By Lorenzo Ferrari — Re.Fresh Magazine
In this article:
What Is Rage Music?
Whole Lotta Red and the Birth of a New Sound
From Miss the Rage to Yeat and Opium
The Different Faces of Rage
Ken Carson and the Rise of Heavy-Rage
The Italian Rage Scene in 2026
The Artists Shaping the Italian Underground
The Producers Behind the Sound
A Movement Still in Evolution
What Is Rage Music?
Rage music, or rage rap, is one of the most recent evolutions of trap. It emerged in the United States in the early 2020s and is defined above all by its high energy, electronic production and frequent use of extreme distortion. Prominent synths, heavy bass, saturated 808s and a very noticeable use of Auto-Tune are some of the elements that immediately make the genre recognisable.
The idea of “rage”, however, did not appear from nowhere. Long before it became a clearly defined genre, rap had already explored the idea of bringing the uncontrolled energy of concerts and mosh pits into the music itself. One of the most important early references is Kid Cudi and his Mr. Rager persona, which helped associate the term with a more intense and emotional side of hip-hop culture.
The sound we now connect with rage began taking clearer shape in the years that followed, especially through the work of Pi’erre Bourne and Playboi Carti. At that stage, the genre was still not completely defined, but many of its future characteristics were already present: synth-heavy beats, unusual vocal treatments and a growing interest in pushing trap production away from clean and conventional structures.
A crucial moment came in December 2020 with the release of Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red. The album pushed trap into much darker and more aggressive territory and became one of the main reference points for the generation that followed.
Whole Lotta Red and the Birth of a New Sound
When Whole Lotta Red was released on Christmas Day 2020, the reaction was anything but unanimous. Part of Carti’s audience and sections of the music press struggled to understand the record immediately, mainly because its sound was very different from both more traditional trap and the lighter, more melodic atmospheres of Die Lit.
Carti had completely changed direction.
The production became harsher and more distorted, while the project introduced an aesthetic influenced by punk, goth culture and darker imagery. Producers such as F1lthy and members of Working on Dying relied heavily on saturated synths and 808s pushed close to breaking point, moving away from the idea that rap production had to sound perfectly clean.
The objective seemed to be different: creating a sound that could have a physical impact on the listener.
Tracks such as Rockstar Made, Stop Breathing and On That Time represent this change particularly well. Carti’s vocal approach also became increasingly unconventional. He screams, constantly changes register and often treats his voice almost like an additional element of the production instead of simply using it to deliver verses.
Over time, Whole Lotta Red proved influential far beyond the sound of the album itself. It also helped build an entire visual and live identity around this new direction, characterised by dark clothing, punk influences and highly energetic performances where the mosh pit became an important part of the experience.
What initially felt divisive eventually became one of the most influential directions in modern trap.
From Miss the Rage to Yeat and Opium
If Whole Lotta Red helped establish the foundations of the sound, Miss the Rage by Trippie Redd and Playboi Carti helped bring those ideas to a much wider audience.
Released in 2021 as part of Trip at Knight, the track became one of the songs most closely associated with the emerging movement. Its instantly recognisable beat and large, euphoric synths helped make the term “rage” far more widespread.
The title also reflected the period in which the song appeared. During the pandemic, live shows and mosh pits had disappeared, and the sense of collective energy associated with concerts suddenly felt distant. In that context, “miss the rage” described not only a musical style, but also the feeling of missing that physical experience.
From there, the genre began developing outside the relatively small circle of artists and producers that had originally shaped it.
Yeat played a particularly important role in this expansion. With projects such as Up 2 Më and 2 Alivë, he brought rage towards a younger, highly Internet-driven audience. Platforms such as TikTok became important in spreading the sound, while his own style introduced new elements, including heavily processed vocals, a very strong use of Auto-Tune and a personal slang that quickly became part of his identity.
At the same time, Playboi Carti continued to develop the scene through Opium, the collective and label that became home to several important names from the new generation.
Destroy Lonely began exploring a darker and more atmospheric direction, while Ken Carson pushed rage towards increasingly aggressive and distorted production, particularly through A Great Chaos.
By this point, rage was no longer developing as one single sound.
It was becoming a broader musical language.
The Different Faces of Rage
As the genre evolved, several different interpretations began to emerge.
Classic Rage remains closest to the style associated with the first years of the movement. It usually features bright or playful melodies, dominant synths and fast rhythms. Trippie Redd’s Trip at Knight is one of the clearest examples of this approach.
