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The Next Big American Media Company

What is 88 Rising?

By Calder Amos-WoodPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Deviant Art (TLewi)

Formerly known as CXSHXNLY, 88 rising is an American multimedia company who has had increased brand recognition in the last year due to their booming record label. The brand has a very Eastern Influence which has helped them differentiate from their peers. The founder, Sean Miyashiro, has said that though music has made them very popular they are "really a media/video content focused company at heart."

Let's get into it.

The Record Label

As of February 2018, they have signed Keith Ape, the Higher Brothers, Joji, and Rich Brian (formerly Rich Chigga) to their record label. The superstar of the bunch has been Rich Brian who had the break out hit Dat $tick which has 65 000 000 Spotify streams and has just released (February 2nd, 2018) his debut project Amen.

Below Brian, you have Joji AKA. FilthyfrankTV AKA. Pink Guy AKA. George Miller. Joji released his debut EP In Tongues on November 3rd, 2017 which has gotten good reviews but has been criticized for being a lot of the same throughout the whole project.

Then you have the Higher Brothers which is made of 4 members, MaSiWei, DZknow, Psy.P and Melo. Their debut project came out in May of 2017 with features from Famous Dex and the last of the 4, 88 Rising rappers is Keith Ape.

Keith Ape is an unknown factor in all of this. With Rich Brian's recent album Keith is the only artist to not have a project under his belt, he's popped up on a lot of tracks as a feature and released some singles almost all with features. I expect to get something from him in the next couple of months.

If you wanted to separate these artists into groups you could split them into two groups. Group one with the Higher Brothers and Keith Ape mostly rap in their native language (Sichuanese Mandarin and Korean respectively). Then group two is Rich Brian and Joji who speak English a vast majority of the time.They also work with artists like Trippie Reed and Ski Mask the Slump God quite a lot with features and just artists having collab songs together like 18 with Kris WU, Joji, Rich Brian, Trippie Reed and Baauer.

As I mentioned above, 88 Rising doesn't consider themselves a record label but a video/media company. So what has that part of the company done?

The Video Production Side of 88 Rising

As I mentioned above, 88 Rising doesn't consider themselves a record label but a video/media company. So what has that part of the company done? The obvious place to start when talking about 88 Rising videos is these insane mind trips they make for their artist's music (below). These videos have a production style that I've never seen but they intrigue me a lot. They're unique just like their artists.

The music videos for Joji's songs off In Tongues have a completely different vibe to them. The music video for "Demons" is someone in a panda suit with extended arms dancing in an empty pool for 3 minutes. It's not beautiful but these videos draw you in making you wonder what the next one is going to look like.

As for other types of videos, there is a wide range of sub-minute clips and weird one-offs but now stand out short movies or anything in that vein really. My hope is that they're working on something bigger because if they put most of their resources into music videos for artists that they've signed... I think that makes them a record label more than a media company.

Current Tours

88 Rising has three announced tours right now. Firstly, they have the Double Happiness tour with Rich Brian, Joji, the Higher Brothers and Keith Ape. Secondly, the Higher Brothers have a Journey to the West tour planned to go to most of the major American cities and Toronto. Lastly, they have a tour called Asia Tour with I think only Rich Brian, Joji and the Higher Brothers but the link on their website just leads back to the home page.

Conclusion

I don't think 88 knows what they are yet because the success of Rich Brian has really thrust them forward. Their website is underdeveloped and the only thing they are putting visible resources into are their music videos. What's clear though is that they have a potential star in Rich Brian, a known personality in Joji, and the western market is yet to react to Keith Ape and the Higher Brothers. They also have a knack for production, both visually and musically, and they seem to have a lot of interest from emerging who are willing to work with them.

Will 88 Rising live up to the claim in my title? Probably not, but who knows? They could start releasing real life anime short films and become huge.

I'd love to know what you think.

Follow me on Vero @calderamoswood

Vero is a new social media app that I've been loving recently. You can share movies, TV, music, books or pretty much any other content that you consume.

Disclaimer: I'm not getting paid by Vero, I just want to be big before it blows up.

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About the Creator

Calder Amos-Wood

I wanted to be like Indiana Jones until I realized that there were probably mosquitos where he did his adventures.

I like basketball, rap music, esports and books.

Twitter: @amos_calder

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