$uicideboy$. The name is evocative and it strikes. It’s hard to avoid, despite its reference to suicide, as this independently operating New Orleans duo has garnered billions of streams across streaming platforms.
In November 2021, the airy and hovering punk-rap formation, which will be featured on the Plains on Sunday evening, had accumulated 5.3 billion plays online.
Unhappy with the direction their respective lives were taking, cousins Aristos Norman “Ruby da Cherry” Petrou and Scott Anthony “$crim” Arceneaux Jr teamed up in 2014 to bring $uicideboy$ into the world.
They decide to play it all out and make a pact, that of taking their own lives if their career does not take off.
“There was no plan B. If it didn’t happen before I was 30, I would have busted my brains out,” said $crim in an interview published on the American site. Mass Appeal.
Unsurprisingly, the connotations linked to suicide are far from unanimous.
Save lives
In another interview published in the magazine Inked in May 2021, $crim reports that the duo helped save lives.
“I get chills thinking regarding all these young people telling us that we saved their lives and helped them get off drugs. There are young people who are terrified of going to therapy and being stigmatized. There are also all those who cannot afford to get help and who find it in our music,” he remarked.
Ruby da Cherry and $crim started their band with the intention of not doing like everyone else.
“We wanted to do the opposite of what everyone else was doing on the rap scene. We didn’t have fancy cars or gold chains. We emphasized that we were losers and we mixed that with shock-rap problems associated with mental health. We were just trying to get people’s attention,” Ruby da Cherry mentioned in November 2022, in the magazine. Billboard.
The duo, who operate independently and have launched their own label, G*59, address depression and suicidal ideation in their songs.
“Success came when we started talking regarding the struggles our fans had with drugs, anxiety and depression. These things exist. People want to help, but they don’t actually do much. This is why I hate mental health awareness. It’s impossible to educate everyone. We hope we can do more than that with our music,” Ruby da Cherry said in Billboard.
A new album
A year following its formation, $uicideboy$ is a success underground thanks to the EP $outh $ide $uicide. The eponymous song, to date, totals 129 million plays on the Spotify portal.
Le magazines Billboard selects the duo for its list of 15 artists to watch for 2017.
After several EPs and mixtapes, $uicideboy$ launches, on September 7, 2018, his first album, entitled I Want to Die in New Orleans. The popularity of the training is growing. After a one-year break and her second album, launched last summer, she will release a new opus on July 29, Sing Me a Lullaby, My Sweet Temptation.
