Chapter 83: Hope for the Rest of Us
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Michael entered his studio at ten in the morning. The air in the room still felt charged, dense, as if the manic energy of 'XO TOUR Llif3' from the day before was still bouncing off the padded walls.
He sat in his chair, but didn't turn on the monitors immediately.
His head was buzzing. 'XO' had been a scream of nihilism, a celebration of death and money. It had been exhausting.
Today he needed the opposite. He needed a palate cleanser. He needed calm.
He turned on the MacBook Pro. He looked at his calendar on the wall. Wednesday. The scheduled song was 'Hope'.
He remembered the original XXXTentacion song. It was short, bright, and painfully sincere. It was a song designed to lift the spirit, not sink it.
He summoned the System interface and opened the Shiloh Dynasty folder on his hard drive.
He had already used the first file for 'Jocelyn Flores', creating a masterpiece of static depression. Now, he selected the second file Harris's private investigator had obtained: Shiloh_Dynasty_Changes_Sample.wav.
He dragged it into Ableton. He hit play.
Shiloh's androgynous, acoustic voice filled his headphones. A hummed, soft, repetitive melody.
'Yeah... yeah...'
It was beautiful. But it was slow.
Michael got to work. Unlike 'Jocelyn', where he left the sample almost intact, here he needed to give it rhythm. He sped up the sample, raising the BPM (beats per minute) considerably. Shiloh's voice became a bit higher, more urgent.
'Yeah-yeah-yeah...'
Now it had energy.
He started building the drums. He didn't want the complexity of the 'XO' hi-hats. He wanted something that marked the pace, like a march.
He programmed a pattern of fast, dry claps instead of a heavy snare. Clap. Clap. Clap-clap. It gave it a sense of immediacy, of street music.
Then, the bass.
The 808 for 'Hope' was unique. It wasn't the clean sub-bass of 'White Iverson' nor the broken monster of 'Look At Me!'. Michael chose an 808 with a soft "fuzz" distortion. He mixed it low, way below the vocals, so it wasn't aggressive, but acted like a constant engine driving the song forward.
In an hour, the instrumental was ready. It was simple, repetitive, and strangely hopeful.
Michael took off his headphones and picked up his phone. Before writing the lyrics, he needed to remember why he was doing this.
He opened his Instagram DMs. He skipped over the promoter offers and groupie messages. He looked for the long messages. The blocks of text.
"Hi Mike. My best friend killed himself last week. Your music is the only thing helping me."
"I'm 15 and I feel like I'm not going to make it to 18. The world is fucked."
"I lost my brother to an overdose. Thanks for 'Drugs', it makes me feel like I understand him better."
Michael read dozens of them. Stories of lost kids, of lives ended too soon, of a generation that felt abandoned.
He realized that 'XO TOUR Llif3' was about his pain (money, his parents). But 'Hope' couldn't be about him. It had to be about them.
He decided this song wouldn't be a confession. It would be an offering. A direct message to all those kids writing to him in the dark.
He got up and walked toward the booth. He didn't carry a paper with lyrics. He knew what he had to say. It was time to give them some light.
Michael entered the recording booth. The space, which on Monday had been a torture chamber for the screams of 'XO TOUR Llif3', now felt different. It felt like a confessional. Or a sanctuary.
He put on the headphones. The beat he had just created played on a loop: the sped-up Shiloh Dynasty sample ('Yeah-yeah-yeah...') and the dry, steady claps.
He approached the Neumann microphone.
He knew what he had to do. He remembered the original XXXTentacion song. He remembered it started with a specific dedication to the victims of the Parkland shooting.
But in this universe, in 2016, that tragedy hadn't happened. And hopefully, it never would.
However, tragedy was everywhere. It was in the direct messages he had just read. It was in the boy who lost his brother to an overdose. In the girl who felt invisible. In the children dying in silence in hospital rooms or in their own beds, defeated by their own minds.
He decided to adapt the message. It wouldn't be for a news event. It would be for the silent war everyone was fighting.
He signaled with his hand toward the computer screen, even though no one was watching him, to mark the start for himself. He pressed record.
The beat started. Michael didn't sing immediately. He got very close to the microphone, speaking in a low, intimate, and solemn tone.
'Yeah...'
He left a space, breathing.
'Rest in peace to all the kids that lost their lives way too soon...'
His voice was soft, but it had gravitational weight. He wasn't acting. He was paying his respects.
'To the struggle... to the silence...'
He added that line impulsively. Silence was what killed.
'This song is dedicated to you.'
The dedication ended. The clapping pattern became more present. The energy of the song changed, becoming more rhythmic.
Michael started singing.
'Okay, she keep cryin', she keep cryin' every single night...'
Singing this, he didn't visualize a generic ex-girlfriend. He visualized the girl from his DMs, the one who told him she listened to his music so she wouldn't feel alone. He sang for her.
'Day and night, on my mind, please don't kill the vibe...'
His voice went up in pitch, melodic and clear. The Auto-Tune was set to be soft, just a slight digital sheen over his natural voice.
