Hiphop has been the best selling genre in the last years and has already overtaken rock and pop by lengths. But once a genre is getting too commercialized, the art can fade. Ashton Traitor is making sure it doesn’t.

About two thirds of the current billboard charts incorporate elements of hiphop. It has become the sound of the mainstream, rappers and hiphop artists are the new pop stars. The downside of genres pushing into the forefront of commercialized music, is that the artists and labels adapt more and more to the audience, what once was art becomes a product, the same goes for the artist.

Ashton Traitor is taking a different approach. He is digital punk of today’s hiphop scene, or to be honest, if anything he is his very own scene. 

The young artist from Los Angeles doesn’t fit into the categories of any genre, he takes inspiration left and right and turns it into his very own outcome.

At a time where soundscapes are stagnating, newcomers are mostly the last newcomer’s best buddy who re-heats the same old flexing brew, this is much needed.

In order to evolve, genres and scenes need to be disrupted.

Unspoken rules, boundaries need to be broken and re-set. And that’s exactly what Ashton Traitor is doing. 

In 2017, he announced himself with his overnight hit ‘On My Own’. Ever since, the artist that still hides his face behind dyed hair and all sorts of masquerade has been a pioneer in the industry.

His mix of emo, trap and digital age merge into a very unique aesthetic, that especially younger fans understand well. He speaks their language, gives them somebody to identify with.

When he raps or sings about his pain or troubles, he is self-destructive and anti society. At the same time, we hear a lot of, what the German writer Jean Paul defined as “Weltschmerz”. A deep sadness about the imperfection of the world, feeling lost in society and an alien amongst humans.

The fact that he visualizes his aesthetics so well in his self-directed videos speaks for the bigger picture and vision that is behind his work. Even though it might look chaotic and extremely non conformist at first sight, Ashton Traitor knows exactly what he’s doing.