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Artist News
Further details emerge surrounding death of Lil Peep
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 21 November 2017
Further details have emerged about the circumstances surrounding the death of rapper Lil Peep last week.
As previously reported, the rapper, real name Gustav Åhr, was found dead on his tour bus after an apparent drugs overdose. Aged just 21, he had posted several video and images on Instagram shortly before his death appearing to show him taking drugs, including Xanax.
On Friday, Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that that the rapper died of a suspected drugs overdose, but said that it could take up to eight weeks for toxicology results to corroborate this.
Meanwhile, a new article on TMZ, citing the police report about Åhr’s death, says that the musician had decided to take a nap before his show in Tuscon, Arizona and never woke up. A member of his team is said to have checked on him after he went to sleep at around 5.45pm. He is said to have been breathing normally at that time. Later he was found to be unresponsive. Next to him were several Xanax pills, marijuana and an unknown powder.
Drug use and depression were frequent topics in Lil Peep’s music, which led some to speculate that he had intentionally taken his own life.
But in an interview with People last week, the rapper’s older brother Karl Åhr refuted this, saying that these claims are based on a character created by his brother, when in reality he was “super happy”. He added that his family believes that the pills he was taking were laced with a substance the rapper was not expecting.
“We have heard there was some sort of substance he did not expect to be involved in the substance he was taking”, said Karl Åhr. “He thought he could take what he did, but he had been given something and he didn’t realise what it was. [He] was not struggling. It was an accident, it really was an accident. He was super happy with where he was in life”.
He added that his brother’s on-stage persona had been an act, saying: “He gets paid to be sad. It’s what he made his name on. It’s what his image was in a sense. He was so proud when he heard that there were people in the world who wanted to kill themselves, and then they didn’t because they listened to his music. He was helping people, he was not somebody who needed help. He was not as sad as people think he was. It’s frustrating as someone who remembers a happy brother”.
“My brother didn’t take five Xanax pills every day, but he would take them and then post on Instagram about it”, he added. “I wish it would have paid for him to be a little safer, but the world needed him to have superlative problems that he dealt with in superlative ways. Gus dealt with these problems much better than Lil Peep did, but people didn’t know Gus, and there’s a reason Gus doesn’t sell”.
Karl also added that, while his brother had been a casual cannabis smoker prior to his hip hop career, his drug use had increased as he had become more involved in the music industry.
A ‘Rest In Peep’ charity pop-up shop is set to open in an undisclosed LA location this Wednesday in memory of the rapper. Money raised from merch sales at the event will be donated to the Åhr’s mother and the MusiCares Foundation.
