To ILoveMakonnen, diamonds are not just forever — they're for healing. 

"We wanted to be able to heal our broken hearts and heal our fans with this music," rapper and producer ILoveMakonnen tells GRAMMY.com. "That was the whole mission behind Diamonds, to let everybody know that they are a diamond and they're waiting to be found."

Diamonds, ILoveMakonnen's newly-released album with the late Lil Peep, was   recorded in the summer of 2017 and wrapped just months before 21-year-old Peep’s death from an accidental overdose. How the record came about, and why it took so long to be released, is a story of a sudden and intense friendship, internet leakers, lawsuits, and a long-delayed happy, if bittersweet, ending. 

Makonnen first became aware of Lil Peep towards the end of 2016. Makonnen was at that point best known for his 2014 hit song "Tuesday," which benefited from a viral Drake remix. But his association with Drake’s OVO label, which started in the wake of "Tuesday," had ended and he was searching for something new. 

"I was looking online and saw some of [Peep’s] videos, and I thought that he was really intriguing and cool," Makonnen remembers. "We had some mutual friends. People would tell us, 'oh, you should check out this guy.'"

Peep was at that point a popular, if still somewhat underground, emo rap star. (Just weeks later, he would be proclaimed "the future of emo" by Pitchfork.) It took Makonnen making a dramatic announcement for the two to finally connect.

"I came out as gay in 2017, in January, and Lil Peep was one of the first people to reach out to me and tell me, ‘Thank you. I love you. You're so brave for this. I always support you. I want to meet you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I'm in L.A. right now. We should meet up.’"

The artists met at a mutual friend's house and "really hit it off,"Makonnen explains. "We became best friends as soon as we met. And then we got to start talking to each other more, and we would be on the phone all day."

The two already  had business ties — Makonnen's manager at the time  was business partner’s with Peep’s manager — so doing an album together seemed like the natural next step. 

They began sessions in July 2017 in Los Angeles, but getting work done proved difficult.

"Everybody in L.A. knows where we’re at and everybody’s pulling up to the studio and wants to get on the song," Makonnen recalls. "It’s just too much going on, to where me and Lil Peep can’t focus."

The duo decamped to somewhere quieter, and brought  a few trusted collaborators  to Eastcote Studios in London. 

Somewhere in the middle of this process, Peep came out as bisexual. Makonnen recalls that Peep felt two openly queer artists teaming up could make a huge impact on their young fanbases. 

"He said, ‘I feel like we can really make a change in the world by showing this because so many of us young fans and young people are dealing with all types of things,’" Makonnen remembers. "That was the start of everything that bonded us together."

The two artists were inseparable during the London sessions, staying in the same hotel and doing everything together.

"We really lived together like best friends, if not more. We were wearing each other’s clothes," Makonnen says. "It was truly special and fun. It just felt surreal. It felt like a dream. We were having so much fun and smiling and laughing the whole time." 

Throughout, Makonnen and Peep were dead-set on combining their styles. They typically began improvising melodies, while discussing what topics they wanted to talk about on each track. They addressed problems in their own lives, with hopes that fans would be able to relate.

There was a specific mission for the sound of the record as well. Peep had always loved Makonnen's songs with sad lyrics and happy-sounding music. That gave Makonnen an idea.

"I was like, ‘And your songs sound very sad!’" Makonnen says, laughing at the memory. "So I was like, we need to give that same emotion, but make it sound a little happier and friendlier so that the listener can have that sense of celebration, crying, transformation — where this music is hitting me and allowing me to let things go, but also to uplift the things in my life that have been bearing down."

As the record neared completion, Peep and Makonnen visualized what would come next: a joint tour, a merch line. Makonnen says he planned to perform some of the new tunes in a Vegas-style live act where he would play piano and a suit-clad Peep would sing. 

"I was telling Peep, you’re going to be like Frank Sinatra," Makonnen says.

Makonnen and Peep split after London, with plans to reconvene and mix the album after their respective tours wound down. That never happened, and after Peep’s death fans wondered about the fate of the album that he once proclaimed the best of the century. 

In spring 2020, after conflicting reports about whether the album would ever be released, it leaked to the internet. Makonnen recalls how it happened: People involved in the album got emails from someone claiming to be him, asking for its contents.

That wasn’t the end of the hacking. Many of Makonnen’s other unreleased songs — he claims about 500 in total — were stolen by hackers as well.

"After that happened, I literally had a nervous breakdown," he says. "I was shaking and sweating and got sick for three days. I felt doomed and destroyed. My mom had to really help talk me back up."

Following that debacle, Makonnen tried to put Diamonds out of his mind. "I didn’t even like listening to it," he says. "It just brings back too many memories."

But in early 2023, Peep’s mother Liza won back control of her son’s music following a lawsuit settlement with his record label. That cleared the way for the album to be finished, at long last. The entire Diamonds team reconvened in Los Angeles to mix the album.

The project is 22 songs long, reflecting pretty much all the finished material from the sessions. But that wasn’t Makonnen and Peep’s original vision.

"We had a lot of songs," Makonnen admits. "We maybe weren’t going to put out all of these songs if he was still alive and we were down to edit it. But since he passed and we didn’t get to that point, I felt it would be best to show all that we did. We had a lot of fun creating this stuff."

The release of Diamonds is bittersweet for iLoveMakonnen. On one hand, he’s still extremely proud of the music. On the other, he’s reminded of the loss of his best friend. 

"A lot of emotions I’ve had buried down in my subconscious and in my heart that I haven’t been able to express because I never felt like the time was right, I’m happy to be able to speak about now," he says.

"It’s a weird feeling in your throat. I’m happy, I want to laugh, but I feel like crying."

Listen To GRAMMY.com's 50th Anniversary Of Hip-Hop Playlist: 50 Songs That Show The Genre's Evolution

There was a time in the not so distant past when hip-hop was likened to disco. A flash in the pan genre defined by its hyperbolic expression of sound and style, disco fizzled out in the early '80s once the fashion and sonic trends attached to it expired.

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Hip-hop was presumably following in its footsteps, especially when so many break records were layered with disco samples to create the early framework of hip-hop's sound — think the Sugarhill Gang's 1979 hit "Rapper's Delight" (GRAMMY Hall Of Fame, 2014), which sampled Chic's 1979 No. 1 smash, "Good Times."

But hip-hop persevered and brought with it an evolution of the R&B genre as well. Combined, the two genres became unstoppable, eclipsing a flimsy stigma of being confined to an "urban" box. Now, four and a half decades since hip-hop's inception, the genre has seemingly taken the music industry over along with R&B, beating rock at its own game. How did we get here?

Theoretically, the move has been gradual, though 2017 marked a quantifiable shift leaning in hip-hop and R&B's favor. First, there are the sales figures: Hip-hop and R&B accounted for 25 percent of music consumption in 2017, with rock trailing at 23 percent. Add to that an uptick in audio streaming in 2017 by 72 percent — with 29 percent of music streamed online being hip-hop and R&B combined, matching rock and pop, which also combined for 29 percent of music streamed online. The two previously gigantic leaders in major genres are now neck-and-neck with the "underdogs" of R&B and hip-hop.

But per Nielsen's 2017 year-end report, eight of the top 10 albums were, in fact, hip-hop or R&B albums, including Drake and Kendrick Lamar for More Life and DAMN., respectively. Meanwhile, Drake and Lamar held down the top two spots on the list of most popular artists based on total consumption (sales and streaming), while Bruno Mars, Eminem, Future, The Weeknd, and Lil Uzi Vert were also among the other artists that proved hip-hop and R&B were the most widely consumed collective genres this past year.

The 60th GRAMMY Awards further punctuated that claim, as artists like Jay-Z and SZA found homes in the General Four categories, with Mars — who earned Record, Album and Song Of The Year — and Lamar sweeping wins across the board.

Phrases like "the death of rock and roll" have been continually tossed around since this cycle of news arrived. The latest strike against rock came when Coachella announced that for the first time in its 19-year existence there wouldn't be a rock act headlining the festival. The three headliners for the 2018 installment will be Beyoncé, Eminem and The Weeknd.

"I think it speaks to the strength of the music and the strength of the fan base," explains Jeriel Johnson, Executive Director of the Recording Academy Washington, D.C. Chapter. "The fans dictate who shows up on those stages."

While the 2017 tallies may suggest that sales and streams have finally caught up, industry insiders have seen the trends shifting over the last 5 to 10 years.

"Now so, even more than ever, music can be created and put out so much more quickly so when something is happening, urban music is reflecting that really quickly."

"R&B and hip-hop have always had a huge influence and impact on our culture, regardless of the time period — from fashion to slang to our tastes in music [and] cars," says GRAMMY-nominated producer Harvey Mason Jr.

However, with rap artists growing into cross-cultural icons, hip-hop poured into rock and vice versa.

"I immediately think of artists like Run-DMC, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Kid Cudi. These are a few of the pioneers who helped lay down the foundation for artists like Post Malone, Lil Uzi, [the late] Lil Peep, and Lil Pump to become the new generation of artists to continue the push forward the borders of hip-hop," explains Matthew Bernal manager of media for Republic Records. "From their trend-setting fashion, genre-bending sounds and riot-like live performances, millennials grew up watching these icons and the influence is clear in their music today."

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Artists such as Rae Sremmurd, who released the groundbreaking "Black Beatles" with Gucci Mane in 2016, extended that aesthetic — the music video for the hit single showed the duo breaking TV sets with electric guitars.

"Post Malone's 'Rockstar,' which was the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight consecutive weeks last year, is a strong indication of how today's hip-hop artists view themselves: as rock stars," continues Bernal.

"Urban culture is the new rock," adds GRAMMY-winning producer Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins. "[In] every era there's a change that takes place, and right now Migos, Kendrick Lamar — they're the new rock stars."

"I feel like it was bound to happen," says Nicole Johnson, industry relations at music streaming service Pandora. "Back in the day, rock and roll was started by an urban genre and urban people. But then it became 'sex, drugs, and rock and roll' and, now, isn't that what these hip-hop [artists] are now talking about? Here are rappers just living their best lives, being themselves, tattooing their faces if they feel like it, wearing dresses on the cover of their album if they feel like it. It's all about self-expression."

Johnson adds that Pandora's Next Big Sound has been driven by hip-hop and R&B as of late, leading to the service's launch of the weekly urban station, The Sauce. "There are now so many [sub]genres within hip-hop, of course, it's gonna take over.”

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But in the wake of hip-hop and R&B's takeover, so was the digital boom. Urban music jumped onboard streaming services early, with platforms like SoundCloud birthing its own scene, SoundCloud rap, which has given way to artists such as Chance The Rapper and Rico Nasty who have equally dominated the space as other hip-hop artists.

"I think R&B/hip-hop is benefitting from changes in technology," says Mason, underscoring how today's fast turnaround in music creation has placed hip-hop and R&B at a unique vantage point, especially when it comes to topical music. "R&B and hip-hop really seem to have their ear to the ground culturally and in society with everything our country is going through.

"It just seems to be such a transparent outlet for people with feelings and opinions, and now so, even more than ever, music can be created and put out so much more quickly so when something is happening, urban music is reflecting that really quickly."

So where will we go from here? Is rock really fading away? And, if so, can it come back? While the cyclical nature of music would reflect an inevitable return, perhaps rock will have to once again evolve the way hip-hop and R&B had to in order to rise up.

"It'll rebound in a different kind of way, I believe," says Jerkins. "Someone will come along and do it in a newer and cooler way. But right now? Hip-hop, R&B — that's pop. Because pop music is anything that's popular."

(Kathy Iandoli has penned pieces for Pitchfork, VICE, Maxim, O, Cosmopolitan, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and more. She co-authored the book Commissary Kitchen with Mobb Deep's late Albert "Prodigy" Johnson, and is a professor of music business at select universities throughout New York and New Jersey.)

American rapper, singer, and producer Lil Peep — née Gustav Åhr — died Nov. 16 prior to a tour appearance in Tucson, Ariz. A spokesperson for the Tucson Police Department has confirmed that evidence was found on the rapper's tour bus indicating the cause of death to be a drug overdose, according to The New York Times.

The SoundCloud rapper and rising alt-pop star was on tour in support of his debut album, Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 1. He died just two weeks following his 21st birthday. 

Best known for his self-produced bedroom-recorded tracks such as "Crybaby" and "Hellboy," Lil Peep built a rabid online fanbase through his unique blend of emo-rock hooks and trap-inspired rapping. References to heavy drug use as self-medication to deal with severe depression were a staple of the young rapper's songwriting, and his soul-baring acknowledgement of his real-life trials and mood swings forged a powerful connection with a fanbase built almost entirely via SoundCloud and Instagram.

"I suffer from depression and some days I wake up and I’m like, 'F***, I wish I didn’t wake up,'" he said in an interview with Pitchfork. "That's the side of myself that I express through music. That's my channel for letting all that s*** out."

Lil Peep began his career in music after leaving high school early and earning his degree via online courses. He began releasing self-produced music on YouTube and SoundCloud, where he discovered an unexpectedly fervent fanbase, prompting him to release his first mixtape Lil Peep Part One in 2015.

Though ostensibly a rapper, Lil Peep drew acclaim from his fans and music critics alike for his refusal to be pinned down by the conventions of any one genre, often sampling artists such as Underoath, Brand New, the Postal Service, Oasis, and the Microphones to build the sonic bed for his Southern-rap inspired vocal deliveries. His lyrical content — touching equally on themes of relationships, revenge, angst, and self-harm — prompted Pitchfork to label him as an artist who was "reinventing heart-on-sleeve agony for a new generation."

Lil Peep was vocal on social media and in his songwriting about his close relationship with his mother. She has released a statement through a representative of First Access Entertainment, stating she remains "very, very proud of him and everything he was able to achieve in his short life," and that she is "truly grateful to the fans and the people who have supported and loved him."

CyHi The Prynce Gives The Scoop Behind 'No Dope On Sundays'

Since Mike Piacentini’s switch from computer science to audio engineering in college, his family has been his biggest champions. So, when he received his nomination for Best Immersive Album for Madison Beer's pop album Silence Between Songs, at the 2024 GRAMMYs, it was a no-brainer to invite his parents and wife.

“He’s always been into music. He had his own band, so [the shift] wasn’t surprising at all,” Piacentini’s mother says in the newest episode of Family Matters. “He’s very talented. I knew one day he would be here. It’s great to see it actually happen.”

In homage to his parents’ support, Piacentini offered to let his father write a short but simple acceptance in case he won: “Thank you, Mom and Dad,” he jokes.

Alongside his blood relatives, Piacentini also had support from his colleague Sean Brennan. "It's a tremendous honor, especially to be here with [Piacentini]. We work day in and day out in the studio," Brennan explains. "He's someone who's always there."

Press play on the video above to learn more about Mike Piacentini's support system, and remember to check back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of Family Matters.

How Madison Beer Broke Free From Pressures Of Internet Fame & Created Her New Album 'Silence Between Songs'

It's fair to say that the 1980s hadn't been particularly kind to country legend Johnny Cash. Once considered the Don of the Nashville scene, the singer/songwriter suddenly found himself dropped by Columbia Records, recording terrible parody songs (remember "The Chicken in Black"?), and addicted to painkillers after a bizarre accident in which he was kicked by an ostrich.

But as the new decade approached, Cash's reputation gradually started to recover. A 1988 tribute album, 'Til Things Are Brighter, alerted a much younger indie generation of his catalog of classics. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. And then arguably the biggest band in the world at the time, U2, invited him to take lead vocals on Zooropa's post-apocalyptic closer "The Wanderer." The scene was set for a triumphant comeback, and on 1994's American Recordings, the Man in Black duly obliged.

The Rick Rubin-produced album was far from a one-off. Cash delivered three American follow-ups in his lifetime (1996's Unchained, 2000's Solitary Man, and 2002's The Man Comes Around). And two posthumous volumes (2006's A Hundred Highways, 2010's Ain't No Grave)  further bridged the gap between his statuses as country outlaw and elder statesman — and helped further his legacy as one of country's all-time greats.

As the first American Recordings installment celebrates its 30th anniversary, here's a look at how the series deservedly rejuvenated the career of an American recording legend.

It United Him With A New Muse 

Best known for his pioneering work with Run-D.M.C., Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy, Rick Rubin seemed an unusual fit for a sixty-something country singer whose glory days were considered decades behind him. But left spellbound by Cash's performance at a Bob Dylan anniversary gig in 1992, the superproducer offered to make the Nashville legend a superstar once more.

Cash took some persuading, but eventually agreed to join forces on the assurance he'd be in the creative driving seat, and a new unlikely dream team was born. Rubin lent his talents to all six volumes of American Recordings — co-producing the middle two with Cash's son John Carter Cash – and won the first GRAMMY of his career for his efforts. The Def Jam co-founder would also later work his magic with several other '60s heroes including Neil Diamond, Yusuf and Neil Young.

It Saw Cash Lean Into Contemporary Music More Than Ever

Cash had never been averse to tackling contemporary material. He covered Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman" in 1983, just a year after it appeared on The Boss' Nebraska. But the American Recordings series saw the Man in Black embrace the sounds du jour like never before, whether the grunge of Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage," electro-blues of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," or most famously, industrial rock of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt."

On paper, this could have been nothing short of a disaster, the sign of an aging artist desperately latching onto a much younger musical generation in a transparent bid for relevancy. But instead, Cash elevates the Gen X classics into modern hymns, his sonorous voice injecting a sense of gravitas and Rubin's production stripping things back to their bare but compelling essentials. Far from an embarrassing grandad act, this was the sound of a man respectfully making the source material his own.

It Returned Cash To The Charts 

Cash had reached the lower end of the Billboard 200 in the '80s as part of supergroups The Highwaymen and Class of '55. But you had to go all the way back to 1976's One Piece at a Time to find his last entry as a solo artist. The American Recordings series, however, slowly but surely restored the Man in Black to his former chart glories.

Indeed, while its first two volumes charted at numbers 110 and 170 respectively, the third peaked at a slightly more impressive 88 and the fourth at 22, his highest position since 1970's Hello, I'm Johnny Cash. The posthumous fifth entry, meanwhile, went all the way to No. 1, remarkably the first time ever the country legend had achieved such a feat with a studio effort (live album At San Quentin had previously topped the charts in 1971).

"Hurt" also became Cash's first solo US country hit in 14 years in 2003. And while it only landed at No. 56 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, it remains Cash's most-streamed song to date with over 600 million streams on Spotify alone.

It Included Masterful Collaborators 

As well as handing over the producer reins to Rubin, Cash also surrounded himself with some of the rock world's finest musicians. Tom Petty, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, and Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood all lent their considerable talents to Unchained. Sheryl Crow and Will Oldham did the same on Solitary Man, while Nick Cave, Fiona Apple and Don Henley joined him in the studio on The Man Comes Around.

But Cash also kept things more traditional by recruiting fellow country legend Merle Haggard, 'fifth Beatle'Billy Preston, and "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" songwriter Jack Clement, while the presence of wifeJune Carter Cash and son John made the third American Recordings something of a family affair.

It Went Back To Basics 

While American Recordings was, in many respects, Cash's most forward-thinking album, it wasn't afraid to keep one foot in the past, either. For one, the star recorded most of its first volume in his Tennessee cabin armed with only a guitar, a throwback to his 1950s beginnings with first producer Sam Phillips.

Cash also trawled through his own back catalog for inspiration, re-recording several tracks he believed had unfairly gone under the radar including 1955 single "Mean Eyed Cat," murder ballad "Delia's Gone" from 1962's The Sound of Johnny Cash, and "I'm Leaving Now" from 1985's Rainbow.

It Proved He Was Still A Masterful Songwriter…

Although Cash's unlikely covers grabbed most of the attention, the American Recordings series showed that his stellar songwriting skills remained intact throughout his later years, too. "Meet Me in Heaven," for example, is a beautifully poignant tribute to the older brother who died at just 15, while the folksy "Let the Train Blow the Whistle" added to Cash's arsenal of railroad anthems.

"Drive On," meanwhile, is worthy of gracing any Best Of compilation, a powerful lament to those who came back from the Vietnam War with both emotional and physical scars ("And even now, every time I dream/ I hear the men and the monkeys in the jungle scream").

…And Still A Master Interpreter 

As well as putting new spins on his own songs and various contemporary rock favorites, Cash further displayed both his interpretive and curatorial skills by covering a variety of spirituals, standards and pop hits first released during his commercial heyday.

The likes of early 19th century gospel "Wayfaring Stranger," wartime favorite "We'll Meet Again," and Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" may have been firmly in Cash's wheelhouse. But more leftfield choices such as Loudon Wainwright III's offbeat morality tale "The Man Who Couldn't Cry" proved that even when outside his comfort zone, he could stamp his own identity with aplomb.

It Made Him An Unlikely MTV Star 

Cash was 62 years old when American Recordings hit the shelves — not exactly a prime age for MTV play. Yet thanks to some inspired creative decisions, the career-reviving series spawned two videos that received regular rotation on the network. Firstly, "Delia's Gone" caught attention for two major reasons: it was directed by Anton Corbijn, the man renowned for his long-running creative partnership with Depeche Mode, and it starred Kate Moss, the world's biggest supermodel at the time, as the titular victim.  

Then nine years later, Cash picked up six nominations — winning Best Cinematography — at the MTV Video Music Awards thanks to Mark Romanek's emotionally devastating treatment for "Hurt." Interspersing clips of the clearly fragile country singer at the rundown Museum of Cash with footage from his earlier days and artistic shots of decaying fruits and flowers, the promo perfectly embodied the transient nature of life. And it had the capacity to reduce even the hardest of hearts to tears.

It Added To His GRAMMY Haul 

Cash won almost as many GRAMMYs with his American Recordings series as he had during the previous 40 years of his career. The Man in Black first added to his trophy collection in 1995 when the first volume won Best Contemporary Folk Album. This was the first time he'd been recognized at the ceremony for his musical talents since the June Carter Cash duet "If I Were A Carpenter" won Best Country Performance for a Duo or Group with Vocal back in 1971  

Three years later, Unchained was crowned Best Country Album. And after picking up a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, Cash won 2001's Best Male Country Vocal Performance for "Solitary Man," then again in the same Category for "Give My Love to Rose"in 2003. He posthumously won two more GRAMMYs for Best Short Form Video, in 2004 for "Hurt" and in 2008 for "God's Gonna Cut You Down." In total, the American Recordings series won Cash six more GRAMMYs, bringing his overall count to 13. 

It Was A Powerful Epitaph

In 1997, Cash was told he'd just 18 months to live after being misdiagnosed with neurodegenerative condition Shy-Drager syndrome (later changed to autonomic neuropathy). He ended up outliving this prognosis by a good four years, but during this period, he lost the love of his life and was forced to record his swansong in-between lengthy stints in the hospital.  

Little wonder, therefore, that the American Recordings series is defined by the theme of mortality: see "The Man Comes Around," a biblical ode to the Grim Reaper ("And I looked, and behold a pale horse/ And his name that sat on him was death, and hell followed with him"), Death Row anthem "The Mercy Seat," and funeral favorite "Danny Boy." As with David Bowie's Blackstar, Cash was able to reflect on his impermanence in his own terms in a sobering, yet compelling manner that continues to resonate decades on. 

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