Nine Vicious isn’t your typical rap artist. Most rappers try to pioneer a new sound or movement, express themselves artistically, and influence others within the scene. However, Nine Vicious is the complete opposite of all of these and has seemingly made it his mission to degrade and demoralize the genre.
There hasn’t been a single thing he’s done throughout his career that has helped or pushed the genre forward. If anything, his career has shown just how low the standard in rap has gotten—to the point where shock value and publicity can outweigh actual talent.
Rap has become a breeding ground for gimmicks and inauthenticity, yet we continue to support and push artists who seemingly ruin the genre for their own amusement. Nine Vicious is a prime example.
Not only is he an incredibly controversial, loud, and obnoxious figure within the underground scene, but there also seems to be an agenda being pushed by underground blogs and pages that focus almost exclusively on covering his antics rather than his actual music.
Usually, when an artist is this controversial and does a lot of attention-grabbing stuff, there’s at least good music to hold them up—but that’s not the case for Nine Vicious. Nine Vicious makes some of the most mind-numbing, pointless, degenerate, and disgusting music you can listen to.
The fact that people support this rapper and go to his shows is a disgrace in itself. As a community and as a scene, there has to be a standard that we hold rappers to so they don’t reach this high of a point in their careers.
His entire career feels like a psyop, and the fact that he’s gotten as big as he has says a lot about the scene and the current state of rap. It sets a bad example for future artists, and his presence shows that rap music has fallen to such a low standard where the music itself doesn’t even seem to matter anymore. Controversy sells. Hate sells. Degeneracy sells.
Genuine artists are out here struggling every day and doing everything they can just to get a taste of what it’s like to make a living as an artist. Yet people like Nine Vicious are not only becoming popular, but are being positioned as leaders of the underground scene as a whole. That alone feels like a slap in the face to the hardworking artists who genuinely care about their music and the culture they’re contributing to.
The amount of controversies and beefs Nine has gotten himself into this year is almost incalculable, and much of it comes across as deliberately designed to generate attention and conversation. Yet the one that takes the cake is him waving an Israeli flag at one of his shows and then appearing with a Palestinian flag at his next.
Creating rap beefs and stirring up controversy is one thing, but trolling about real-world conflicts where thousands of people are being killed is simply disrespectful and distasteful. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and it’s even worse when that same kind of provocation makes its way into his music.
Separating the art from the artist is nearly impossible with Nine because his music itself revolves around degenerate and disgusting subject matter. If you support him or his music, then you also support his behavior as well. In early 2025, Nine Vicious was accused online of talking to and grooming an underage girl. Rather than directly addressing the allegations with a formal apology, he later referenced the controversy in his song “Clout Demons,” which some listeners interpreted as an admission.
The fact that such a serious controversy could eventually fade from the conversation says a lot about how toxic the underground has become, to the point where the line between what is acceptable and unacceptable can feel increasingly blurred.
Nine will reach his peak sooner or later, and his career will eventually come to a satisfying end because nothing built on inauthenticity can hold up forever. The bigger problem is the long-term damage that comes with Nine becoming as big as he is and the example that sets for younger listeners and future aspiring rappers.
By Ed Roobi and Grant Roundtree