BONES Adds a Gothic Texture to Emo

Elmo “BONES” O’Connor: When I went by Th@ Kid, I was not try­ing to be dark, I was just kicking raps about smoking or whatever. And then I hit a point where I was like, “Okay, I’m eighteen now. I can’t be Th@ Kid any more. What’s the name change? Is it going to be Th@ Guy? What’s it going to be?” And I’ve always looked at music like wrestling, and The Undertaker always looks like the funnest thing to be. So, I was with my brother Justin, from Michigan, and we were like, “We should go dark.” So we decided to channel the fact that I’m a skinny white guy with fucked-up teeth and long hair and make this backwoods character who you’d see in an alleyway, or behind a gas station at three in the morning—a seedy dude. So that was the core idea, just to scare you with this boogeyman character mixed with that ’90s scumbag realism.… I fell back into old shit that we would listen to, like The Dayton Family, Three 6 [Mafia], and old Project [Pat]. I was like, “Dude, nobody does dark, dark now.” This was around the time A$AP [Rocky] put out [F**kin’ Problems]. Everything was so light, and then [SpaceGhost] Purrp came out with music, and Eddy [Baker], Chris [Travis], and [Ethel (now Xavier)] Wulf. I was like, “Yes! It’s not just me that wants it to go in this direction.” And that’s how we all found each other. We all liked the same shit when the scene was so small. It’s cool to see how big it is now.1

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Gutsy, grimy, and continuously innovative, Michigan-raised and Los Angeles-based rapper BONES changed the landscape of the hip-hop underground with a seedy concoction of gothic tones and an emphasis on Southern rap traditions. The artist grew up more invested in the timbre of seminal groups like Three 6 Mafia and Geto Boys than the changing landscape of rap in the 2010s. By age seventeen, while still running around as Th@ Kid, BONES released over a dozen mixtapes. Currently, the man has released over ninety albums. Under a handful of aliases, along with his joint albums and side projects, BONES has revealed himself slowly as someone capable of revising himself into iconoclast status. To his fans, he is a rap hero. To the countless artists he’s influenced, he is either a north star or a distant whisper—the difference coming down to artistic pride clouding a willingness to give flowers when due.

BONES is reclusive, but no less resonant. The founder of hip-hop conglomerate TeamSESH, BONES, and members and affiliates Eddy Baker, Chris Travis, and Xavier Wulf, all played a role in defining emo rap following Atmosphere and Kid Cudi. BONES brought in an overbearing darkness that was being washed out of emo rap following the boom of Cudi’s “Day ‘N’ Nite.” Their music is heavy and entrancing, packed with rich cultural references and brooding imagery. It is verbose and deceptively dense—dizzying stuff that manages to coax the listener into a swirling, gloom-stricken underworld.

Shortly after his ninth birthday, BONES found himself downloading beats online and making “shitty raps” and R&B songs for fun. His family’s music and arts history—BONES’s father is a photographer, and his mother is a clothing designer who now mans the TeamSESH warehouse—inspired his tastes: early Motown records and rap classics like Master P and Lil Wayne. These influences would emerge in his work and work ethic immediately. In particular, the dent Wayne left on modern hip-hop would leak into BONES’s entire oeuvre. The two artists record and release with the same fervor; they elicit a similar dedication from their fans; they make the texture of the English language, as well as its limitations and idiosyncrasies, work for them on the mic. Without Wayne, there is no blueprint for BONES, who himself would become a blueprint for an entire scene.

In his youth, there are “shitty raps” and a piqued interest. These moments serve as the prologue for BONES’s career, which formally begins after a tumultuous time in high school: “Teachers wouldn’t give me assignments because it would just be a waste of paper.” At sixteen, BONES drops out and moves to California with his brother and manager Elliott O’Connor. Once in LA, he connects with gritty rap collective Raider Klan, meeting Eddy Baker in an internet cafe, though Eddy recalls their first meeting being a Runescape convention.2 The move and newfound free time help BONES decide to take rap seriously. The flurry of recording and releasing in real-time begins, leading to the self-release of his first full-length project WhiteRapper in 2012 under the Th@ Kid moniker.

