Early years and formation
Scrim was born Scott Arceneaux Jr. on April 11, 1989 in
Marrero, Louisiana. Arceneaux originally was inspired by
T-Pain and
Kanye West to produce music, buying his first laptop which he used to start
DJing with money gained from selling drugs. Arceneaux's passion for DJing extended when he started to attend
Delgado Community College, where he was hired to DJ parties. He also worked selling used furniture, getting fired for his new hand tattoos after three years.
[11]
Ruby da Cherry was born Aristos Petrou (Αρίστος Πέτρου) on April 22, 1990 to an American mother and
Greek Cypriot father. Raised in
Metairie, Louisiana, Petrou's interest in music began when he was seven, playing violin and then drums when he was ten, eventually joining bands in middle school. He worked at his father's restaurant as a waiter, a job he held until 2015.
[11] His experience with the
punk rock scene continued as he joined the band
Vapo-Rats as its drummer; however, disillusioned with the apathy his bandmates showed towards the future of the band, Petrou left in order to pursue a career in
hip-hop with Arceneaux.
Arceneaux and Petrou are
cousins, and as such shared a close relationship growing up. Realising that both were interested in taking a musical career seriously, and both dissatisfied with the direction of their lives, the two formed Suicideboys, making a pact that if their musical career didn't work out, they would both commit
suicide.
[12] Elaborating on this in an interview with
Mass Appeal, Arceneaux states that, “it was pretty much like cutting the hand, bleeding, and making a pact that there’s no plan B, that if this doesn’t happen by the time we’re 30, I’m blowing my head off”.
[13]
Musical career
The duo's first project together, a three-track
EP named
Kill Yourself Part I: The $uicide $aga, was released in June 2014 on SoundCloud and Bandcamp,
[14] attracting attention for their collaboration with notable underground rapper
Bones. In the following months, the duo released a further nine iterations of the
Kill Yourself series.
[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] After a number of collaboration EPs with fellow underground artist Black Smurf, their first full length project titled
Gray/Grey was released on March 3, 2015.
[24]
Suicideboys' underground breakthrough came with the release of 2015 EP
$outh $ide $uicide, a collaboration with established
South Florida rapper
Pouya, which thrust the duo into the
underground rap spotlight. As of October 2018, the tape has gained over 75 million track plays on streaming platform
SoundCloud alone.
[25] The duo's first foray onto the mainstream musical charts came with the release of
Radical $uicide in the summer of 2016. The five-track EP, produced by EDM musician
Getter, peaked at number 17 on the
Billboard Rap charts.
[26]
On September 7, 2018, their debut
studio album I Want to Die in New Orleans was released.
[1][27] A statement posted by the duo's official
Instagram account stated, "We started recording this album in the beginning of 2017. Initially we wanted to write about our experiences on the road and express how our lives had become slightly more extravagant."
[28]
Suicideboys have gained a
cult following in the
hip hop scene, in part due to their niche subject matter involving subjects scarcely seen in rap such as
suicidal ideation and
depression. As of October 2018, their most viewed music video on
YouTube is for their song
Paris, reaching over 60 million views;
Paris is additionally the song with the most plays on their
Spotify page, with 60 million plays.
[29][30] The duo were featured in Billboard's list titled "Billboard Dance's 15 Artists to Watch in 2017".
[31]
In late 2018, a rumor arose that the group had broken up following a series of ominous tweets. However, they soon clarified that the tweets were in relation to "personal issues" facing Arceneaux, and that they had in fact not broken up.
[32]
Side projects
Along with their work in Suicideboys, Petrou and Arceneaux have both released sporadic solo work as well as worked with other artists individually.
Before Suicideboys, Arceneaux was an aspiring solo hip-hop artist, releasing several mixtapes under the name $crim. These include
Narcotics Anonymous,
#DrugFlow2 and
Patron Saint of Everything Totally Fucked, all of which were released before the group's formation in 2014.
[33] Arceneaux has also worked as an in-house producer for
Universal/Republic, producing several songs for artists, including one song that was commercially successful.
[34]
Petrou has released two solo mixtapes under the name Oddy Nuff da Snow Leopard;
The Jefe Tape in 2012 and
Pluto in 2014.
[35] Pluto contained the first collaboration between Arceneaux and Petrou on a commercial project; Arceneaux featured on the song
Smoke a Sack.
Controversies
Suicideboys have come under much criticism by mainstream music critics for their often abrasive and offensive image, including their name, lyrical content, and behaviour. Many of their songs contain themes and insinuations of
devil worship; however, as Arceneaux states on an interview with
Adam Grandmaison, their use of satanic imagery is simply a metonym for the negative effects of money, drugs, and other items that have the potential to manipulate people.
[36]
Arceneaux is a former
opioid addict, claiming in his
No Jumper interview that he would lure people to him on
Craigslist in order to rob them just to feed his addiction.
[36] Having been a regular abuser of
heroin,
hydrocodone and
oxycodone, among others, Arceneaux has reputedly been completely sober from all substances since July 2017.
In September 2016, Canadian DJ and record producer
Deadmau5 accused the duo of
copyright infringement following the success of their song "Antarctica" (off of the 2016 EP
Dark Side of the Clouds).
[37] The song samples parts of Deadmau5's "
I Remember", with
Kaskade; the DJ lambasted the duo for this, claiming that Suicideboys were "publicizing other people's intellectual property without consent".
[38] The song, which had been out since January and subsequently reached millions of plays on both
YouTube and
SoundCloud, was taken down by Suicideboys on both platforms and no further action was taken.
Musical style
The music of Suicideboys varies between different subgenres of
rap; while some songs have melancholy tones with lyrical content that focuses on subjects such as
depression and
suicidal ideation (topics not widely exposed in rap music), others are wildly aggressive, with themes of violence and sexual content.
[39] Some of their music is based around life growing up in
New Orleans; song titles such as
Audubon,
Tulane,
Elysian Fields and
St. Bernard reflect streets and neighborhoods that influenced the life of Arceneaux and Petrou.
There is a clear
Three 6 Mafia influence in much of their music, with many earlier Suicideboys songs using samples from the group's songs.
[40] While the use of Three 6 Mafia has been met with reservations by some of its former members, particularly
Gangsta Boo,
[41] it has been embraced by others; founding member
Juicy J has been vocal about his support and mentorship of Suicideboys, and enlisted the duo to produce his mixtapes
Highly Intoxicated and
ShutDaF*kUp, featuring artists such as
ASAP Rocky,
Cardi B,
Wiz Khalifa and
XXXTentacion.
[42]
A large portion of their music focuses on
depression and its symptoms, an angle not often received in mainstream
hip hop; Arceneaux elaborated on this in an interview with
Mass Appeal, stating, “A lot of people take it as emo, or depressed music, or negative music... it’s really just connecting. It’s therapy, through music".
[43]
