(Warning: Strong Languages and sexual references ahead)
Around last year, I wrote something similar to this topic I am about to present you with, but mainly points out how some genres that produced great artists and musicians also have someone who is questionable to say the least, on how one bad stunt overshadows their achievements on the music industry. But this time on the second part, I am literally diving into the very bottom of the totem pole. Meaning that some of these so-called “musicians” are just plain bad to the point of being unbearable. Usually, I am pointing out the best and the worst these guys have to offer, but let’s be honest, when you are scraping the very depths of the musical pissing bowl, you will only find the absolute worst of the worst, and I’m not even being sarcastic just yet. However, there are also some who is not necessarily despised for bad production or boring songs, it’s just when a single controversy ruined a prospect career of a certain group.
In the previous post, I’ve pointed two rappers with shady track records. Even with that, they have an amazing discography of their own, and held their own in the industry. But even within Hip-Hop, there are even more rappers who are not only hated and ridiculed; but ended up as the worst ever rappers ever existed. Some of them are not even started out as rappers to begin with. YouTuber Jake Paul once released a diss track It’s Everyday Bro featuring his entourage Team 10, aimed at his ex-girlfriend Alissa Violet and fellow YouTube personality Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg on 2017. Unironically, it received mostly with negative reviews, even earned fourth place on Most disliked YouTube videos of all time. His brother Logan is no better. After the backlash of his video at the Aokigahara Forest in Japan (Also known as “The Suicide Forest”, he exposed a corpse of a hanged man inside the forest, as well as being culturally insensitive during his Japanese trip), he started a feud with British personality Olajide Olatunji (known as KSI), which ended up with two boxing fights, both won by KSI. His diss track, Goodbye KSI is reviewed as a desperate attempt to gain attention, and how the track is actually managed to roast himself rather than his intended target.
Those who ARE rappers themselves also not spared from this either. At first, I wasn’t aware of this, but rappers who use Plotagon-animated music videos are quite a thing, and along with it, comes bad (and I mean really bad) production quality, awful lyricism and extreme (and I mean to the max) level of auto-tuned vocals. The most notable example of this is Submarine Man, whose songs are revolved around one thing and one thing only: foot fetish (this is even worse than K-Pop sasaengs writing a fan note with menstrual blood). His latest album Barefoot Worlds was released in 2019 and was reviewed by users of the website Album of The Year 14/100. Some even called the album “an abomination that should never exist”. I looked up this “rapper” out of pure curiosity, and stumble upon one song called Stinko Foot. The moment I press play, I instantly regret it. Not only the song is quite unbearable (same with the accompanying music video), but all vocals either by Submarine Man or the featured artists (Lama Doodle and Sakooni!) are auto tuned in such an extent, it produced an annoying robotic sound to it. He is also a type of rapper that constantly ripping off songs and beats from another artist. This particular song is a rip-off from Travis Scott’s SICKO MODE. No wonder YouTube channel HipHopHQ placed this “rapper” as number 1 for their list of “Worst rappers of all time”. Canadian rapper Lil Meerkat, although not being a Plotagon artist, are also notorious for bad quality songs, rip-offs and severely auto-tuned vocals (and doing a bad job in the process. His rapping can be either off-key, off-beat, or both at the same time). He even went as far as covering (and by that, I mean ruining) Queen’s eternal masterpiece Bohemian Rhapsody, naming his version Lil Vohemian Brrrrappussi and Lil Vohemian Trrrapsody. From those titles alone, his poor attempt to pay homage to the band and Freddie Mercury is instead being translated as blatant disrespect. The lyrics was also changed to suit his otherwise laughable lyrical content of Japanese anime, hentai, fanfictions (and how he loves it), Sonic the Hedgehog and flexing on how rich he is. It also contains a product placement for a porn site of all brands (What the hell is he thinking (or smoking) when he made this song?). He also (hilariously) has a diss track aimed at the Japanese animation series Love Live called Todokete (the title rips off one lyric part of one song of the show called Snow Halation). The song itself is (unsurprisingly) a rip-off of the aforementioned PewDiePie’s diss track Bitch Lasagna aimed at Indian Music Label T-Series when he was feuding with the company on who got the most subscribers on YouTube. All of the songs including these two are included on his debut album Weeaboo Paradise, Vol. 1, and got the abysmal rating of 38/100 on Album of The Year (Previously, it got 1/100). I did mention about lyric repetitions before, didn’t I, Well, one rapper in particular who is famous for this is Nicki Minaj, with her song Stupid Hoe. In this track alone, she muttered the line “stupid hoe” for a record of 45 times. This is also one of just a slew of her songs with blatant sexual nature. Another rapper fitting this category is Cupcakke (real name Elisabeth Harris). She took the sex theme and max it to the more disgusting levels with songs like Spiderman Dick, Vagina and an awful remix of Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road, titled Old Town HOE. Other than artists mentioned above, “mumble rappers” (a derogatory term for rappers who rap incoherently to the point of just mumbling the lyrics) are also known to be hated the most. Rappers like Lil Xan (real name Nicholas Diego Leanos) and Tekashi 6ix9ine (real name Daniel Hernandez) are known as the “frontrunners” of this “genre”. What makes the genre and the artist hated is because of some songs like Betrayed by the former and FEFE by the latter contained overly simple lyrics, nonsensical phrases, awful beats, and (well, I’ve been accustomed to this) auto-tuned rapping.
Many musical acts are not necessarily hated because of bad product, some are ridiculed because of one big controversy that derailed their career. German Pop duo Milli Vanilli rose to popularity with their hit single Girl You Know It’s True, even earning a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1990. The beginning of the end for both members Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus was when they were performing in Bristol, Connecticut as part of an MTV performance, the backing track skipped, revealing that they actually lip-synced their performance. It was later revealed that all the vocals on their acclaimed album Girl You Know It’s True were not recorded by Morvan and Pilatus themselves. Instead, producer Frank Farian brought in session vocalists to perform vocal duties. Both Milli Vanilli duo were treated only as visual models for the band (this was also per Farian’s order). Before that, there are already doubts of the legitimacy of the singing, due to the duo’s English skills. They tried to recover by releasing songs featuring their own vocals to little success. This worsens after Pilatus’ death on April 2nd, 1998. After his death, Morvan continued as a session musician with considerable success. On a funny note, the term “pull a Milli Vanilli” is used to describe an artist who caught lip-syncing a performance, and often lie about it. On the rock and metal spectrum, vocalist/rapper Kid Rock is also hated mainly of his poor attempt to fuse metal, rap and country music. He is also labeled as a “sell-out” by metalheads due to his shift from Rap Rock to Country.
When we think about music, it’s supposed to be a beautiful, enticing melody that hooks the listeners from the beginning to the end, but what music fans get from these so-called “musicians” (save from Milli Vanilli, behind that fiasco, the real singers are awesome) is nothing than pure nausea and ear rape coming out of the speaker like a thousand hornets stinging your ear at the same time. I have to say that while I am not a fan of some genres but appreciates them anyway as forms of art, I am no way a fan of those artists, and by that, I mean I absolutely loathed them. Nobody in their right mind would take a great song from a great band, change the lyrics with themes referencing anime, hentai and all of the bad sides from the Japanese pop culture, present them in severely off-key, off-beat auto-tuned vocals with terrible beat, and proceed to call himself “the best rapper in the world” (Eminem would chew your ass for that statement. Look up Rap God if you know what I mean). As always, I will end this piece by constantly reminding you to never shove your own musical taste to non-consenting individuals, especially involving artists like those mentioned above.
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