Crack Magazine Was Made Using
This month’s cover star was born in 1999. (Feel old yet?) Rich Brian may not have been alive during hip-hop’s so-called ‘golden era’, but he became a sensation in 2016 with an absurd music video imitating hip-hop tropes and subverting Asian nerd stereotypes at the same time. His budding career is built on the kind of charming self-parody honed by formative years spent pulling faces on Vine. Essentially, he’s a product of culture absorbed through a digital lens.
The Internet La Di Da Childish Gambino Feels Like Summer Drake In My Feelings Christine and the Queens Doesn’t matter Kiana Lede Wicked Games Popcaan Dun Rich Tinashe Like I Used To Rich Brian Beam ft. Playboi Carti Body/Head Change my Brain slowthai Polaroid Yussef Dayes & Alfa Mist Love Is The Message ELIZA All Night Future Wifi Lit Suspect Right Now ft. Harlem Spartans Tirzah Holding On Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Cake of Light
The potentials – and pitfalls – of our proximity to the internet crop up throughout this issue. London’s jazz upstarts note the role of streaming in the genre’s new wave; Munroe Bergdorf, a voice crucial to the LGBTQ rights movement, traces a journey from internet-borne activism to real world impact; while an essay from Warp Records visionary Oneohtrix Point Never probes into the sinister side of our eyesto-screen compulsions. One positive of our insatiable digital consumption is the chance to infiltrate culture from even the most unlikely periphery. For outliers to take up space. As our cover story unpacks, Rich Brian is no longer on the outside looking in. He’s been propelled to broader audiences by the force of 88rising: part collective, part web-savvy creative agency, whose mission is to promote Asian culture through music. Together they are shattering the glass between themselves and hip-hop culture – one viral hit at a time.
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August 2018
crackmagazine.net
Issue 91
Rich Brian shot exclusively for Crack Magazine by Charlotte Rutherford in London, July 2018
EDITORIAL
Anna Tehabsim, Editor
