by President Heidi R. Lewis
May 5, 2025
I write this blog from Colorado Springs, CO. Stolen land—the unceded territory of the Ute Peoples, to be precise—developed with stolen and exploited labor. I do so, because as Sandra Guzmán points out, land acknowledgements “recognize and respect Indigenous peoples as the traditional stewards of their lands and the enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous peoples and their traditional territories.”
Some of you know my manuscript, Make Rappers Rap Again: Interrogating the Mumble Rap “Crisis,” will be published in July. In it, I argue Mumble Rap is real Hip Hop. Relying primarily on discourse analysis, I examine Mumble Rap’s congruence with oft-forgotten or subjugated Hip Hop cornerstones like illegibility, melody, the DJ, and the subgenre, as well as the ways most mumble rappers practice citational and collaborative politics that are congruent with real Hip Hop. I also take a critical approach to examining the Mumble Rap sound, arguing it’s much more complicated than it’s often characterized, especially concerning flow and production. To explain the subjugation of Mumble Rap, I situate the subgenre as southern and examine the ways it challenges dominant notions about real Hip Hop masculinity vis-à-vis mumble rappers’ attention to the mental and emotional, drug use and addiction, and the fallacies of gender and sexuality norms. Last, but not least, I argue Hip Hop will never die. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month and Silence the Shame Day, today’s blog is a snippet from the fourth chapter, “‘I feel like it’s no such thing as gender!’: The Contours of Masculinity.”
“Stress on my shoulders like an anvil. Percky got me itchin’ like an anthill. Drugs killin’ me softly, Lauryn Hill. Sometimes, I don’t know how to feel.”
—Juice WRLD, “Wishing Well” (2020)
The government shutdown over Obamacare. The Boston Marathon tragedy. George Zimmerman’s acquittal for the murder of Trayvon Martin. #BlackLivesMatter. The Ebola epidemic. Ferguson. The mass shooting inside Emanuel AME Church. Donald Trump’s election to the US presidency. The Flint water crisis. The mass shooting at Pulse. The deaths of David Bowie and Prince. The Opioid crisis. The police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Brock Turner’s mere six months sentence for sexual assault. The Women’s March. #MeToo. Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s National Anthem protests. Debates over Confederate monuments. The Las Vegas mass shooting. A record setting hurricane season. Climate change. Fake news. “Fake news.”
These are just some major moments that seemingly captured the attention of the entire nation, sometimes the world, in the years leading up to 2018—the year mumble rappers boldly centered the mental and emotional. While I am not certain tragedy has befallen the world more now than in various pasts, stress levels for teenagers and young adults are significantly impacted by increased engagement with news, especially due to social media. New terms like “media saturation overload,” “doomscrolling,” “headline anxiety,” and “headline stress disorder” are evidence of that. Even so, we are not always privy to mumble rappers’ mental or emotional health conditions beyond what they disclose in interviews and lyrics, such as when Playboi Carti expressed a desire to enter rehabilitation to address struggles with what he believes is bipolar disorder. We also should remember Hip Hop is often understood as a reflection of reality, but rappers are not always reliable narrators, sometimes the realities they rap about aren’t always their own, and Hip Hop sometimes traffics in the fantastic. What’s important here isn’t necessarily the “truth” of mumble rappers’ mental or emotional health conditions as much as their unapologetic commitments to focusing on both.
I’m thinking especially about the late XXXTentacion, the late Juice WRLD, and Trippie Redd. In 2018, each released albums featuring songs focused heavily on paranoia, anxiety, depression, addiction, isolation, and cynicism. Although many understand it to be a run-of-the-mill emotional condition, I would also include profound heartbreak because of mumble rappers’ methodological intensity along those lines. Since these artists were between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one back then, one justifiable way of explaining their approach to broken hearts could be their youthful inexperience or immaturity. But most rappers are similar ages at the start of their careers. So, if age was the primary impetus for routinely and intensely focusing on profound heartbreak, all rappers across time would take that approach. Instead, Hip Hop has been a genre that typically resists the kinds of perceived weaknesses associated with even having a broken heart let alone admitting and focusing heavily on it. In this way, mumble rappers have notably widened the terrain of Hip Hop content and therefore Hip Hop masculinity. This is particularly important since young Black men are the least likely to have access to and use mental health services, while their mental health risks (including suicide) continue to increase due to disproportionate exposure to myriad stressors. Despite the stigmatization of mental health struggles, especially where real Hip Hop is concerned, and however rudimentarily and sometimes problematically, mumble rappers have also decided to keep it real about that.
