RYL0: Her take on the Post-Internet Genre of Hyperpop Maya Elimelech + Natalie Serratos

R Y L O

Writing by Maya Elimelech

HER TAKE ON THE POST-INTERNET GENRE OF HYPERPOP

Off to the side of Sunset Boulevard, in the middle of 5 o’clock traffic, RYL0 and I were sitting at an overpriced vegan café trying to understand each other over the roar of motorcycles with no mufflers and semi-trucks avoiding the freeway. RYL0 is a Los Angeles based producer, singer and hyperpop musician who has been quickly gaining traction in the hyperpop scene. I have been curious about hyperpop ever since I heard my first 100 Gecs song, and at times didn’t know what to make of it. She looked as sick as ever, wearing a pair of iconic platform hot pink boots and a sparkly pink mask. She laughed as I asked to describe the genre of hyperpop. She started me off with an expectedly subversive introduction: “For me, hyperpop is a weird space to exist in because it’s a liminal space: it’s not really real. We’re in a post genre era of music and there is no real reason to still cling to genre. Hyperpop itself is a genre of the post genre era.”

Fair. Hyperpop, PC music, or whatever other name you would like to call it is a new movement in music that has emerged out of the playlist environment of the internet age. It is geared toward a new generation that grew up with memes and a tolerance for the absurd. Upon first listen, many would find hyperpop borderline unlistenable, with its grating metallic sounds and unconventional lyrics that make it so different from past genres of music in style and content. This results in one of hyperpop’s perhaps most distinguishing feature: its demographic, which is mostly young and queer with a very specific aesthetic. Its subversive nature seems to attract subversive people, not bound to the traditional conventions of genre and of being. Some of the most prolific hyperpop artists include Charlie XCX, 100 Gecs, and SOPHIE (may she rest in peace). Although it is easy to try to categorize hyperpop as a genre, many artists in the community reject the attempt at classification as an old-world restriction.

This all started to make sense to me as I virtually sat down with Kevin Lyman, a professor of modern music at USC, who helped me better understand some of the foundations of hyperpop and what it speaks to within the collective. From his sunlit balcony, he told me that the internet has turned the entire music-distribution model on its head, especially through genres like hyperpop.

“It used to be that once something got commercial radio play, it got big. There will be a lot of artists that gravitate towards that, because it’s a very eclectic mix of music. So a lot of people can fall into that category,” he said. “It’s about who kinda owns that music at that point. Music keeps moving forward. Scenes move forward much more quickly because now things can catch on so

quickly from a playlist if it gains speed.” The music industry as we know it is collapsing because it relies on categories that might no longer be relevant in a world where online music trading has become culturally more important than simply what is playing on the radio. Power thus moves to the people, the producers, the musicians who no longer need a big label to achieve notoriety.

More than ever before, the constraints on what risks can be taken in music are being lifted because there is not as big of a need to adhere to the idea of what labels say music should sound like. “[Hyperpop] is like listening to a Spotify playlist but all pushed into one song. We used to follow a category, and a lot of times it was harder to drift into something else,” Lyman continued. “But now, it’s only a playlist away. ... There [are] EDM elements, there [are] pop elements, there [are] hip-hop elements. This is attracting a subset of people who are looking for something new. … It’s music that’s breaking the algorithm...It’s taking the best elements of three worlds, pushing them together with a person with an open mind that is willing to decipher it.”

If you’ve never listened to RYL0’s music it’s somewhere between an ultra-fem space dimension and some sort of futuristic cyber world. Her new single, “Rat Race,” embodies the spirit of hyperpop, with tuned up chipmunk-esque vocals, disjointed snares, unexpected samples and an unadulterated value in excess that transports the listener somewhere else. “I think the best way to enjoy my music is to fully allow yourself to let your imagination run wild. Because it is immersive and I want it to feel like it is taking you somewhere. I want people to feel

like they are suddenly completely experiencing a different universe,” she added as a loud plane flew overhead.

