People aren’t shocked anymore. We’ve seen everything. No one winces at face-tatted rappers on Instagram toting weapons or throwing stacks of hundreds into an open pool filled with half-naked women. Been there. Done that. 

Yet we’ve never seen a boy scout turn into the most provocative artist of his generation. Joshua Hamilton, known as Lil Darkie, is a visual and recording artist who masquerades as a cartoon eerily reminiscent of the disturbing Hawley and Hazel toothpaste mascot—a meme straight from the bowels of 4Chan. 

For Joshua, the idea for the character came after an intense acid trip in which he glimpsed himself in the mirror and saw all the color drain from his skin. Joshua says this resemblance to any racist caricature was a coincidence and never intentional. “Look me in my fucking eyes,” he said in a video interview with Kult Klassic, “If you look at this guy and you think that’s what a Black person looks like, I think you are racist, and you have been brainwashed, and that’s why I’m doing this.”

Before he was a hip-hop firebrand, Joshua was a high school boy scout in California. Life at home, he says, was picturesque. Yet outside the house, Joshua was the frequent target of racial bullying. When Joshua began attending film school, there was an issue with the administration—the catalytic event isn’t clear—that led to him dropping out and creating Lil Darkie, the personification of his internal anguish. 

In the Kult Klassic interview, he gave a glimpse into what happened. “There were people who supported me for years, but there is no room for honors kids to fuck up. I was in the middle of those worlds, people didn’t know what to do with me.” Ever since, the honors student turned internet musician has been steadily releasing music under his moniker and gaining a cult-like fanbase on platforms like SoundCloud and TikTok. 

[We Played 6ix9ine Out Loud in New York to See What Would Happen]

Lil Darkie’s first taste of success began in July 2019 when his breakout single “Holocaust” was released to the dismay of well...everyone. As a Jew who grew up attending an Orthodox Jewish day school, I should have been offended by the title or at least the cover art, which depicted the Lil Darkie cartoon dressed boisterousily in an Axis uniform. At first, I was. 

But once the shock subsided, I found myself nodding along for nearly the entire ten minute barrage of somersaulting triplet flows and dizzying infinite verses. When you grew up on XXXTentacion and Lil Pump, Lil Darkie sonically fits into that family tree—he is an outgrowth of the movement which began in early 2014 with SpaceGhostPurpp and Odd Future. 

“Holocaust” itself sounds similar to other no-melody bangers that have gone viral in past years, in both content and delivery, such as “Look At Me” by X. Yet Lil Darkie’s music wasn’t as simple or straightforward as hits like “Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang”—underneath the vulgarity was a layer of surprising thought. “When I started putting negativity outside myself instead of inside, I become more positive,” he said. The incendiary images in his music, he claimed, were his way of releasing his anger so it didn’t lead to violence, and in lashing out against a system that tried to put him down.

“Holocaust” should have remained an underground curiosity on SoundCloud. Yet the sheer absurdity of its existence attracted hordes of viewers on YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes, who noticed the parallels between Joshua’s style and Tyler The Creator, an artist who also used music as an outlet for his angst. Yet by directly positioning himself as an antagonist against societal mills, it was only a matter of time before Lil Darkie collided head-on with the music industry. Eventually big platforms were going to have to address his rise and subsequent fame.

In mid-2019, Spotify temporarily removed his music and Instagram even blocked his account. Of course, their actions led to concerns over who exactly has the right to determine which songs are controversial and should be given a platform. After all, SoundCloud and Spotify pride themselves on being places which allow anyone to share their music; yet here was Lil Darkie—a mixed race and bisexual American named Joshua Hamilton—being removed from their sites because his art was deemed too disturbing. 

In a series of since deleted tweets, he said “plenty of art is offensive, that doesn’t mean it should be censored” and “I shouldn't have to water down or censor my perspective just to stay on a website.” He then went on further explaining that as a mixed-race Indian American, he didn’t identify with a particular race. “Race is not real,” he tweeted in early January of this year, “fuck you shut up, I’m really fucking tired of it.” 

Lil Darkie is not necessarily a grifter but he’s ideologically impossible to pin down—an American emblematic of our melting pot ideology who doesn’t cleanly fit into any particular category whether it’s social, sexual, political. I’ve had the chance to speak with Lil Darkie, and I can say that although I only knew him for a hour, (not that one can pretend to really know this engimatic artist who seemingly changes by the day), I got the sense that his intentions were wholesome, and that his character was his and his audience’s outlet to express their frustrations and animosities. “Everyone wants to be an individual but no one has the balls to actually do it,” he said. “That’s why I do this. People love it, so I like that I can be positive in peoples’ lives.”

[Industry Plant: The Decline and Fall of Kid Buu]

It was clear, too, that Joshua was stressed out. He mentioned he was reducing his drug intake and trying to clear his mind. I can understand that—becoming the nexus of angst for wanton figures across the internet brings with it a lot of pressure. I got the sense that the fame that comes with taking on “the system” at large, whether it be through music or politics, can be draining. It’s not easy to be known as a villain—especially if inside you harbor a more positive soul.

Since his rise, Joshua followed in the foosteps of other young phenoms like X, Tyler, and Peep, and created his own music group, Spider Gang, which is is made up of Wendigo, Cxrpse, BRUHMANEGOD, Lil Cubensis, Christ Dillinger, AFourteen, & others, who all compliment Lil Darkie’s sensationalist brand of internet depravity. Yet one thing is clear—they orbit Darkie, who, like X, Tyler, and Peep, carries his group forward as the frontman.

Since the death of Lil Peep and XXXTentacion, and following the imprisonment of 6ix9ine, fans have been looking for the next generational artist to fill the void left by these artists. Lil Darkie, rather than trying to fill their space, has carved out a lane of his own. Today when you search his name, YouTube shadowbans his music, which has only heightened the mythos of his career.

Lil Darkie is clearly prodding a hornet’s nest with his inflammatory tweets, inciteful music, and eccentric persona, but when you’re not planning on becoming mainstream, you don’t worry about the repercussions. Yet against all odds—despite attempted bans, de facto cancellations, and obvious deplatformings, and maybe because of those things—Lil Darkie is becoming one of the biggest artists of this generation.