There’s also Lexii Alijai, who OD’ed in 2020, and references to Mac Miller, almost amounting to a pile-up of very sad casualties of the industry. “Where are we going to find happiness at?” Bhad Bhabie says at one point. That didn’t turn out well for rappers XXXTentacion (one of Soundcloud’s earliest successes), who was murdered in 2018 after a lifetime of dealing with depression and family issues, and Lil Peep, the Swedish-American rapper who overdosed on his tour bus in 2017. Indeed, “American Rapstar” paints a picture of a drug-addled universe of kids strung out on their phones and looking for any way to numb their trauma. She’s also candid about her own experiences with addiction. The most outspoken is rapper and internet personality Bhad Bhabie (she has more than 16 million followers on Instagram, even if your mom’s never heard of her), who rails against conformity in some rousing sitdowns, and plainly observes, “This generation? All the kids are bad.” She also bashes the widespread trend of face tattoos which, according to her, all start to look the same. Oscar Voters Go International For Best Live Action Short PicksĢ3 Controversial Film and TV Book Adaptations That Rankled Their Audiences and Authors 'Consecration' Review: Jena Malone Defiles Some Nuns in Throwback Possession Thriller New Movies: Release Calendar for February 10, Plus Where to Watch the Latest Films While a straightforward documentary in the classic sense, it’s polished, affecting, professionally edited, and bursting with big personalities. Director Staple’s film introduces a lot of big ideas, mostly successfully, from indicting Big Pharma for encouraging pill addiction to the generational divide between the hip-hop artists who came of age in the early 1990s to today’s primarily internet-driven base. Smokepurpp, Lil Xan, and Bhad Bhabie are among the (living) talking heads, while deceased rappers XXXTentacion and Lil Pump also get a spotlight as the feature dives into the substance-abuse epidemic plaguing the scene - from popping Xanax to the more serious, very often fatal fentanyl. “What young people want from pop culture isn’t what old people want from pop culture,” New York Times pop music critic Jon Caramanica observes in Justin Staple’s documentary “ American Rapstar.” The film charts the rise of a generation of lo-fi rappers buoyed by the advent of online streaming platform SoundCloud, founded in 2007.
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