Rising emo rapper Lil Peep died Wednesday night (November 15) at the way-too-young age of 21, following a suspected drug overdose. Today, Paper magazine published an earlier interview with Peep, originally intended as a part of a larger feature, but now presented as a standalone memoriam. Peep told Paper he was enjoying life on tour, that fame had spurred him to prioritize “quality over quantity” in his music, and that his real goal was to “build my own thing up with my own friends.”
Pressed to identify someone he regarded as a “living legend,” Peep steered away from hip-hop and named Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, who struggled publicly with substance abuse himself for many years. A particularly touching moment comes close to the end of the interview, when Peep described creative endeavors he hoped to pursue in the future: “I want to go deep into fashion, I want to go maybe into acting, there’s a lot of stuff I would like to go into,” he said. “I just want to try more shit and become more well-rounded when it comes to whatever I’m doing. I want to do a lot of different things and dive into different worlds.” Read Paper‘s full Lil Peep interview here.