“Rat Race” is the first single in which she is signed to a distribution company, and the song recently made it onto the “Hyperpop” playlist on Spotify, an important type of recognition within this new world of playlist culture. “Rat Race” transports us to a world where we feel like we’re walking through a maze, overly expressing how it feels to be trapped in the tangle of the music industry in a very maximalist hyperpop way. She describes her journey breaking free from that cycle: “you’ve got a taste for what other people curate, I don’t like them thinking big brother hates me … it kinda sounds like you’re running a rat race, but I’m a snake so it’s more of a snack race.”

Some people still struggle with how to “decipher” hyperpop. You might get closer by connecting it back to its roots in genre, starting with the most obvious in electronic dance music (EDM). Some of RYL0’s own influences include Porter Robinson and Odesza for their high-production worldbuilding sets. RYL0 tells me that this connection is by design; hyperpop and dance music are inherently connected in their ingenuity. “I feel like it’s an easy way to bundle a bunch of different sounds that previously might be called ‘avant garde’ or perhaps ‘experimental,’ or ‘alternative’ in terms of the approaches to both dance music and pop,” she said. “I think hyperpop, first and foremost, is electronic.” With EDM recently entering the mainstream, it makes sense that this would open up a door for subgenres such as hyperpop to gain a larger audience within recent years.

Some of RYL0’s favorite artists to listen to when she was younger were also punk rock figures such as My Chemical Romance and Paramore. I asked her how this connection pertains to her music, and what it says about genre as a whole: “it’s very much taking this f*ck your labels kind of attitude that applies to all aspects of life, and just moving it into the music. So it’s obviously not punk [in a] very clear, musical way, but I think the mentality is very similar to what 90’s punk could’ve been like. It’s definitely depolarizing in the same way…”

It seems an unlikely combination, EDM and punk rock, but it does make sense considering that these two genres are rooted in rebellion against the mainstream and societal expectations. EDM and punk rock have both also historically attracted disenfranchised groups of people, a merge that is clearly reflected amongst hyperpop fans. Hyperpop

tends to attract a very fluid audience, particularly speaking, LGBTQ+ listeners. In addition, many of the artists within the community are queer, trans or nonbinary. I asked RYL0 what she thinks about this connection. “I think that this level of access is allowing us, the newer generation, to continuously redefine ourselves simply because we can. You can tie that back to gender and you can tie that back to sexuality,” she said. “There are no certain ways or rules to be hyperpop. It’s just kind of throwing everything at the wall and being loud, being noisy, being fast and being fun. I think all of those things are things that completely directly relate to especially queer audiences,” she said.

“I grew up a scene/emo kid and I really liked pop punk. I feel like I search for that same type of energy in music,” devout hyperpop fan Joyce Ni expressed to me over Zoom stat-

Model Lauryn Henry (RYL0)

ic in her childhood bedroom. “It made me feel very hyped, very alive, and it was also a type of adrenaline rush. So I understand why I like hyperpop so much, because it makes me feel the same way.” There are now countless hyperpop playlists on Spotify, and new artists gaining popularity seemingly by the week. “I feel like, especially during quarantine, this genre exploded,” she told me. “With the help of TikTok it became a huge thing... I was supposed to see 100 Gecs in May, but then it got canceled because of [COVID-19]. [They] still did a bunch of these Minecraft shows, so I would go and be in the virtual mosh pits, so I did engage virtually.” In these shows, fans could log into a server for the public to see artists like Kero Kero Bonito and Dorian Electra from the comfort of their bedrooms. From Minecraft raves to Discord chats, hyperpop has found a definite home to thrive within the online world. In a way, that would not have been possible without the abrupt and necessary shift into the cybersphere brought by COVID-19.

A collective shift to an online environment has impacted more than just our social lives: our environment shapes and influences our taste in music. The virtual shift has changed the type of music we are drawn to and are willing to listen to, shifting us away from our physical communities into sometimes better fitting online communities. Leaning over the table, RYL0 told me, “At first, I felt super disconnected and I didn’t really have any ins and outs of the [online] community. I didn’t really have any friends or peers, and then I created a Twitter persona for RYL0 and all of a sudden, I felt connected.” “Rat Race” could not have been created without the online PC music (hyperpop) community and the collaborativeness within it.

