Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well. I want to come on here and start a conversation. Open up a dialog, because obviously, my brand in this channel is all about talking about music, different opinions, perspectives, back and forths. But I feel like there's a particular crowd of music fans and listeners that right now at this very moment, we're not getting along very well. And to a degree, I would say we're almost like talking past each other in a way.

I'm talking specifically about very young male fans of underground or underground-ish rappers that are currently on this rage wave right now.

Now, the fact that I've said the R-word has probably already gotten some people angry and flying to the comments. But if you happen to be somebody who has not gone berserk, let me remind you that rage is a very trendy and popular microgenre of trap with very energetic, distorted, repetitive trap beats, supersaturated fat, overpowering bass, bright, burning, cycling synthesizers, the history and artistic lineage of which has been pretty well documented up until this point.

Now, this style, this sound, this trend has grown to be one of the biggest sources in hip hop today, to the point where not only do you have numerous artists who were not in this rage lane to begin with jumping into it, really trying the genre on for size in order to stay relevant, or are just merely borrowing some aesthetic ideas from it because they're on trend. They're what young, passionate music listeners want to hear.

If you were to go off of comments made on a recent Weekly Track roundup video that I did, you would think me pointing this out is the most horrible thing ever.

Did he just call 2Hollis rage and trap? He always seems so clueless when he's talking about underground artists.

When literally the reason I made those comparisons because I was talking about a single song, one single single, not the entirety of 2Hollis's catalog, much of which doesn't really sound all that much like his latest single "Gold". I mean, for example, his new record, Boys, actually more of ultra-aggressive electropop experience with some tracks that actually have parallels to Bladee.

Carti and Nettspend aren't nearly the same. You are actually starting to piss me off. This is 10 out of 10 rage bait. Well, at least I got a 10 out of 10.

But if Nettspend didn't want a Carti comparison or a rage comparison, he shouldn't have hit us with a beat that has exactly the same fucking formula of those very loud, distorted, repetitive trap rhythms and bass. I get there's some pianos instead of the usual bright burning synthesizers in the mix as far as keys go. But for the most part, as far as vibe and rhythms go, this is a rage style beat.

Melon's getting to be an old head just saying all these new rappers are Carti Clones. Ian and Net sound nothing like Carti. I don't get his hate for it.

Since when does Ian or Nett say, fwaeh or, seeyuhh?

I can't imagine anything more air-headed and myopic in music analysis than limiting the likeness of one artist to another on whether or not their adlibs are the same.

Yeah, that's how you know whether or not one artist is inspired by another. Are they doing the same adlib? Do you guys even know what you're listening to? Are you actually hearing the patterns and the melodies and the rhythms and the instrumentation and the flows? Are you just like, he said fwaeh.

Comparing every new underground rapper to Carti's very unhealthy mindset, bro.

No, no, no, no, no. Here's what is the unhealthy mindset. The vast majority of the rappers you think are underground and that you're listening to right now are inspired by a very, very, very, very, very narrow set of influences. And truth be told, many of them aren't even that frigging underground.

You're talking about rappers that have anywhere from like 1 to 2 to 8 million fucking Spotify listeners a month. Meanwhile, I review actually underground rappers on a regular basis that sound nothing like Playboi Carti, and I don't compare them to him as a result. The New Blu album, McKinley Dixon, Lustsick Puppy, any Billy Woods or Armand Hammer album. Yeah, a lot of the discourse about what is underground right now as far as hip hop goes on Twitter is like such a fucking cesspool, because whenever I hear that word used, it's usually getting applied to the same set of aesthetics over and over and over and over, which is really aggravating because the entire underground of hip hop is actually very wide and very diverse, and is much more than like random dudes, ripping on distorted beats, which in the grander scheme of things is nothing new and has been done better before anyway.

I mean, maybe the reason the underground label persists with a lot of these rappers, despite them becoming massively popular and on trend with a lot of these music fans, is because the sound started in the underground. But the thing is every fucking sound starts in the underground. No sound starts popular. Just because grunge and Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins and freaking Soundgarden all started in the underground at one point, you can't just continue calling those bands and that sound underground as they hit the peaks of mainstream status. That's not how the label underground works.

Also, to rewind here in Nettspend's defense, because I'm not trying to write off the kid's entire catalog or anything like that, that dude also has a back catalog of singles that, like 2Hollis, explores other various subgenres and sounds. It just so happened that that was obviously an influence on the production side of his latest track and single. And no, whether or not you fit into that lane or sound akin to someone like Playboi Carti, for example, doesn't come down to what fucking adlibs you're using.

And again, like I was saying earlier, this isn't even an underground sound or phenomenon anymore.

Most artists out there these days who are trying to stay relevant, who are trying to stay popular, are embracing this sound and aesthetic to some degree on their latest records. There were frigging rage style songs on the new Drake record. Kanye had frigging Playboi Carti on Vultures 1. Don't you remember all you guys freaking out over – as mid as that song was, it was very popular. It was on the latest Travis record, a guy who was one of the most famous rap artists on the planet. It's not an underground sound. In fact, it's very popular. Lots of music fans listen to it and are apparently interested in it. And when artists see a demand for such a thing, some of them are going to incorporate those ideas and aesthetics into their work.

But instead of acknowledging this reality, you want me to gaslight myself and gaslight you and be like, oh, baby, no, it's a totally different new thing that's new. It doesn't sound like anything else. There's so much rap music out there that doesn't sound anything like this, and I review it. But the thing is, none of you guys watch it or listen to it, which is why you're coming away from my videos with the perception that every underground rapper... I think every underground rapper sounds like Playboi Carti.

No, the issue is the vast majority of the rappers that you think are underground are inspired by them. And your Twitter algorithm and your Spotify algorithm and your friend group are probably burying you into a range of music options that are about this narrow.

But look, ultimately, this is nothing new. I've been doing this for 10+ years, and I've had similar comments from the audience before, like when trap was getting popular, and every single time I would have to point out that a trap beat was somewhere, the rattling hi hats, or when lofi indie was a thing, and everybody's album was fucking lofi. I've seen so many countless trends and waves come and go over the years. Some of them are good, some of them are not so good. Regardless of how you feel about this, that's ultimately what it is. It's going to come, it's going to go just like anything else.

In the meantime, I'm not going to sit here like an idiot and pretend it doesn't exist and pretend that it doesn't have defining characteristics and parameters and that there aren't elements of those characteristics that are seeping into other sounds, other genres, other artists' work.

When I see those parallels, I'm going to point them out. Even if it hurts your feelings and makes you upset and makes you rage, because I guess that does make it qualify as rage bait.

Anthony Fantano. Rage. Yeah. Forever.