'Oh, no, swear to God, I be in my mind...'
He touched his temple with his free hand. The mental prison. He knew it well.
'Swear I wanna die, yeah, when you cross my...'
He let the word "mind" hang in the air for a second, letting the Shiloh sample fill the space before coming back in.
The first part was recorded. There was no rage in his voice, only a deep and weary understanding. He was singing from the perspective of someone standing on the edge, looking down, but looking for a reason not to jump.
The spoken dedication faded. The clapping pattern became more insistent, marking a faster rhythm.
Michael felt the energy shift in his headphones. He was no longer paying respects to the dead; now he had to speak to the living.
He grabbed the microphone stand. His posture changed. He stopped hunching and straightened up.
'Said I wanna die, yeah, no, I'm not alright, yeah...'
He sang the line with brutal honesty. He didn't try to soften it. Admitting you're not okay is the first step to surviving.
'I might start a riot, I'm so fuckin' tired...'
The word "tired" came out dragged, laden with the weight of months of keeping secrets, of pretending to be a normal teenager, of carrying the burden of his own future. He was tired of the fight.
But then, the song took a turn. The beat opened up.
Michael smiled. It was a tense, almost manic smile that no one could see in the darkness of the booth. It was time to put on the mask.
'So, so what you say? Feelin' good, I'm feelin' great...'
He sang this with a sarcastic, almost cheerful tone. It was the lie everyone told when someone asked "How are you?". I'm great. It was the ultimate defense mechanism.
'Tired of the fuckin' hate, stackin' cheese all on my plate...'
He thought of the critics. Of the local rappers who hated him. And he thought of his Ethereum account. "Stackin' cheese" (stacking money). That was his revenge. Success was the best way to silence the noise.
And then, the core of the song arrived. The thesis of his "Era 2".
Michael closed his eyes. Stopped thinking about the money. Stopped thinking about the haters. He thought about the future. About the possibility that, despite all the pain, there was a way out.
His voice rose, clear and powerful, the Auto-Tune giving it an angelic shine.
'So outside of my misery, I think I'll find...'
'A way of envisioning a better life...'
He sang with the conviction of a prophet. He had seen a better life. He was building it.
'For the rest of us, the rest of us...'
This line. "The rest of us". Not the popular ones. Not the winners. Not the ones who fit in. But the broken ones. The strange ones. His tribe.
'There's hope for the rest of us, the rest of us...'
He repeated the phrase, his voice filling the booth. He imagined a thousand people singing this back at a festival. He imagined Sarah in the hospital, listening to this. He imagined Victor.
It wasn't an empty promise. It was a lifeline thrown into the darkness.
He felt a shiver run down his spine. This wasn't a sad song disguised as a happy one. It was a protection spell.
The energy in the booth was electric. He had turned misery into an anthem.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 (Noon)
Michael repeated the chorus one last time, his voice floating over the dry clapping pattern.
'Okay, she keep cryin', she keep cryin' every single night...'
'Day and night, on my mind, please don't kill the vibe...'
He let the last word resonate, and then it cut off abruptly.
The song ended. It was short. Just one minute and fifty seconds.
Michael stood for a moment in the booth, eyes closed. He didn't feel the physical exhaustion 'XO TOUR Llif3' had left him. He felt... clean. He felt light.
He left the booth and sat in front of his computer.
The mixing was fast. This song didn't need psychedelic effects or massive distortion. It needed clarity.
He turned up the volume of the lead vocal. He wanted every word to be understood perfectly, for the message of survival not to be lost in production. He EQed the 808 to be warm and round, a sonic embrace instead of a hit.
He listened to the final result.
It was simple. It was repetitive. And it was beautiful.
He saved the file: Hope_Master.mp3.
He took off the Sennheiser headphones and left them on the desk. He sighed, but it was a sigh of satisfaction.
He thought about the difference between the two days.
Yesterday, with 'XO', he had channeled nihilism, money, and death. He had created a song to celebrate the end of the world.
Today, with 'Hope', he had created a song to survive the end of the world.
He knew this song wasn't going to be the number one club hit. It wasn't going to cause mosh pits. But he knew it was going to be the song kids would listen to alone in their rooms when they felt they couldn't go on. He knew this song would save lives.
And that, to him, was worth more than any royalty check.
He got up and walked to the calendar taped to the wall. Picked up the red marker.
Crossed out Wednesday.
He looked at what was coming. The factory didn't stop.
Thursday: 'Save That Shit'. The return to Lil Peep's melancholic trap. Friday: 'Gucci Gang'. The stupid and catchy viral bomb.
He smiled slightly. The tone shift for Friday was going to be brutal. From sincere hope to luxurious ignorance in 48 hours.
But that was the plan. Cover all bases. Be everything to everyone.
He turned off the monitor. The room went quiet.
"Two down," he said aloud. "Three to go."
He left the studio. He had the rest of the day off to rest his voice and prepare his mind for the next character.
Today he had been a saint. Tomorrow he would be a sinner again.