Solely Human
Even larger-than-life rappers aren’t immune from the nervousness, insecurity and harm emotions that social media can create. Here is a take a look at how navigating life on-line and the stress it brings will get sophisticated in hip-hop.
Phrases: Grant Rindner
Editor’s Observe: This story seems within the Spring 2024 difficulty of XXL Journal, on stands now.
No quantity of Grammy wins, platinum data and cultural cache could make an individual impervious to the detrimental qualities of social media. Even famous person rappers, the sort who venture a larger-than-life, teflon picture, are liable to getting their emotions harm. In the previous couple of years, a few of the recreation’s hottest and revered rhymers have confronted the worst, most poisonous facets of social media tradition by coping with leaks, salacious rumors and customarily mean-spirited feedback.
Cardi B, Lil Durk and Kevin Gates, the latter of whom notably highlighted how social media was fueling his despair, have all taken breaks from social media for their very own private causes. In 2022, a intercourse tape of rapper Isaiah Rashad with one other man leaked on-line. That second of publicity coupled with severe well being points confronted by older family, brought about suicidal ideations for the MC.
One other artist who has confronted a ton of social media scrutiny is Megan Thee Stallion, whose 2020 taking pictures by Tory Lanez has by no means left the media cycle. It opened her as much as rampant misogyny and accusations that she lied in regards to the circumstances of the incident. Lanez was discovered responsible of assault costs in 2022 and sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2023. Megan has rapped on songs like “Cobra” about her struggles with psychological well being and ideas of self-harm.
The problems on the subject of artists coping with social media actually boil down to 2 issues. The primary being the type of comparison-is-the-thief-of-joy conditions that Grammy-nominated MC Vic Mensa describes himself experiencing when he discovered himself lusting after a pal’s Lamborghini posted on Instagram. The picture despatched Vic down a “rabbit gap” of envy that in the end brought about him to overlook an vital flight. The opposite is the extra prevalent difficulty of nasty, hurtful feedback and rumors being shared by customers. Psychotherapist Meghan Watson, who based the varied group observe Bloom Psychology & Wellness, and has her personal strong social media presence, explains that on-line conversations so typically cater to the bottom frequent denominator.
“I undoubtedly really feel like there could be a whole lot of detrimental impacts from taking part in remark sections which can be rife with controversy,” Watson says. “There’s a whole lot of reactivity that folks type of soak up.”
Chika, a Grammy-nominated rapper, has decidedly blended emotions about social media. Early in her profession, she went extraordinarily viral for a freestyle addressing Ye’s assist of former President Donald Trump over Ye’s “Jesus Walks” beat, and the eye that earned helped her safe a take care of Warner Information. Social networking helped her push her profession ahead, however Chika acknowledges the best way the platforms can activate an artist at a second’s discover, notably as somebody who has spoken overtly about her struggles with psychological well being.
“I can’t say I hate social media as a result of it gave me my profession,” Chika admits. “Nevertheless, I can’t say I like social media as a result of it’s the factor that might take it away on the identical time.”
The Alabama native, who launched her first main label EP, Trade Video games, two days after the World Well being Group declared Covid-19 a world pandemic, believes that one of many extended results of quarantine lockdown was that folks had been spending much more time than ever on-line, additional blurring the strains between an individual’s on-line identification and who they’re in actual life. This conflation of on-line personas and real-life identities was most likely all the time going to occur, however the pandemic expedited it in a method that’s nonetheless being untangled.
“I see critiques of myself [that say] like, ‘She’s extra recognized for Twitter on the market,’ and I’m like, Don’t phrase it like that when actually all people is on the web proper now,” Chika says. “It’s not that I’m extra recognized for something. It’s that we haven’t gotten again to regular. So, there hasn’t been a lot of me being exterior that folks have seen.”
Even by in the present day’s requirements of heightened transparency, Chika has been frank about a few of her struggles on-line. In 2022, she posted about having suicidal ideations, which unfold broadly throughout the web. On the time, she had been feeling detrimental feelings already. She contacted her therapist over ideas of self-harm, and hateful social media feedback simply additional contributed to her spiral.
“I bear in mind, somebody was like, ‘Kill your self,’” Chika remembers. “And so they didn’t know that that day was the primary time I’d had a suicidal thought in a 12 months previous to them saying that. I had stated, ‘Hey, you most likely shouldn’t say this to individuals since you don’t even know.’ And that was taken and was, ‘Take a look at her. She’s doing this for consideration. You’re all the time utilizing your psychological well being as an excuse. You’re utilizing it as an excuse.’ And I’m like, how do individuals who feign a lot take care of the group and for psychological well being, how do y’all so actively faux to offer a f**ok?”
