Lil Peep

Lil Peep, born Gustav Elijah Åhr in 1996 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and raised largely in Long Beach, New York, was an American rapper and singer widely regarded as a pioneer of emo-rap. He began releasing music on SoundCloud under the name Trap Goose before gaining major recognition with his 2015 mixtape series, blending trap production with the melodic sensibility and confessional lyricism of emo and pop-punk.

His music is defined by a melancholic, slow-tempo sound and raw vocal delivery that shifted between rapping, singing, and screaming, with lyrics exploring themes of depression, addiction, heartbreak, and mortality. Tracks like «Star Shopping», «Save That Shit», «Falling Down», and «Beamer Boy» became touchstones for a generation of listeners and helped define the aesthetic of the emo-rap and SoundCloud rap movements.

Peep was also known for his distinctive visual style — brightly dyed hair, eccentric fashion, and extensive tattoos — which became inseparable from his artistic identity. He died in November 2017 at age 21, but his influence has only grown since, shaping a generation of artists who fuse rock and emo sensibilities with hip-hop production, and his posthumous releases have continued to reach new audiences.