Steve 'Flash' JuonTo be honest the future time I heard “Till I Die” I thought it was a Future song.
He doesn’t look Nayvadius though does he? Let’s back things up a bit. Ian O’Neill Smith b/k/a ian (no caps) seemed like a preppy dude just looking at the cover of “Goodbye Horses.” I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but he himself chose this cover art, and my perception of him based on it was surprisingly accurate. He actually attended a private prep school in Dallas growing up, and went on to Clemson where he played rugby (kinda like football, kinda not). You’d have thought with that background he’d go on to be a doctor, a lawyer, a politician — pretty much anything other than a rap star. You’d be wrong.
I don’t know anything about his personal life that’s not in his bio, but I’m going to hazard a guess he was a rap fan from a young age. As the release of home studio software democratized the process of getting in the game, and websites like SoundCloud gave people a platform to show off their work, ian saw a lane to pursue his childhood dreams opening up. He decided to chase it and may have even been surprised by how quickly he succeeded — going from an unknown to having viral songs on TikTok to having Marshawn Lynch cameo in his “Figure It Out” video. He blew up hella fast. And here he is doing a track with Chief Keef called “Shit Sad” on his second full length album. I never saw him play rugby but if he was this adept at it too he should’ve gone pro.
Congratulations to ian and all that, but I’m not here to suck his dick, as I’m sure he’s got plenty of groupies who can do that for him. It’s not a problem for a white boy from a prep school who played rugby to become a rap star — it’s a problem if he doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Listening to “Goodbye Horses” I want to hear something that makes him stand out and I don’t. He’s another in a long line of generic AutoTune rappers who want to be Future but aren’t. His lyrics on songs like “Loco” aren’t bringing anything unique to the game either.
“I get pieces shipped straight to my front do’
I don’t shop at store front no mo’
Two bad hoes at my hotel, no
I cannot stop for photo
Brand new Bugatti, no trunk
Every time he try it, no luck
Every time we high, roll more
Shorty way too hot, loco”
He smokes a lot, he fucks a lot, he spends a lot of money. Stop me where you hear something you haven’t heard every other rapper in the genre say, black or white. He’s got producers who can make it sound slick as grease, like sxprano lacing “Till I Die” or “End Up Gone,” but that just means he also SOUNDS like everybody else too. The more people who get into rap, the more homogeneous rap sounds. Nobody takes a risk. They just do whatever the last person to go viral did that worked. ian is no different.
I don’t hate ian nor do I hate “Goodbye Horses.” I’m just bored with it. A white preppy kid who raps like Future should have been more… different. Some people are going to knock him for his obviously plush backstory. I certainly didn’t have the kind of parents who could afford to send me to a prep school or pay my way through college. I’m not hating him for that. I just wanted him to surprise me. Here’s this young kid who looks like nobody else in the game, who could have done virtually anything with his life but chose to be a rapper… and then he’s just a pale imitation (no pun intended) of every Georgia rapper you know. He just doesn’t stand out.