambulance made it real. Fans started crying, wailing, people yelled, people talked shit, fights broke out, quick flash street brawls that no one bothered to break up. The paramedics reached the door to the bus, climbed up inside. Not too long after, out came Lil Peep. On his back, on a gurney. And the crowd lost their shit. Pandemonium. They rocked the bus some more. They trashed the parking lot, raged in the streets. Their boy was dead. Speaker 4 (7:30) Lil Peep's connection with fans, his very real empathy as an artist, combined with his undeniable charisma and talent, proved that it was not just music journalism hyperbole to say that he was on his way to becoming his generation's Kurt Cobain. He truly was. From a young age in Long Beach, New York, Lil Peep, born Gustav Elijah R., was obsessed with music. He wasn't like most kids. Despite his obvious good looks and easygoing nature, he did not fit in. So he turned inward. He got lost in the music. Pop punk, Blink-182, Green Day, Good Charlotte, emo, mineral, and jawbreaker. Classics like Oasis, Nirvana, The Beatles, and of course, hip-hop. Kanye, Kanye, and more Kanye. It all sounded great, especially stoned. Everything sounded better while high. The beats were better, the screams more guttural, and the melodies, even from the most melancholic emo troubadours, were somehow even more sad. Speaker 4 (8:31) I always hated the term emo, as in emo music, because, well, all music is emo, right? Isn't all music emotional? To me, Slayer is just as emotional as Sunny Day Real Estate. It's just clearly a different type of emotion being expressed. But regardless, the term emo took root as an easy way for hardcore kids to describe a particular type of hardcore music that sprung from Washington, D.C. with Ian McKay's post-minor threat pre-Fugazi outfit Embrace and future Fugazi member Guy Pichardo's band Rites of Spring. After those bands, a younger crop of hardcore kids traded in their Jordans and Champion sweatshirts for Chuck Taylors and Argyle sweaters, augmented their power chords with fifth notes, and started singing about girls. As my six-year-old would say, Speaker 4 (9:24) Singing about girls any time after, gee, I don't know, the year 1855 doesn't sound like anything groundbreaking, but trust me, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, upstairs at the Middle East in 1996, in the middle of what had become somewhat of a closed-minded scene, the hardcore scene, singing about love, be it lost, found, whatever, it was damn near revolutionary. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. Bands like J.June, Texas is the Reason, Piebald, Promise Ring, and Rye Coalition. We're building off of what Embrace and Rites of Spring had started a decade earlier and laying the groundwork for the coming 2000s emo explosion with bands like Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, and Panic at the Disco actually conquering mainstream charts. Speaker 4 (10:09) which was how emo found its way to Lil Peep in suburban New York. As a young, alienated son of divorced parents, he was taken by it. And as emo was a close cousin of hardcore, it was imbued with the same DIY spirit, and this spirit was not lost on Lil Peep in 2014. But instead of Kinko's copied fanzines and mail-order distro networks, Lil Peep used the tools available to him and began uploading the tracks he was breaking off in his childhood bedroom to SoundCloud and promoting them on Instagram. An audience quickly developed. The music he created made his new fans feel less alone, just as the act of making the music made Peep feel like less of a small-town freak. It was a genuine connection, a strong bond that helped him cope with the world outside his bedroom walls and with his own anxiety. Speaker 4 (11:01) The morning ritual wrenched Speaker 2 (11:02) his nerves. Peep's teenage alienation, his low self-esteem, his extreme anxiety about what his fellow students and what his teachers thought of him was so intense that most mornings before school, he'd find himself in his bathroom vomiting violently. Speaker 2 (11:20) The weed helped. It calmed him Speaker 4 (11:22) down. And so did the Xanax, and of course, so did the music. But no amount of self-medicating and sad melodies could really curb the anxiety. If Peep was going to truly deal, he needed an outer shell. A