Rise to Fame
Crybaby and Hellboy, both recorded and released in 2016, weren't supposed to work. Sampling Avenged Sevenfold and Pierce the Veil over trap beats was a collision nobody had programmed, but the SoundCloud underground picked it up immediately. A Pitchfork profile in January 2017 calling him 'the future of emo' cracked him open to a broader audience. His debut studio album Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 1 dropped in August 2017. Three months later, he was dead.
In the Spotlight
His estate kept moving after he died. Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 2, completed from unfinished recordings, hit #4 on the Billboard 200 in 2018. A collaboration with XXXTentacion called 'Falling Down' peaked at #13 on the Hot 100 (both artists dead before it charted). His mother filed a lawsuit in 2019 against his management company alleging they actively supplied him with drugs to keep him working. It settled in February 2023. The biggest commercial moment of his career arrived after he was gone.
Side Notes
His parents both graduated from Harvard. His father was a Swedish professor, which gave him dual citizenship. His maternal grandfather taught Latin American history at Harvard and wrote the standard academic study on Emiliano Zapata. Gustav Elijah Ahr graduated high school six months early, made the dean's list at Nassau Community College, then dropped out for music. His mother had been calling him 'Peep' since he was a baby. The stage name was the one thing that stayed simple.
Final Chapter
A toxicology report confirmed accidental fentanyl and alprazolam overdose. His face was projected onto the House of Commons in London on December 2, 2017. The 60th Grammy Awards included him in the In Memoriam segment. A feature documentary, Everybody's Everything, followed in 2019.