Even listeners only remotely familiar with Mumble Rap or contemporary Hip Hop more generally have likely heard Juice WRLD’s “Lucid Dreams” (2018), as it was certified six times platinum just before his untimely death and certified diamond just over two years later. The same is probably the case for XXX’s “SAD!” (2018), which was certified double platinum a few days before he was murdered and has since been certified diamond. Both might forever be described as Mumble Rap heartbreak anthems. But the tracks are understandably terrifying, especially because Juice and XXX situate death and even suicide as the only viable cure for a broken heart. On “Lucid Dreams,” Juice croons, “You were my everything. Thoughts of a wedding ring. Now, I’m just better off . . . dead.” Arguably more horrifying is XXX weaponizing the threat of suicide to prevent a breakup, singing, “Suicide, if you every try to let go. I’m sad and low, yeah. I’m sad and low, yeah.” Mumble rappers’ approach to the mental and emotional is not always radical, sometimes far from it.
Hip Hop has rarely, if ever, centered the mental and emotional in these ways and to these degrees, but mumble rappers did not invent the approach. Before most mumble rappers were born, Geto Boys confronted the trauma often induced by street life on “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” (1991). I was only approaching ten years old rapping along with Willie D, Scarface, and Bushwick Bill about isolation, insomnia, paranoia, anxiety, depression, fear, hallucinations, and yes, suicide. Almost every time someone shamed me for having suicidal thoughts as a teenager or even as an adult, I reminded myself that Scarface claimed to have struggled with the same, albeit for very different reasons. “I often drift when I drive. Havin’ fatal thoughts of suicide.” A few years later, Biggie took the baton on tracks like “Everyday Struggle” (1994) and “Suicidal Thoughts” (1994), also addressing the ways hustling, violence, and poverty often result in addiction, stress, anxiety, paranoia, nihilism, and again, suicide. “I don’t wanna live no mo’. Sometimes I hear death knockin’ at my front door.” The following year, Tupac gave listeners a peek into his own struggles with misery, addiction, anxiety, stress, sadness, paranoia, nihilism, cynicism, and again, suicide, especially on “So Many Tears” and “Lord Knows.” “I smoke a blunt to take the pain out, and if I wasn’t high, I’d probably try to blow my brains out. I’m hopeless. They should’ve killed me as a baby. Now they got me trapped in the storm. I’m goin’ crazy.” Like his predecessors, Tupac situated the traumas associated with poverty and street life as primary impetuses for these mental and emotional conditions. Nonetheless, these artists’ approaches resisted dominant narratives that suggest Hip Hop only glamorizes the streets at the expense of examining the ways hustlers, thugs, and gangsters experience pronounced mental and emotional vulnerabilities alongside material ones. Whether or not they’re aware and whether or not the congruence is intentional, mumble rappers inherited attention to the mental and emotional from their old heads then remixed it to be uniquely reflective of their lived experiences.
The inability or unwillingness of critics to situate “Mind Playing Tricks on Me,” “Everyday Struggle,” “Lord Knows,” and similar tracks as precursors to Mumble Rap is also the result of superficial engagement, romantic adulation, and dishonest nostalgia. At the same time, Geto Boys, Biggie, and Tupac laced their foci on the mental and emotional with standard Hip Hop attributes, especially where masculinity is concerned. Many perceive anxiety, depression, and similar conditions to be signposts of weakness, and situating them as implications of street life rather than genetics or brain chemistry allowed these artists (and listeners, by extension) to retain some semblance of control and strength. Street life could be described as masculine because success within it typically requires proficiency in dominance and violence. Per real Hip Hop norms, the same would not be said about debilitating addictions (especially to unapproved intoxicants like Xanax) and especially not profound heartbreak. The aforementioned tracks are also Hip Hop bangers. They work for contemplative car rides and for those who, like Scarface, want to “sit alone in a four cornered room, starin’ at candles.” But they also work for a kickback, if not the club. You could potentially listen to any of them and focus on the beats without getting caught up in lyrics that force you to confront the artists’ declared mental and emotional struggles and maybe your own.
