"SoundCloud rap," a subgenre based around a group of emcees who blew up on the SoundCloud platform, is a title that grows to have less meaning as the primary figures of the movement continue to evolve. However, there is still much dispute over who can lay claim to pioneering the influential subgenre. Recently, South Florida's Smokepurpp made a casual, possibly sarcastic claim that he "birthed" the SoundCloud rap generation, to which Denzel Curry pointed him towards the Florida Raider Klan movement led by SpaceGhostPurrp.
This week, there's yet another disagreement following Lil Pump's statement that he, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty, XXXTentacion, Ski Mask The Slump God, and Smokepurpp started the "whole SoundCloud rapper shit... No one was being called SoundCloud rappers until we came out."
With no hard feelings expressed, UnoTheActivist took issue with Pump's claim. "I love pump but this is ALL CAP," he wrote on Twitter. "I started this SoundCloud shit with the likes of a few artist, it’s not a competition when everybody eating but if it’s facts to be said then *I nvr stood in line before*"
As XXL points out, Uno was indeed active on SoundCloud prior to Lil Pump, posting his first song about a year before the South Florida rapper. However, that doesn't necessarily settle the debate, as Pump seems to be defining his argument by which rappers were called by the title first. Either way, it's clear that both rappers played a role in how the genre eventually built itself up to what it is today.
Uno and Pump each appear on our list of the Top 25 SoundCloud Rap Songs Of All Time.
Uno shared his EP Limbus Pt. 1 on SoundCloud, as well as other platforms in June. Listen to it here.
