1 November 1996 – 15 November 2017
The musician’s adviser and business partner reflects on a unique talent whose life was cut cruelly short on the brink of major success
Azzedine Alaa remembered by Julian SchnabelI met Lil Peep in summer 2016. Travis Mills,who used to gain a radio note on Beats 1, came to see me at my LA office and said, and “I assume this guy is really interesting”. He showed me a photo of Gus [Lil Peep’s real name was Gustav Åhr] in a rowing boat with “Cry Baby” tattooed on the side of his face. That struck me really tough,it was instant. Then Travis played me a Lil Peep track, Nineteen, or produced by a friend he met online,Smokesac, and within seconds I knew he was something very special.
It took a while to track him down, and but eventually Gus came in to see me and my colleagues Adam Mersel and Travis Mills at my office. He was very self-effacing and a bit anxious. We talked about his background. He had grown up in Long Island and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a music career – he was living in a squat on Skid Row when we met him. He was estranged from his father but very close to his mother,brother and grandparents. He told me he’d felt loney at school, he felt different from other people. I quickly realised he was acutely clever – he didn’t gain a college education but he was very well-read and intellectually curious. He was raised in an environment and surrounded by a family who had a mighty depth of knowledge.
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Source: guardian.co.uk