With WhiteRapper, Th@ Kid accomplishes something critical. Beyond charting a course for his career as BONES, beyond sparking label interest and extinguishing it in the name of forging his own path, the artist lights the fire for a new tone in emo rap. Th@ Kid debuts and adds a near-playful element to a genre that dangerously treads towards self-seriousness. In 2012, O’Connor was serious, but he was also funny. There is levity to WhiteRapper that was missing from Atmosphere’s offerings. The jokes Slug put forward on God Loves Ugly kept Slug in his own crosshairs, sure, but they didn’t feel completely goofy. They felt like cries for help.

When Kid Cudi broke, humor was out the window in place of a sulking and forlorn persona, and self-serious emo rap was in. So, there was something attractive about Th@ Kid’s new and underdeveloped voice stepping into a familiar arena. It allowed for his charm to flower up from the imperfections of the twenty-plus songs on WhiteRapper. Emo rap’s lexicon was expanding. WhiteRapper was breaking ground on a new tradition, one that would give way to some of the late Lil Peep’s earliest releases: “feelz” and “Keep My Coo.”

From the length to the homage on the cover—WhiteRapper is fashioned in the style of classic Pen & Pixel covers, best known for their design work with No Limit and Cash Money—it’s clear Th@ Kid has a reverence for rap history. He just doesn’t let that ferocity consume him to the point of making the music feel cumbersome. Still, this mixtape is an effort. It radiates a level of severity most associated with the desperation that comes with trying to make something out of nothing.

It’s easy to return over a decade later and read WhiteRapper with a propulsive urgency, especially considering how much music would pour out of BONES in the months and years to come. Ultimately, though, WhiteRapper is very much a thing out of time. The unpolished tape calls on early 2000s hip-hop in form and function while still driving emo rap into the future. And while WhiteRapper isn’t exactly the flavor of emo rap BONES would become known for, it served as a bridge for both the artist and the genre. In December 2012, BONES would shed “Th@ Kid” and make a play towards actualizing himself as an artist. He understood he was onto something bigger than he could have imagined.

By the time of BONES’s entrance, there was already a divide within emo rap’s aesthetic. Kid Cudi’s “lonely stoner” vision for emo rap didn’t align with the darkness BONES would harness. Cudi’s music was angled towards giving lost kids an approachable soundtrack—“Day ‘N’ Nite” was bare and honest, but it was missing a sense of foreboding. It didn’t bite. Cudi made emo rap draped in pastels, and BONES had no interest in stepping outside of a monochrome existence. BONES and Atmosphere have more to do with each other than any other contemporary emo rapper and the genre’s forefathers. Sure, BONES is more interested in tormented and sordid imagery than being blacked out, but he does pull from Slug’s school of gross everyman presentation. BONES’s works reject Cudi’s gentle sensitivities, ultimately expanding listeners’ conception of the genre.

WhiteRapper is laced with a thick ick. It feels slimy. That was the intent, but considering by 2012 Atmosphere’s style was not the only one budding in the underground rap scene, it is an interesting starting point for BONES. Perhaps that afterimage of grime from ‘02 to ‘12 represents a truth about emo rap: it is largely nasty stuff. Raw, wounded, and outright disgusting music that jars the senses and feels like a bottomless source of negativity. BONES affirms this with the title of one of his 2013 records, SCUMBAG.

The brutish cousin of sleaze, the notion of a scumbag is more damning and intense. The mouthfeel of both words communicates this best: scumbag as a matter of language feels like hacking up stones, while sleaze has a drooly slickness to it. The grime, hopelessness, and muck of songs like “DeathMetal” and “GraveyardGod” are offset by the gentle tones of “Nightmare” and “DieForMe,” which feature BONES hitting his upper register to accentuate the pain. The latter two tracks speak to BONES’s influence perhaps even more so than the grittier cuts—he all but predicted the way singing would help emo rap move into the mainstream.

BONES released a handful of other crucial records in 2013: CRACKER, PaidProgramming, and LivingLegend. One of the titans of independent music blogging, Passion of the Weiss, published an early critical look at BONES on the eve of PaidProgramming’s release. “He’s made the backward gaze infinitely more interesting by cloaking it in opaque fog of the undead,” critic Max Bell explained. “And instead of pretending that he isn’t aping ’90s in 2013, it’s as if he refuses to believe that he doesn’t live in that decade. Above all, Bones may have created a world out of time. I don’t want to live there, but it sounds like a place I’d consider visiting on Halloween.”3 This critique remains one of the most generous early writings of an emo rap artist on the rise. Where critics of early Lil Peep and Juice WRLD records struggled to make sense of the young artists’ abilities, because BONES’s music so directly channeled key hip-hop influences, it appeared easier to stomach and parse.

