Viral rapper ian’s “From the Block” freestyle is the picture of American suburbia. He sits at the head of the family dinner table, with a white picket fence, star-spangled banner and tightly trimmed topiaries behind him. ian’s family all clink wine glasses as he dives into the Atlanta-rap coded chorus: “My big brother’s like Marshawn Lynch, he’ll run through somebody”. The visuals are designed to trigger a gut reaction from the viewer – why is this all-white, Barry Keoghan-looking-ass family rapping about killing opps and driving wraiths? With ian accruing over five million monthly Spotify listeners in a matter of months, however, it’s a gimmick that has proven wildly successful.
Fellow rapper Tyler, the Creator isn’t amused by the marketing stunt. “There’s so many n***s out right now that aren’t musicians that are getting treated like musicians because they make meme records,” he said in an interview with Mav Carter released last week (August 14). “Publically, they’ll be like, ‘I don’t give a fuck about music, I just do this shit for the money,’” he continues. “There’s this kid, regular white Caucasian man, who’s mocking Future and people are like, ‘This shit is hard!’ I’m like no, no, no you can’t.”
ian ‘Valedictorian’ album cover pic.twitter.com/88wGXEzJux
— zzz (@iqkevs) May 17, 2024
While it’s likely that ian does have a genuine passion for his music (given that the 19-year-old had been remixing and producing for other artists years before he ever stood in front of a camera), his choice to increasingly lean into the ‘white rapper’ stereotype over the last two years clearly shows that he is aware of its advantages.
“I’m just tryna be myself, I got everybody mad at me for it,” ian raps on the single “Magic Johnson” – but that isn’t totally honest. Where the “From the Block” freestyle thrives on the contrast between his appearance and his music, the cover of debut album Valedictorian doubles down on it. Referencing the ‘I had to do it to ‘em’ meme, ian stands on a suburban sidewalk decked out in frat-core shirts, shorts and loafer combo, rocking a smile that screams “Hey there, I’m using WhatsApp.” Meanwhile, his music is a portmanteau of Yeat-like auto-tune and Atlanta-trap-influenced production. This contrast is clearly intentional.
In the wake of Tyler’s criticisms, ian’s manager Bu Thiam leapt to his defence. “I signed ian and I’m from Atlanta. He sounds nothing like Gucci or Future lol. It’s called influence,” the music mogul and former manager of Kanye West and Lady Gaga posted, tagging Tyler. “I never thought I’d see the day where you become old and hate on the youth,” he continues.
But really, no one gatekeeping influence. The larger issue is that ian appropriates hip hop’s braggadocious ‘stunting’ style lyrics, except, in the place of a rags-to-riches narrative based on the success of a historically oppressed group, he inserts his white privilege as the central appeal. The suburban rapper (literally) flies the flag of the country that systematically subjugates the people whose music he is ‘influenced’ by, and flaunts the benefits of this injustice while he’s at it – it is understandable why his branding might leave a bad taste.
Elsewhere in the Mav Carter interview, Tyler mentions how much technology has changed since his Odd Future era in the early 2010s. Nowadays, helped along by the frazzled attention spans and the advent of short-form social content in TikTok and YouTube Shorts, controversy and meme-baiting has become more profitable than ever. Admittedly, provocative branding formed a central aspect of Tyler’s rise, too: early tracks like “Yonkers” thrived on the coverage that its sexually explicit and violent lyrics generated – famously even getting him briefly banned from the UK in 2015. But now, he argues, artists have to sell themselves in the first few seconds of a video, and this is where ian’s ‘suburban white rapper’ gimmick excels.
Earlier this month, Korean-American rap OG and podcast host Dumbfoundead delivered a similar argument in an episode of his Fun With Dumb podcast series titled ‘Why The Clickbait Asian Rapper Trend Needs To Stop’. “Every Asian rapper I see seems to have some sort of Asian prop nowadays. You’ve got one holding a samurai sword, another one holding a straw hat, another holding a bowl of noodles – every stereotype we’ve heard in the past,” he argues. “It’s one step forward, two steps back.”
Just like Eminem in 8 Mile, Dumbfoundead was rebutting Asian tropes in rap battles 20 years ago, and never played into the sort of stereotypes other rappers seem to be embracing today. To some extent, it seems that the age of TikTok and YouTube Shorts is moving these conversations backwards and encouraging the devolution of artists into bitesize stereotypes, rather than artistic progression.
Ultimately, it’s undeniable that ian’s branding – while uncomfortable – is directly incentivised by the current state of social media. There is still plenty of room for him to develop an individuality that goes beyond the ‘suburban white rapper’ shock factor – much like Tyler himself did – though someone should probably tell him that playing the victim isn’t the right way to get there.
