In a performance uploaded a few weeks ago to Audiomack’s YouTube page, TopOppGen, a buzzing 20-year-old from Asheville, North Carolina, has his fingernails painted black, dermal piercings in, and locs almost covering his eyes. He’s doing “21 Club,” a song that nods to Lil Peep, XXXTentacion, and Juice WRLD, the pillars of emo rap who each died at 21 or younger in the late 2010s. The song is a paint-by-numbers pastiche of the cursed subgenre. You know, a sampled guitar beat that sounds straight out of Nedarb and Smokeasac’s Hellboy archives. Wounded, whiny melodies. Unhealthy relationships. Possessiveness. Hypermasculinity. Lyrics that directly reference depression, suicide, and drug overdose: “I do drugs and blackout/My bitch gotta make sure that I’m breathing.” The uneasy feeling that it is more about the fucked-up vibes than delivering a quality song.