As BONES’s catalog grew, so did his status as an influential artist. In 2014, BONES began getting national looks for the release of his mixtape, Garbage.4 The tape hones in on BONES’s aesthetic: the cover features his now-signature mucking around with VHS tape, and the music is the most concise and sharp BONES had released to that point. From a Corbin feature on “IfYouHadAZuneIHateYou” to the consistent homage to Three 6 Mafia, Garbage positions BONES as an artist who defies trends and will steadfastly be a “skinny white pimp named BONES, with the knife.”

Garbage is clear. BONES’s vocals cut through and, as a result, his violent imagery penetrates with ease. But these aren’t traditional post-Eminem horrorcore raps. On Garbage, BONES is a skilled emotional puppeteer, stringing up complex ideas around whiteness and class alongside gruesome impulses, never allowing one feeling to collapse into another. He raps about burying someone in the mud in lurid detail, only to flip the plot and comment on his “white trash” status for levity. BONES uses the veil of calculated self-awareness to pull off a listenable balancing act. He capitalizes on sinking feelings, but never crashes.

Online and in print, he is regarded as the gothic father of emo rap. BONES is presented as a brooding and reluctant hero for a swarm of kids and aspiring artists. “Right now, Bones might be doing that better than anyone,” The FADER wrote after the release of Garbage. Of course, one tape a year is not enough for BONES. As Skinny and Rotten, and others, trickled out of him in 2014, Complex began taking consistent notice of the rapper. For an artist with little chart appeal, this was monumental. It felt as though the blood-letting BONES was doing in the booth was paying off—his rise as the “teenage corpse” creeping through alleyways until returning to his crypt was entirely organic.

The early 2010s were a glimmering time in hip-hop. We were approaching the apex of the blog era, where fans-turned-writers used their platforms to shine lights on the music that mattered most to them. These outlets—2DopeBoyz, DJBooth, NahRight, and others—climbed out of the cracks of an industry adapting to the internet age and developed unique perspectives to help champion their favorite songs and mixtapes. Plucky, sunny, “happy rap” was in: Wiz Khalifa and Chance the Rapper released classic mixtapes in 2010 and 2013 respectively. BONES didn’t care. He did not deal in the same jubilant energy as other aspiring rappers at the tail end of the blog era. By Rotten, BONES had solidified himself as a dark and snarling force in the underground. Some of his most recognizable songs live on the tape, including the second track, “HDMI,” a booming answer to the watered-down gothic tones he heard in the likes of A$AP Rocky.

Rotten is the first essential solo BONES release. Here, the rapper explores the breadth of his range and quiets the common critique that one BONES song represents them all. The origin point of the trappy, hazy, scattershot SoundCloud rap era soon following the slow decline of the blogs can be traced to “HDMI,” “Amethyst,” and “Unknown” just as easily as to early A$AP Rocky mixtapes. More important to the scope of emo rap, however, is the scant dose of gentleness BONES applied to Rotten. “Yes,EvenThen” and “SadlyThatsJustTheWayThingsAre” are bare ballads. These two songs are some of the clearest stepping stones for the softness of Lil Peep’s first mixtape, Lil Peep; Part One, released in the fall of 2015. Part One standout “five degrees” even interpolates BONES’s “Cut” from 2013. With that, Rotten presented BONES as fearless. He wasn’t just adding a few necessary wrinkles to emo rap—BONES was here as a blooming agent. A drop of his style in a pool of the genre’s essence and suddenly the colors and textures have spun out into a new universe of expression.

This story continues on for ten years. With his hyper-specific aesthetic, BONES fortified his longevity. His ability to maintain a career, without tiring himself out or wearing on the ear of the listener, is a testament to the lightning he’s been able to bottle hundreds of times. While there is some truth to the notion that BONES’s playing in the same aural arena can lead to repetition, there is something doubly impressive about his fastidiousness. BONES is an unbothered and unshakeable force in hip-hop. And his fans love it.