Dark Rage, often connected with the Opium scene, is heavier and more aggressive. The production tends to be more distorted, with darker atmospheres and influences drawn from punk and gothic aesthetics.
Plugg-Rage mixes the energy of rage with elements of plug music, using futuristic synths together with bells, lighter percussion and more atmospheric textures. Yeat is one of the artists most often associated with this evolution.
At the most extreme end is Heavy-Rage, where the distortion becomes even more central and the production can move surprisingly close to noise music. Artists such as OsamaSon, Che and Nettspend often use heavily processed vocals, saturated mixes and unconventional sounds to create something much more abrasive.
The interesting part is that these different branches are becoming increasingly difficult to separate clearly. Rage is no longer simply a genre with a fixed formula, but a base that artists can reshape according to their own influences.
Ken Carson and the Rise of Heavy-Rage
Ken Carson is one of the artists who has pushed the aggressive side of rage furthest.
His 2023 album A Great Chaos represents this evolution particularly well. The project achieved significant commercial success, reaching number 11 on the Billboard 200 in the United States and entering the FIMI Top 20 in Italy.
What makes the album interesting is the way it proves that a heavily distorted and intentionally saturated sound can still reach a broad audience.
Tracks such as Jennifer’s Body, Fighting My Demons and Succubus rely on fast rhythms, dominant synthesizers and 808s pushed close to their limits. Ken Carson’s voice moves between almost monotone sections and much more explosive performances, creating a constant sense of tension.
The production, involving names such as F1lthy, Star Boy, Outtatown and Lucian, does not treat distortion as something that needs to be corrected. Instead, saturation becomes part of the listening experience.
This idea becomes even more extreme with artists such as OsamaSon, Che and Nettspend.
OsamaSon’s projects, including Flex Musix and Jump Out, push bass distortion and vocal processing even further. His voice often becomes part of the rhythm itself, while the production deliberately sounds overloaded and unstable.
Che takes a more atmospheric route, blending rage and plugg with shoegaze and alternative rock influences. Distorted guitars and darker textures overlap with heavily reverberated vocals, creating a denser and almost psychedelic sound.
Nettspend, meanwhile, represents a version of rage closely connected to Internet culture, lo-fi aesthetics and irregular production. His music often relies on unusual samples, unconventional beats and a vocal style that can sound almost whispered.
In all these cases, the boundaries between melody, voice and noise become increasingly blurred.
The Italian Rage Scene in 2026
In recent years, rage has also started finding a more defined space within the Italian underground.
By 2026, the most interesting aspect of this development is not simply the number of artists using rage production, but the way these artists are beginning to reinterpret it according to their own influences instead of simply reproducing the American sound.
The results are already quite different from one another.
Artists such as Fashion Forty and Aira move towards a more melodic side of rage, using synths, electronic production and Auto-Tune while still maintaining a strong focus on atmosphere and melody.
At the other end, artists such as Glocky and Trenchmafia focus more heavily on distortion, bass and darker production, bringing the sound closer to the more aggressive side of the genre.
WhyTrevxr introduces another direction, blending rage with hyperpop and digital electronic influences, while other artists place greater attention on writing and storytelling.
This variety makes it difficult to define one single “Italian rage sound”.
Instead, the scene seems to be moving towards several different interpretations of the same musical language.
That is probably one of the most interesting aspects of the current moment. Rather than importing a sound from overseas and reproducing it directly, Italian artists are beginning to treat rage as a starting point for their own experimentation.
The Artists Shaping the Italian Underground
One of the projects that best represents this moment is Glocky’s FREESTYLE.
The album arrived after a long series of delays, and the anticipation surrounding it had already created a great deal of curiosity about the direction the artist would take.
From the first listens, the main change is immediately clear.
Glocky moves away from the more melodic trap that had characterised much of his previous work and commits to a darker, more aggressive and heavily distorted sound.
There seems to be very little interest in finding a compromise between the old and the new Glocky. FREESTYLE moves directly towards rage and does so without softening its more abrasive elements.
That decision makes the project particularly interesting within the Italian scene because it attempts to bring a sound that was still largely connected to underground circles towards a wider audience.
The initial reaction also needs to be understood in this context. Listeners who had followed Glocky through his previous work were not necessarily prepared for such a drastic change. DIOR$AVAGE, released shortly before the album, had already hinted at the new direction, but probably did not fully prepare the audience for the complete project.
In that sense, FREESTYLE feels above all like a gamble.
DrefGold represents a different situation.
As an artist who has already played an important role in Italian trap for several years, he approaches rage from a much more established position.