A placing factor emphasised by not solely Chika, 27, however, additionally, Vic Mensa, 30, is that they don’t really feel like being on social media is an optionally available element of being an artist these days. When Vic started releasing music over a decade in the past, a social media presence was additive, not important.
“I’ve undoubtedly simply felt like f**ok social media fully, however I’ve to appreciate and acknowledge that that is a wholly essential instrument for what I do,” Mensa says. “And in some ways, it’s like one thing you can’t take away or substitute.”
Right this moment, it’s onerous to think about a rapper constructing or sustaining a fan base with out actively partaking their viewers on-line and devoting a substantial quantity of effort to their web presence. There doesn’t appear to be one specific platform seen as being extra detrimental than every other, most likely as a result of the expectation in the present day is that an artist will likely be equally current on all of them.
“I really feel like we’re in a time the place to be a profitable musician, rapper, or artist or singer, you should be an excellent content material creator,” rapper Rexx Life Raj, 34, explains. That dichotomy creates its personal degree of stress for musicians and opens them as much as much more doubtlessly harm emotions. “It turns into a whole lot of stress to attempt to align your content material together with your artwork,” psychotherapist Meghan Watson says.
Vic, who has been within the public eye since he was barely 20 years outdated, feels he’s grown significantly within the decade-plus he’s been making music, however explains that web discourse isn’t reflective of that. Some commentors rush to convey up long-buried controversies as a method of getting an argumentative higher hand. “Individuals can freeze you in time and other people can obsess over the previous, and it is a predisposition of the human situation,” Mensa provides.
In Latto’s November of 2023 interview with XXL, she spoke frankly about the best way girls in hip-hop are particularly scrutinized on-line. Latto has had her personal previous beefs introduced up many instances by individuals on social media even when she’s moved previous the problems.
“I believe we be beneath this microscope,” Latto shared. “We’re closely analyzed by blogs, followers and commentators. We gotta go like, 10 instances as onerous as males do for simply equal recognition.”
Brooklyn rapper Lola Brooke says that she has “heard tales of ladies being handled in another way,” and that it could have affected her, however her head-down method to her profession means she doesn’t heed on-line discourse.
“I specific myself by way of music, so I don’t actually work together with something detrimental on social media as a result of more often than not the story just isn’t utterly true,” Brooke maintains.
Lola’s perspective is a very measured one, however there’s clearly a whole lot of variables at play on the subject of how social media impacts an artist. One main issue could be their psychological well being. Chika has spoken overtly about being identified with Bipolar Dysfunction II and says that the rise of performative activism and “therapy-speak” has not deepened individuals’s sympathy and consciousness after they’re interacting with artists on-line.
“It’s not a sustainable place for many individuals, however particularly the neurodivergent and anybody with any type of psychological sickness, anybody who wants grounding,” Chika conveys. “It’s not for us. You at the moment are a model and also you at the moment are the product and you must be consumed. It’s bizarre. I don’t wish to costume up who I’m as a result of I believe who I’m is definitely sufficient.”
Vic ties the negativity of remark sections in with the issues of comparability, the factor that brought about him to overlook that flight as a result of he was ogling over another person’s expensive journey on Instagram. The web has allowed anybody to fixate perpetually on how others live, or the picture that they’re broadcasting of their lives, and that’s one thing that impacts everybody, from profitable rappers like Mensa to his hiphop friends, each older and youthful and past.
“One of many causes that psychological sickness and despair is so prevalent in our present era is as a result of all people is obsessive about different individuals’s lives,” Mensa expresses. “That’s damaging, man. It’s like all age teams are coping with this s**t.”
Aishah White, a veteran PR government who holds the title of Senior Vice President, Media & Strategic Growth at Warner Information, and is the founding father of AKW PR, has labored with artists like Chika, Ty Dolla $ign and XXXTentacion. White makes use of the identical verbiage as Latto, referring to the “microscope” that ladies within the trade are beneath, and says she’s seen it have an effect on herself, too. “Me being a Black lady and understanding even how social media has affected me and the best way that it perceives Black girls,” White says. “I might all the time warning all of my artists, however particularly the ladies that I work with, [to understand] that they’re beneath a special microscope.”