In this unconventional story of the internet age, RYL0 describes having found the producer of her new song within an online Twitter forum, where a user named Goodbyex2002 was giving out beats on the timeline. “‘Rat Race’ is the first song that I ever released as RYL0 that I didn’t produce myself. It was produced by my friend, Evan, who I met on Twitter, and he goes by Goodbyex2002…I had something I didn’t know what to do with, he had something he didn’t know what to with, and we ended up with one of my favorite pieces, one of my favorite songs and my best received song.” This story might have sounded unfeasible 15 years ago, but this is not at all uncommon within the new internet era of music production. In fact, the famous hyperpop duo, 100 Gecs, worked almost completely remotely for the first 5 years that they made music, never meeting each other in person.

The sun was setting over our Echo Park café, and I suddenly realized I needed a jacket. Nonetheless, I braved it out with my $4 oat milk latte and asked about RYL0’s journey in learning music production. Starting out as a kind of alternative, rave-loving acapella kid at a conservative high school (definitely a vibe), she would arrange songs using only her voice as an instrument. She told me about how she auditioned for a solo with “a prearranged vocal track of just [her] singing on top of [herself] to ‘Enjoy the Ride’ by Krewella.” That sets the scene to some of her musical foundation. But now, she, like Clairo, Charli XCX and others, has been producing primarily on GarageBand. “It’s been good to be using Garageband, with it being so accessible. It’s been really good for helping me find my sound with truly no stakes attached whatsoever,” she said. As of late, she’s been getting more into sample packs

and utilizing other tools that artists lend, such as Splice, leaning into the nitty gritty details of being a more advanced producer.

Free platforms and YouTube production tutorials have recently opened the door for producers who are not wealthy white males, but instead include a growing number of BIPOC, female and nonbinary people of all economic backgrounds. Still, only 2% of producers are female, and less than one percent are Black women — making it more important than ever to support and promote talented Black women within the scene.

“Creature,” RYL0’s summer 2020 project, delves into some of her experiences as a Black woman. This is one of her only projects that explores political issues. She said she prefers the

approach of just being herself and having that be the work that inspires and speaks to people who look like her. RYL0 told me how important it was for her to see Meet Me at the Altar, an all-female-identifying POC punk band, exploring a subgenre where Black people are hugely underrepresented. “[Meet Me at the Altar] had just got signed to Fueled by Ramen, which is the same label that Paramore came up on ... I think they’re an all-female-identifying band, a POC Black pop punk band, and I’m like, ‘where was this when I was nine?’ So I’ve been listening to a lot of them lately,” she said. In perhaps her most emotional project, “Rebirth of a Nation,” RYL0 delves into some of the complex emotions surrounding being Black in America and speaking to the movement that we presently find ourselves in.

back because of how political and tense the times have been, and people are looking to hold onto something. [Over] the last couple [of] years, you always wanted to be in some other world than the one we were in.” RYL0 definitely does a bit of both, which can also be tied back to hyperpop as a whole.

We truly are blessed to live in a time where we are watching history unfold through our desire to change the status quo and the accepted ways of existing in society. RYL0 is one of those people who is pushing us toward this future. At this point, the sky was a dark gray and headlights darted back and forth across the brick wall beside us as they passed. I asked her what her next step as an artist would be, to which she responded, “I would love to find a manager. … I’ve been doing an impossible amount of work on my own, so it would definitely be a huge milestone.” Coinciding with her own rise in notoriety, we might see hyperpop enter the mainstream further within the next couple of years. Artists like RYL0 are mirroring the chaotic but freeing nature of our times and our capacity to reinvent ourselves and grow. With the internet facilitating a new era of self-expression, niches like hyperpop will continue to emerge faster than ever before. I know one day soon we’ll be looking at something else completely revolutionary and groundbreaking. I just wonder how.

Maya Elimelech is a student at the University of Southern California currently pursuing a degree in Creative Writing.

Natalie Serratos is a Chicago-born and Los Angeles-based photographer who specializes in editorial photography. She enjoys picking out eccentric outfits, doing unique makeup looks, and implementing colorful lighting and backdrops into her shoots. Natalie studies Film Production at the University of Southern California.

RYL0’S top 5 favorite artists right now:

Charli XCX Jean Dawson Rina Samayama

Chloe X Halle

Danny L Hare

Hyperpop artists to get you started:

Sophie 100gecs Dorian Electra Oli XL RYL0