Conversely, when mumble rappers center the mental and emotional, several opt for singing, raspy wailing, or quiet whispering over dark, melancholy production that at times doesn’t even include, let alone feature, the trinity. Consequently, the impulse to subjugate them within or expel them from real Hip Hop becomes much easier. Even when the production is uptempo, the beats often feel lethargic or at least fatigued. This is routinely the case for Trippie Redd, especially when he tackles heartbreak, loneliness, confusion, cynicism, and despair. His production is almost always consistent throughout the tracks, even repetitious, and he often incorporates refrains that would easily galvanize a singalong. This creates scenes reminiscent of inescapable, suffocating confinement while simultaneously opening the door to surrender. Over the harmonious guitar strumming that dominates “Underwater FlyZone” (2018) he wails, “Tryin’ to keep my composure. I don’t have anyone’s shoulder anymore. . . . I won’t fight anymore. I won’t cry anymore. . . . Leave me in the dark end. . . . Leave me in the back end.” On “Toxic Waste,” he pleads for help and love alongside the refrain “fuck my life.” From my view, it makes sense to conjoin the melancholic and Hip Hop. Trippie was born in Canton, just 20 miles from where I was born. He also moved to Franklin County and attended Groveport Madison High School, just 20 miles from Whetstone, where I also attended high school for a time. I witnessed a lot of devastation growing up in Ohio due, in large part, to the decline of the steel mill industry and the rise of the crack-cocaine epidemic. Music was one of my primary vehicles for feeling but also escaping anger and despair. In addition to a lot of Gangsta Rap, my music of choice included a lot of Grunge, especially Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam. Similarly, Trippie claims to have been creatively influenced by Kiss, Fountains of Wayne, Green Day, and also Nirvana. Even though I don’t listen to him as much as other mumble rappers, I get it. I get him. Most importantly, I haven’t forgotten that Hip Hop has always been eclectic (e.g., Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith on “Walk This Way” (1986); Eminem’s performance of “Stan” (2000) featuring Elton John during the 43rd Grammy Awards; Collision Course (2004), Jay-Z’s collaborative album with Linkin Park; or “Over and Over” (2004) by Nelly featuring Tim McGraw).
We should also consider the influence of Kid Cudi, whose eclectic approach to Hip Hop and unapologetic commitment to addressing the mental and emotional began with his very first single, “Day ‘N’ Nite (nightmare)” (2008).1 He does sing rap throughout, but “Day ‘n’ Nite” is a palatable Hip Hop track—a banger heavily featuring the trinity. I’m certain several listeners were more intrigued by the beat than the lyrics, at least initially, and the chorus, which focuses mostly on him being a “lonely stoner.” Being alone and smoking a lot of weed isn’t exactly jarring per real Hip Hop norms, but if audiences listened more closely, they were likely in for some surprises. “Day and night, I toss and turn. I keep stress in my mind . . . mind. I look for peace, but see I don’t attain . . . what I need for keeps, this silly game we play.” More surprises were in store for those who copped A Kid Named Cudi (2008). On “The Prayer,” Cudi raps melodically and straight up sings about isolation, fatalism, and depression over a beat that does heavily feature the trinity but that also highlights somber guitars. With more releases, his eclectic focus on the mental and emotional became more pronounced. Alongside pianos plucking and guitars pricking in soprano, a goth like bass line, a haunting string section, and laser-like sound effects on “Solo Dolo (Nightmare)” (2009), Cudi wails, “Oh ooh oh ooh ohhhh ooh! Why must it . . . feel so wrong . . . when I try and do right?” “Damaged” (2020), alternatively, is more Hip Hop traditional, with Cudi crooning alongside heavy trinity and funk-laced keyboards about “how it goes when you’re a damaged man.” Other tracks like “Don’t Play This Song” (2010) featuring Mary J. Blige and “Sad People” (2010) fall somewhere between traditional Hip Hop and Punk, Rock, Emo, or another genre altogether. In all cases, Cudi—a favorite of Travis Scott, Yachty, and Juice—walked so his Mumble Rap brothers and nephews could run crop circles in fields of creative ossification.
1 O’Neill, Maggie. “Kid Cudi Says His Mental Health Was ‘Darker Than Ever’ Before He Went to Rehab.” SELF. June 9, 2022; and Murdock, Logan. “Kid Cudi Helped a Generation of Kids Cope With Depression. I Was One of Them.” The Ringer. December 10, 2020.
Cudi has discussed spending time in rehabilitation for addiction, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts in 2016. Unsurprisingly, and to my earlier point, he claims to monitor his social media engagement more closely as part of his treatment. For his efforts, he was named a Mental Health Ambassador at the 18th annual Erasing the Stigma Leadership Awards hosted by Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. To these points, Logan Murdock claims Cudi helped an entire generation cope with depression.
Per my strategic plan, “Reconnect, Repair, Restore: A More Thoughtful, Transparent, and Trustworthy NWSA,” these blogs are meant, in part, to give you a chance to get to know me. This one is exactly and only that. Until we see you in San Juan, please take good, good care of you, your loved ones, and your communities to every extent possible.