Boys

Some artists bond over shared ambitions; $uicideboy$ promised each other they’d end their own lives if they couldn’t make it in music.

Formed in 2014 by New Orleanian cousins Aristos Petrou (Ruby da Cherry) and Scott Arceneaux ($crim), the group mixes the grindhouse trap of early Three 6 Mafia with the anthemic release of 2010s emo-rap: feel-good music for people who feel real, real bad (and kinda like it).

Morbid as it is, the material can also be funny, albeit in an irony-poisoned kind of way: In one memorable line from “Paris,” Petrou raps, “Ruby was a motherfucking reject/Then I cut my wrists, and now I motherfucking bleed checks.” They’ve described the project as therapy and treat it as such—self-releasing music at an almost continuous clip and developing a cultlike fanbase along the way.