PRESS

Billboard Magazine:

These Rising Rappers Are Pushing Rage Music Into the Mainstream

originally appeared in the February 4, 2023,
issue of Billboard.

“In 2020, Trenton Kyle was working as a librarian. Every day, he recalls, “I would come home and just make beats.” One night, he combined searing synthesizers and degraded drums into a bulldozing track and cold-emailed it to rising rapper SoFaygo, who eventually added vocals and put the song out that October as Off the Map. 

   “People went nuts,” 

remembers Arshan Jawaid, founder of Kids Take Over, an Instagram page and YouTube channel that interviews rising rappers.

Soon after, Trippie Redd started to tease an incendiary track called “Miss the Rage,” which arrived in May 2021 and also built around a scraping, triumphant synth melody. By the end of that year, “Miss the Rage” had earned over 200 million on-demand streams, according to Luminate. And together with “Off the Map,” the song played a key role in popularizing a new hip-hop subgenre: rage...







...Established stars have also taken note of rage’s potent sound: YoungBoy Never Broke Again started 2023 with yet another top 10 album, i rest my case, that nods to the genre’s gnashing synths and rumbly low end. The rapper “is pushing [rage] even more into the mainstream than it already was,” says Kyle, who produced the new YoungBoy track Not My Friend.”