When requested if any artists on her roster stand out as having notably wholesome relationships with social media, White names NLE Choppa, the 21-year-old Memphis MC who has usually used his accounts to broaden his picture. She emphasizes his curiosity in holistic well being and wellness, publicizing his elementary college studying problem and showcasing his items on the basketball courtroom.
“I’ve beloved watching NLE Choppa’s development and evolution on social media,” she tells. “He’s [someone] who, , got here in as a youthful rapper, actually understanding the right way to navigate and use social media to achieve his core demo.”
White has seen Choppa develop as an artist and as a person. “He understands the duty that comes together with his movie star,” she provides. “He’s capable of be himself on socials, and crack up, and have enjoyable, and dance and present who he’s and his persona.”
Whereas psychotherapist Meghan Watson posits that artists in Chika’s age vary and youthful, who grew up with social media could be extra affected by on-line discourse, White says that the impression she’s seen is wide-ranging and never restricted to particular generations. “I believe that it impacts everybody equally as a result of if you’re a human being, you’ve gotten emotions,” White declares. “And a whole lot of instances social media can fire up quite a lot of feelings simply from what you’re taking in. It simply has to do with human connection.”
Rappers from each stroll of hip-hop have lamented the toxicity of sensationalized blogs. Lately, the spreading of rumors by way of social media seems like an unavoidable a part of the sport for name-brand stars. Most of those shops exist nearly solely on social media, the place tales unfold quicker than they are often verified. There typically is little accountability for the individuals who perpetrate the rumors. On her latest chart-topping single, “Hiss,” Megan Thee Stallion rebukes the scores of hateful feedback she’s acquired in the previous couple of years since she was shot. “These blogs receives a commission to lie, y’all speak s**t and be broke as f**ok/Backside line is I’m nonetheless wealthy, do Megan unhealthy and I’m nonetheless good,” she raps.
The significance and ubiquity of web tradition, in addition to its potential to foster detrimental feelings and harm emotions, is plain. However Rexx Life Raj does spotlight that the web could be a place the place artists can discover enthusiastic assist for his or her most intimate emotions. When Raj launched his album, The Blue Hour, in 2022, closely impressed by the passing of each of his mother and father, he stated that folks’s responses on-line had been affirming of his susceptible songwriting. “The response could be two paragraphs about telling me their dad that they misplaced in 2003, and the way they’ve been preventing these demons they usually don’t have the phrases to specific it, and my music did that for ’em,” Raj says.
He additionally factors out the flip aspect: realizing now greater than ever that what occurs on-line isn’t a mirrored image of actuality, it’s simply onerous to maintain sight of that.
“The web is the web and we all know it may be manipulated, so that you shouldn’t take it severely,” he continues. “It’s best to take the whole lot with a grain of salt as a result of everyone knows the reality. The veil has been lifted. We see by way of the smoke and mirrors. The likes are faux. You should purchase followers. The streams are faux. Get a digicam, you may make a complete facade.”
The problem is that regardless that everyone knows social media is extra funhouse mirror than photorealism, protecting that in thoughts when the rumor mill and detrimental feedback is targeted on you is staggeringly tough. Rappers are public figures, however they’re additionally people, too, and the stress to have an internet presence as a element of their careers solely opens them as much as the worst of sensationalized, hurtful discourse. Although extra of those artists are being seen by way of the lens of social media than ever earlier than, it doesn’t seize the three-dimensionality of the true individuals behind the songs. The one silver lining? That MCs like Megan Thee Stallion are utilizing these experiences on-line as gas for chart-topping data.
Learn how social networking has a chokehold on rappers’ emotions within the Spring 2024 difficulty of XXL Journal, on newsstands now. The brand new difficulty additionally consists of the cowl story with Gunna and conversations with Metro Boomin, Danny Brown, Teezo Landing, 42 Dugg, Jim Jones and Maino a.ok.a. Foyer Boyz, Druski, That Mexican OT, 41, BabyDrill, Rapsody, actress La La Anthony, BigXthaPlug, Rob49, Reuben Vincent, singer Tyla, actress La La Anthony and producer Tate Kobang. There’s additionally a take a look at how hip-hop in 2024 is experiencing extra wins than losses and the methods during which child rappers are thriving due to social media.
See Images of Gunna’s XXL Journal Spring 2024 Subject Cowl Story
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