The immediacy in his music—both in his recording schedule and the breathless way he attacks the mic—follows the path of Lil Wayne’s ‘00s mixtape era. Before the long albums and tireless drops of the streaming era became the norm, BONES was intent on unleashing twenty-to-thirty-song albums, multiple times a year, when distribution for an indie artist was still difficult. In many ways, BONES’s strategy beat streaming to the punch. His work ethic is as much a part of his persona as the music, and it speaks to the fury with which emo rap can be produced and sent into the crowd.

The rate at which BONES creates allows fans into his interior life on his terms. Almost in real time, listeners witness his growth and the changes going on in the hip-hop underground without ever getting that much closer to knowing O’Connor. The promise of a subgenre and culture as intensely charged as emo rap sits neatly on relatability. When lonely nights in feel endless, and the ceiling fan is your only friend, this music becomes comfort, camaraderie. The relationship to the artist helps determine if the rap is emo—it’s an ecosystem. BONES doesn’t have to outwardly wail about the angst and heartbreak of being young and lost. His willingness to give and give when it comes to music is enough, inspiring a tight-knit and loyal cult following.

These diehard fans have assumed the role of archivists, running online forums and meticulously maintaining the TeamSESH discographies—keeping them accessible and organized for newcomers and veteran fans. There is an unexpected symbiosis here, how the fans perform a type of labor for BONES’s legacy while BONES produces album after album to nourish fans’ lives. The mutual respect between BONES and his listenership isn’t unique. This type of fervor helps define emo as emo, and it is critical for the endurance of an act. The relationship exists without pretense, and BONES has frequently expressed disbelief at people enjoying his work. Instead of feeling a stark power imbalance between artist and observer, the two seem nearly on equal footing.

The fans are just as valuable to the enterprise of understanding O’Connor’s material contributions to emo rap as the music. While so many crucial artists have tragically passed, their fanbases have remained steady and serious. Lil Peep and Juice WRLD tribute pages have been going strong for years, welcoming new fans and acting as safe spaces for many to mourn their losses. BONES is still alive and recording, but his fans present the same as Peep’s and Juice WRLD’s. Death and grief reshape minds and relationships—things feel more dire, they have more value. To that end, the response to BONES’s work, the way fans interact with the material, speaks to the unending value BONES brings them. The fans work in concert with the music to establish BONES as a staple and beloved pioneer. With the rise of streaming, fans have grown ever more fickle, spoiled with choice. Still, TeamSESH feels like a lifestyle.

BONES’s story is one of subversion and rebellion—here is an indie artist with no machine behind him who has a ravenous fanbase and operates at raceway speeds, setting his own rules every step of the way. He does not capitulate to the music business, ignoring pop-rap trends and staying the course of being an underground icon. Holding strong and making an aesthetic timeless is not without its pains. In the mid 2010s, BONES did a small press run where he was nothing if not capricious. He appeared hurt by the rise of artists who were all but robbing SESH of their style and teetering on achieving mainstream acclaim while, according to him, watering down the sound he helped pioneer. BONES didn’t name names, but he was acerbic.

In the new decade, though, with a little more maturity and becoming a father, BONES appears far less concerned with broad notoriety—not that he ever gave the impression he was hoping to chart. There is more to BONES than music and legacy—he is a joyful family man—but even as he’s discovered newfound priorities in life, the music has not suffered. He has not slowed.

In 2022, BONES released four albums, bringing together unexpected collaborations with street rappers Lil Gotit and Rio Da Yung OG for the ten-years-on sequel to cult classic tape 1MillionBlunts, rightfully named 2MillionBlunts. He also worked with OG TeamSESH member ghostNghoul on DreamCard. The music in the 2020s is just as gothic and inspired as it was in the early 2010s. BONES’s output may have him forgetting his own lyrics in interviews, but it doesn’t dilute the value of the material itself. Certainly, it doesn’t dissolve the impact it has had on his community. BONES’s catalog affirmatively answers a curious question: What would happen if we took the productive spirit of Lil Wayne, the dark tones of classic Southern hip-hop, and the seedy image of a “skinny white pimp,” and thrust it into the world?