With The Spring Breaker and later The Summer Smasher, he began introducing rage influences without completely abandoning his own identity. The synths are more playful, the atmospheres lighter and the production more accessible than the heavier side of the underground.
This is precisely what makes his approach interesting.
By bringing rage elements into projects made by an artist with an already established audience, DrefGold can introduce these sounds to listeners who may have had little previous interest in the underground scene.
The two projects can also be read as two stages of the same transition, gradually preparing the audience for a possible full-length project built more extensively around this new direction.
Aira, meanwhile, develops a more personal relationship with the genre through Crash Out.
Compared with his previous work, the synths become more aggressive, distortion becomes more present and production plays a greater role in defining the overall atmosphere.
One of the most interesting aspects of the project is the relationship between Aira’s voice and the beats. Rather than always keeping the vocals clearly at the centre, the voice often becomes another element of the production, contributing to the atmosphere together with the synths and distortion.
Fashion Forty represents a more melodic side of the same scene.
His project Limitless combines rage-influenced production with more introspective moments and a vocal style that relies strongly on melody and a mumbled flow.
Tracks such as fuckkk reveal a more personal dimension, dealing with feelings of inadequacy and unease instead of focusing entirely on energy or self-celebration.
WhyTrevxr moves in another direction again, combining rage with hyperpop.
His sound mixes the speed and energy of rage with digital effects, distortion and constantly shifting atmospheres. The interesting part is how the production changes together with the emotion of the track, moving between chaotic sections and quieter, more introspective moments.
Loui’s Sopravvissuto instead gives much greater importance to writing and storytelling.
In a genre where production often dominates the conversation, Loui uses rage as a setting for stories connected to everyday life, personal experiences and redemption.
Tracks such as Jenny superstar and Cara Irina show this particularly well, proving that aggressive electronic production can coexist with a much more narrative approach.
Maury North’s paniko! adds another interpretation to the scene.
The project has an almost cyberpunk quality, built around constantly shifting electronic production, distortion and manipulated vocals. Rather than using the voice as something clearly separated from the instrumental, Maury North often treats it almost like another synthesizer.
The result is dense, chaotic and energetic, but at the same time carefully constructed.
Together, these artists show just how wide the spectrum of Italian rage has already become.
The Producers Behind the Sound
One of the most important elements of rage is also one of the least visible.
The producers play a fundamental role in defining the identity of the genre.
More than in many other rap subgenres, the sound of rage depends on the way the beat is constructed: the choice of synths, the weight of the bass, the use of saturation and distortion, and the relationship between the instrumental and the voice.
In many cases, an artist’s identity is shaped just as much by the production as by the vocal performance.
This is becoming increasingly clear in the Italian scene as well.
Producers such as Dreiuz, Suaalc and pvgliuzz have been involved in some of the most representative productions of the new wave, including material connected to Glocky’s FREESTYLE.
Collectives are also beginning to play an important role.
AUTOPSY, for example, brings together several beatmakers working within the Italian rage and trap environment, allowing producers to exchange influences and develop a shared aesthetic.
Fireken is among the names associated with this world, and his presence reflects the increasingly visible role producers are taking inside the scene.
Talking about rage therefore also means talking about the people behind the production.
If artists give the genre its voice, producers are often the ones building the entire environment around it.
A Movement Still in Evolution
Italian rage now appears to have moved beyond simply reproducing a sound born overseas.
Artists are taking the genre’s most recognisable elements — distortion, synths, prominent bass, Auto-Tune and highly energetic production — and reshaping them through their own influences and sensibilities.
That process is making the differences between artists increasingly clear.
Some focus more heavily on melody, others move towards darker and more distorted production, while others combine rage with hyperpop, shoegaze, alternative music or more traditional storytelling.
This variety is probably one of the most interesting aspects of the current scene.
Talking about a single “Italian rage sound” already feels reductive, because the artists operating within this space often use the same starting elements in completely different ways.
Some remain relatively close to the original American influences, while others are gradually mixing them with sounds coming from completely different areas of contemporary music.
It is still difficult to predict what direction rage will take in the next few years.
The genre may continue developing through new crossovers and increasingly specific subgenres, or some of its defining elements may simply become part of the wider language of Italian trap and rap, eventually making the label itself less necessary.
What seems clear, however, is that the Italian underground is currently going through a period of strong experimentation.
Rage has become one of the main spaces where that experimentation is happening and, precisely because of this, it does not yet feel like a genre that has reached its final form.
It still feels like a movement under construction, with artists and producers continuing to test how far this sound can be pushed and how many different identities can emerge from the same starting point.
