Some Wisdom from the Meteoric Rise and Sobering Fall of Emo Rap
By: Dylan Skurka
Tags: Hip Hop, Advice, Music, Culture, Philosophy

“Fame bring pain but the pain make money”

What’s interesting about fame is that it feels so natural to spend our days daydreaming about getting it, only for those who are actually lucky enough to reach its heights to come to see it as their worst nightmare. In a society that puts so much pressure on the appearance of success, it’s not necessarily surprising that the validation of being recognized in the public eye for our accomplishments can seem like the best possible thing that can happen — not to mention the perks that come along with having an endless supply of money and fans pining for your attention.

Where we go wrong in interpreting fame this way is that we forget that it augments everything about us: every talent and charm, sure, but also every flaw and insecurity that pushes us to chase after fame in the first place. Have trust issues? Try having crowds of people claiming to be your friend who couldn’t care less about actually getting to know you. Struggle with anxiety? Try being hounded to spend your nights performing physically exhausting shows and your days cooped up in a tourbus far away from home. Want a way out? Too late — there’s too much at stake and besides, where are you going to hide? Everybody already knows what you look like anyway.

As one of the first genre’s birthed in the social media age — a point in time in which getting into the spotlight can happen as fast as posting a video on youtube and when the line between public and private life has been blurred more than ever — you might even say that the already extreme highs and lows of fame were made even more stark for artists coming up in emo rap.

Considering how quickly the emo rap scene deteriorated once it gained attention, it makes you wonder what we should make of that part of ourselves that expends so much time and energy seeking fame. Is it possible that we’ve got it all wrong — that contrary to popular opinion, the kind of life we should aspire to have is one that can find peace in the most quiet obscurity?

“Life goes so fast, watch it blow in the wind/Can’t get time back, I’ve been beggin’ for it”

“Time flies” we’ve been told so many times over the course of our lives. But how many of us actually take it to heart? We certainly don’t live like we do. Our childhood days are spent being pressured to think about what we’re going to make of ourselves when we get older; our adolescence is spent rehearsing what we’re studying in school and what we plan to do after it so we don’t sound like bumbling idiots when the inevitable questions arise; our professional lives are spent worrying about hitting that next quota or getting that next raise. Planning. Planning. Planning.

With our time on this planet being as limited as it is, it can feel like such a waste putting off what’s very tangibly in front of us now in favour of the empty abstractions of the future. Still, with the way our society is structured it would be naive to think we’d be able to survive in it without obsessing over the future to some extent and “playing the game” so to speak. The best we can realistically hope for is to make the most of those small pockets of free time in our days and use them in whatever way we can to tap into the present moment that we are otherwise constantly being dragged away from.

As for me, nothing gets me in this zone like putting on my headphones and listening to some emo rap while I do the dishes. How so? As heavy and gloomy as the listening experience can be, there’s something especially comforting about listening to music that is so human — music that isn’t just a caricature marketing itself to you but someone who is so fully invested in the present moment that they couldn’t care less about impressing anyone else or meeting any expectations.

And I don’t know about you, but I’ll take sad authenticity over cheap happiness any day of the week.

“Look at the sky tonight, all of the stars have a reason/A reason to shine, a reason like mine”

If you ever find yourself feeling too full of yourself, look up at the stars. It won’t take long to remember that all that pride that only moments before felt so justified and all of those problems that seemed so pressing are really just mere drops in the cosmic bucket. But that’s not all. Another thing you’ll notice is that even though they are randomly distributed in the sky without any rhyme or reason, each star somehow looks to be exactly where it’s supposed to be — as if there’s some kind of invisible feature of the sky that takes its separate parts and puts them together to make up one cohesive whole.

I’m also not so sure if there’s a better analogy out there that can help explain the symmetrical asymmetry of human existence — the fact that our lives can feel so messy, random and detached until out of nowhere that sobering moment arrives when we can make sense of it all; when we see that all of the adversity that we’ve had to face and all of those demons that we’ve had to battle with are what make us so uniquely us. How could we have it any other way? Why would we even want it to be?

Some stars live long, others are brighter and die young. Neither are better or worse off for it — just two different ways of shining that equally contribute to the infinite beauty of a clear night sky.