When a posthumous “collaboration” called “Falling Down” between late rappers Lil Peep and XXXTentacion was released earlier this month, it caused some consternation among Peep’s fans and former associates. Peep had cowritten the song with iLoveMakonnen in 2017, and XXXTentacion added his vocals sometime in the seventh months between Peep’s death and his own. There was apparently some tension between the two young men while they were alive, and a member of Peep’s GothBoiClique said Peep “explicitly rejected XXX for his abuse of women.” If you’re a Peep fan who was eager for more music from him but similarly turned off by XXX’s presence on “Falling Down,” good news: there’s now a full official version of the track that contains none of his vocals.
This version, released today, is called “Sunlight on Your Skin”—its original title, dating back to when it was a Peep/Makonnen collab. A leaked version of the original track has existed online for a while, but this one is much higher fidelity, with a crisper vocal sound and the same slick Mike WiLL Made-It co production that ended up on “Falling Down.”
It’s unclear whether backlash to “Falling Down” was a factor in the decision to release “Sunlight on Your Skin.” Makonnen mentioned his intention to release the original in an interview with XXL on the day of “Falling Down” was released, but the song was already being roundly criticized at that point. “If Lil Peep was alive, and me and Peep are friends, and I guess I can speak for Lil Peep since it’s our project together, I would say that we would be very open to talking with whoever and to making any sort of creative things happen,” Makonnen said in response to the criticism in the XXL interview. In any case, you can hear “Sunlight on Your Skin” below.
