What Happened To 88rising?
What Happened To 88rising?
by Rhett Rhodes
At one point in time, from the years of 2016-2018, the 88rising brand was rising and seemed promising to only keep growing and become something bigger than any of us could have ever imagined it could have been. It proved itself as a key prominent outlet for insanely talented and creative Asian artists; musicians, and we're all for it. But, as of recent years, 2019-2022, the brand; videos; and even the musicians are at somewhat of a slower point in their careers. There are a lot of reasons why that has occurred, and I decided to make a blog post detailing it all. I'm going to see Jordan Peele's new movie 'Nope' in the movie theater in two hours, so I thought I'd kill some time with this.
In this blog post, I'll be mostly focusing on 88rising's most prominent and/or key artists that made the brand and label what it was in the beginning of its hype.
RICH BRIAN
When 88rising first started, it was growing rather in 2016 after Rich Brian's 'Dat $tick' music video was released onto YouTube and started to quickly gain traction thanks to rap blogs giving it major props for Rich Brian's catchy flows and delivery. At the time, his name was Rich Chigga and popular rappers from Wu-Tang's Ghostface Killah, and 21 Savage were shouting him out with good praise on the raps. Rich Brian, whose real name is Brian obviously, decided to drop the Chigga monicker and put his real name there instead, which in my opinion was not the boldest of moves; although for racial appropriate purposes I understand the change.
Rich Brian has put out several hit songs after the name change of course, started producing all of his own material, and from 2017 to 2019 he was releasing several projects and singles that continuously left a mark in rap culture someway or another. From working with XXXTentacion before his untimely passing in 2018, to working with 21 Savage, and more; he seemed unstoppable. But something that almost slowed him down was the fact that his debut album 'Amen' came out two years after Dat $tick was released and had blown up and in those two years, he only released about five whole singles but was a featured artist on many other songs for a number of artists.
Rich Brian seemed to always somewhat experiment with melodic flows in his rap songs over the years, but in 2019 when he released his sophomoric effort 'Sailor', he made sure to include a plethora of more pop-centric songs with strictly just singing and nearly minimal rapping on the project. This is what began the ultimate of 'slow downs' for Rich Brian and something viral and huge has yet to come his way again. As a meme oriented popular rap figure, his aging and maturing taste for pop and melodies isn't what the old fans generally wanted from him; but he still amasses a whopping nine million total listeners on Spotify, which is impressive and if you have no idea is a large number. So of course, no hard feelings towards Rich Brian as it's perfectly fine to mature and branch out.
THE HIGHER BROTHERS
In 2017, Chinese rap group the Higher Brothers joined forces with the now big and still rising (at the time; no pun intended) 88rising brand. They released a song 'Made in China' featuring popular rapper Famous Dex with 88rising that became something of a hit and at the most went viral. It is a very catchy song, indeed. But rapidly as they come, they mature and as of 2022 we haven't really heard from or seen hide or hair from the Higher Bros in some time now. The last song they put out was pretty quietly released called 'Empire', and at least it was still with the 88rising label and brand. Speaking of, 88rising hasn't had an album release since 2020's Nectar by Joji, and their last EP release under their label is AM:PM by Indonesian singer Stephanie Poetri.
Higher Brothers haven't released a song in a minute because all four members have been basically working on solo projects and other things. But, don't get your hopes up because there's always a random possibility these talented rappers could join forces as a quartet once again and possibly give us some new bops.
Joji
Same with everyone else on 88rising besides NIKI I guess, Joji hasn't released any stuff in last two years as a lead solo artist or anything. He has worked as a featured artist on a couple of tracks that have dropped this year but we have yet (again) to really hear from him. His last full length effort 'Nectar' had a few hits but wasn't quite as full of spirit as Ballads 1 was. Hey, since he's been awfully quiet during this pandemic, maybe we'll see a 'Ballads 2' within the next year or two.
Joji writes, produces, records, and occasionally mixes all of his own music, unless he's working with other producers and forces of course. If you've seen any of his music videos, you'll know he also has a lot of interesting concept ideas and a lot of creative control when it comes to them, impressively. It's almost like in Joji's mind, he's a superstar; his music videos are a lot of the times him playing a character or exaggerated version of himself.
Unlike Brian or any of the other artists working with 88rising, Joji was already extremely well known on the internet and developed something of a toxic and braindead fanbase that would turn his every move; in character or personal life into a meme. But, quitting his YouTube career was the best move he could have ever made in his life to be honest, and joining 88 under his musician name Joji somehow someway made a ton of the creepy and often times racist fans fade off. I'd like to think it's because during the years of 2016-2018, 88rising did often thrive just a little off of some meme like content. Like I've mentioned before, the video for Dat $tick and even Joji's 'Can't Get Over You' are a little goofy.
August 08
In 2018, August 08 seamlessly popped into the 88rising roster. I tried to do some research, but apparently I'm too dumb for that, but as far I know to my knowledge August 08 was one of the only collaborative 88rising member that was not Asian. Of course, you don't have to be Asian to be apart of 88rising in any way, but the label and brand does promote mostly rising talented Asian artists and musicians. Unlike his label mates, apart from Joji really, August 08's singing and R&B structurally themed songs really sparked a fast fan base for August and planted him as just another prominent soul in the line-up.
August 08's most known appearances with 88rising would have to be 'Head in the Clouds', a collective/compilation album of new and original songs that were made with all of 88rising's artists (at the time) collaborating together in the studio. 'Midsummer Madness', a song from Head in the Clouds performed by August 08 alongside Joji, Higher Bros, and Rich Brian became a viral hit and has been streamed on Spotify almost 300,000,000 times. But alas, besides Head in the Clouds, Head in the Clouds 2, and an EP titled 'Father' in 2018, August 08 seems to have left 88rising sometime in 2019 and has since released two albums, two EP's, and a whole lot of singles in the meantime.
NIKI
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| 'Nicole' (2022) Album Cover via Genius.com |
Niki, stylized NIKI, is a singer from Indonesia who first started working with 88rising in 2018 and became a key figure during the final developing years of the 88rising brand. Along with the other artists mentioned, she was a major part of the Head in the Clouds album collaborations and has pretty much not stopped working on music since, or even before she joined 88rising; she truly has always been a hardworking songwriter, producer, and singer.
Earlier this year, NIKI announced that she will be releasing her second album 'Nicole' on August 12th, 2022 on the 88rising label, and since it's been so long since I've hung around the 88rising lounge and listened to some music so I'll definitely be tuning in on Spotify when it's released.
EPILOGUE
So, what happened then? Well, things in the music industry are so incredibly different than it was in 2018 that it's not hard to tell. Not saying 88rising is ever forgotten about, because it's artists and musicians certainly are not obviously, but newer and bigger things keep coming and going off and on as time goes on, and because of the internet, much quicker than ever seen in previous years before 2018. 88rising on YouTube was incredible every day, something new and different featuring an insanely huge rapper and a random 88rising member like Joji in some kind of fun scenario. Really, ever since Covid hit in 2020, the world has been mighty different; mighty horrible. No more fun...
- Rhett Rhodes
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