Unfortunately, musicians die too. How their posthumous works are released matters.
By James Bennett III
Lil Peep was already dead when I finally decided to check him out.
It took nearly a year after the rapper’s accidental overdose on fentanyl-laced Xanax for me to tune in to what he had to offer.
His crooning fusion of emo and rap immediately entranced me as I played “Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 1” on repeat for seven hours straight.
Suddenly, I seemed unable to go more than 24 hours without listening to him and was readily defending the late rapper’s honor against my roommate’s claims that Lil Peep’s bastardized genre had no place among my roommate’s esteemed “real hip-hop”… whatever that is.
It was Peep’s duet with XXXTentacion, “Falling Down,” that put me on to his music.
I routinely listened to X before he was shot and killed earlier this year, and I was thrilled to have some new content to consume.
Unfortunately, I have since formed the opinion that “Falling Down” should have never been released.
In life, Lil Peep spoke out against XXXTentacion for his abusive conduct and spent his resources trying to get XXXTentacion removed from his playlists.
It is unclear whether or not X was aware of Lil Peep’s criticisms, but he was certainly a fan of Lil Peep and held him in high regard, stating in the song, “If I had known he was so cool, I would have f****d with him sooner.”
The duet was put together, in part, by iLoveMakonnen, a fellow musician who was a friend of Lil Peep’s.
In an interview with XXL Magazine, Makonnen explained that the track was the product of a rainy day spent in a London hotel. He and Lil Peep were hanging out when Makonnen’s manager called and asked what they were up to.
When the producer was informed that they were sitting and watching the rain, he instructed them to write a song about it. The unfinished duet that the two rappers recorded was titled “Sunlight on your Skin.”
After Lil Peep’s death, Columbia Records retained the rights to Lil Peep’s unfinished works, courtesy of the laptop on which the rapper started many of his projects.
Around that time, XXXTentacion heard a sample of the song and eagerly recorded his own verse. X followed Peep into the afterlife before he could hear the full, finished product, but his mother reached out to Lil Peep’s entourage and explained that her son had been very passionate about the project before his death in June.
Despite the song’s partially heartfelt origins and its endorsement from both rappers’ mothers, it still seemed like a desperate cash grab trying to suck as much of a profit from the dead artists as their clout would allow.
When done respectfully, music released posthumously can undergo a transformative process, transcending the musician’s need to maintain their appearance and financial responsibilities, while giving their audience some closure.
For example, the album “Pearl” by Janis Joplin took extreme care to respect the artist’s integrity. “Mercedes Benz,” recorded three days before her death, was left a cappella because Joplin hadn’t recorded the song with her band.
Meanwhile, “Buried Alive In The Blues” remained an instrumental track, even after the song’s writer was asked if he wanted to record vocals, because Joplin had not lived long enough to record her part of the song.
By releasing only the works that an artist helped to make in their lifetime, their creative integrity is preserved; otherwise, the music is not truly representative of what that artist created.
The sad truth is that musicians die just like the rest of us. I’d love to have more David Bowie albums, but to release anything after “Blackstar” would be disrespectful to Bowie’s memory.
The same can be said for Leonard Cohen’s “You Want It Darker.” Unfortunately, there are now rumors that his final album, which wrestled to address Death’s calling and allowed the poet to say his goodbyes, will be succeeded by previously unheard works finished by his son Adam.
On the cusp of “Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2’s” release, which is set for Nov. 9, I can only hope that the album will respect Lil Peep’s creative work.
When I first caught wind of the album’s pending release, I was instantly filled with a mixture of excitement and dread. Although I’m excited to hear his new music, I can’t help but wonder if Lil Peep would approve of the finished project.
Like it or not, death comes for all of us. As morbid as it may seem, I choose to welcome the finality of our future demises; the limited time that we have lends meaning to our actions. We must all choose for ourselves what we stand for and what we would like to accomplish before our time is up and we pass on to whatever awaits us in the end.
Let’s just hope that those in charge of “Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2” prioritize art over profit.
