The specters of XXXTentacion and Lil Peep, two young rappers who passed away over the past year, are making the rounds on the internet in the form of a new single, “Falling Down.”
The John Cunningham-produced ‘collaboration,’ which was put together posthumously, features a guitar-driven melody over which Peep bares his emo influences: “Come, let’s watch the rain as it’s falling down / Sunlight on your skin when I’m not around,” he wails like a tattooed frontman of a pop punk band.
X joins in on the verse, but it’s his spoken interlude that will send shivers down your spine. “His name will live, brother. If I would have known he was so cool, and it’s like, yo, if I would have watched interviews sooner, bro, we were so alike.”
The track was initially titled “Sunlight on Your Skin,” and was meant to be a collab between Peep and ILoveMakonnen. But when X wrapped his ears around a snippet, after Peep had died, he wanted in.
“[X] ended up passing away, and his mom and his family were reaching out to Peep’s management and everybody [was] saying the song was something that [X] was very passionate about before he passed and he would really like to be a part of this and [asked] if we could make this happen,” ILoveMakonnen told XXL.
Listen to “Falling Down” here: