Ghostemane


Eric Whitney, professionally known as Ghostemane or alternatively as Baader-Meinhof, Swearr, Limsa Lominsa or GASM, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. Originally growing up in Florida, Ghostemane started out playing in local hardcore punk and doom metal bands. He moved to Los Angeles, California after starting his career as a rapper.
Ghostemane's merging of rap and metal gained him popularity on SoundCloud. In 2018 Ghostemane released his seventh studio album, N/O/I/S/E, which was highly anticipated in the underground music scene due to its heavy influence from industrial and nu metal groups.

Early life

Eric Whitney was born on April 15, 1991 in Lake Worth, Florida to parents from New York. Whitney grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. As a teenager, he was mainly interested in hardcore punk music, he learned to play the guitar and performed in several bands, including Nemesis and Seven Serpents. He also played football while he was in high school, saying he was practically forced to by his father, who died when Whitney was seventeen.
Whitney was introduced to rap music when he was the guitarist in the hardcore punk band Nemesis and a bandmate introduced him to Memphis rap.

Career

Prior to his musical career, Whitney was earning $65,000 annually in a B2B sales position. In 2015, Whitney moved to Los Angeles, California due to his music not thriving in Southern Florida, giving up his employment at the same time. Meeting up with JGRXXN, Whitney joined his collective Schemaposse which included artists such as Craig Xen and the now-deceased Lil Peep.
In April 2016, Schemaposse disbanded leaving Whitney not associated with any group. Whitney eventually began to associate with fellow Florida rapper Pouya. Pouya released the video for "1000 Rounds" with Ghostemane in April 2017. The video quickly went viral and as of May 2020, has nearly 23 million views.
In May 2018, Pouya announced that he had a mixtape with Ghostemane in production.
In October 2018 he teamed up with Zubin to release a track titled Broken.
Also in 2018, he released his seventh studio album, N/O/I/S/E, in which many of the songs are influenced by industrial metal, nu metal, Metallica, and even Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails. In May 2020, he unveiled his latest project, a lo-fi black metal band called Baader-Meinhof, of which he is the sole member.

Artistry

Lyrically, Ghostemane's themes focus around occultism, depression, nihilism, and death. Whitney started his career as a musician playing guitar in hardcore punk bands, drums in doom metal bands, and has stated that his biggest influence is black metal band Bathory. He spent most of his teenage years listening to extreme metal bands such as Deicide, Death, Carcass and Mayhem. In terms of rap music, Ghostemane is influenced by Southern rap groups such as Outkast and Three 6 Mafia. Ghostemane has also went on to cite Midwest rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony as an early influence.

Discography

As Ghostemane

Studio albums

Mixtapes

Studio albums

Extended plays

Extended plays

Extended plays

Extended plays