Lil peep and emma story6/23/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() “A lot of people wrote Gus off in life which was really sad,” says Jones. “This is a character study of Gus, so I hope it helps people see him in a new way.” Many mainstream critics had dismissed Peep as “just another SoundCloud rapper” with silly face tattoos, who flaunted his drug use and reveled in morbid lyrics that included “Used to wanna kill myself/Came up, still wanna kill myself/ My life is going nowhere.”Įven VICE was conflicted, with a headline from 2016 reading: “Is Lil Peep’s music brilliant or stupid as shit?” Peep was aware of his mixed reception, telling VICE in 2017: "They don't get it yet, but they will soon. Instead, Everybody’s Everything aims to re-position the musician’s legacy. But that’s not the story we want to focus on.” “Those two names together certainly now looks very odd on paper,” agrees Sebastian Jones, who co-directed the two-hour film alongside Ramez Silyan (who previously filmed some of Peep’s music videos). First Access has called these claims “categorically untrue”, yet the case is proving a much needed wake-up call for the music industry, which has regularly been blamed over exhausting artists – from Avicii to Amy Winehouse – for the financial benefit of its big machine. The lawsuit says those managing Peep pushed him “onto stage after stage in city after city, plying and propping” him with illegal, and prescription, drugs. Last month, Peep’s mother Liza Womack sued her son’s management, First Access Entertainment, for gross negligence, claiming that he was given Xanax by his manager Sarah Stennett, which she denies. In another video, he carefully places acid patches on his tongue. While Peep took Xanax for his spiralling anxiety, many of his lyrics seemed to be normalising, or even glamourising, the use of drugs to his millions of young fans, with one song titled Girls Love Cocaine. Much has been made of his drug use, which he often posted about on Twitter or even filmed on Instagram – one video sees him languidly attempt to drop multiple Xanax tablets into his mouth from a height. Since Peep’s death, his name has been mired by controversy that threatened to overshadow his music. "I want to do lots of different things and dive into different worlds.Sometimes I'll be watching a movie then think to myself that I could do a better job." Peep had walked Balmain and Rick Owens at Paris Fashion Week, and the musician was considering taking up acting. He was on the brink of stardom, with Pitchfork dubbing him "the future of emo" and high fashion taking notice. ![]() When he passed, the musician was coming to the end of a sold-out world tour, having just released his debut album: Come Over When You're Sobert, Prt 1. Peep, with his unique aesthetic and disarmingly honest outlook, spoke to Gen Z just like The Smiths spoke to the baby boomers. I can now look at my kids again," one fan has written beneath White Wine. "Lil Peep helped me through my heroin addiction. His fans connected to his vulnerability his openness to discuss his fragile mental health. The son of two intellectuals, Peep, who moved from his home in Staten Island to Los Angeles aged 17 to make music, began amassing a cult following on SoundCloud in 2014 with punky lo-fi mumble rap that dealt primarily with drug experimentation, suicidal thoughts and noxious relationships through simple, affecting lyricism over heavy sampling. In November 2017, Lil Peep – born Gus Åhr, who openly self-medicated his depression with prescription drugs – was found dead at the back of his tour bus in Arizona before a show. Winehouse was a manic depressive with a history of drug abuse who died in 2011 from alcohol poisoning. As he slurs through lyrics including “I just popped a pill in my champagne” and “Lord why, Lord why do I wanna die?” over a sample from rock band The Microphones (Glow Part 2), the camera flits obsessively, and ominously, back to the poster. Lil Peep, then aged 20, appears with his hair bleached peroxide blonde, a tattoo spelling Crybaby scrawled across his left temple and a broken heart beneath his right eye. The video – which now has over 59 million views on YouTube – opens with a blurry close-up of Amy Winehouse staring out from a poster, her expression tired and wary. In 2016 the emo-rapper Lil Peep’s released a music video for his sluggish, meditation on death, White Wine. Lil Peep's affecting, drug-fixated sad rap was about about to make him a huge star – then he died, in the saddest circumstances imaginable. ![]()
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