Ren Eryn Gill, also known as RenMakesMusic or simply Ren (born March 29, 1990), is a Welsh rapper, musician, songwriter, and filmmaker. He is known for his songs about chronic illness, mental health, and social commentary. He's also collaborated with numerous other musicians and was a member of the bands Trick the Fox and The Big Push.
At twelve, Ren taught himself guitar by playing along to slowed-down Jimi Hendrix and John Frusciante. He would go on to study music performance at Bath Spa University.
In 2022, Ren blew up with the song "Hi Ren", the nine-minute YouTube video garnering 6.8 million views in two months. It was recorded essentially live: the video footage was recorded in four takes; the audio is from the fourth take. Its only instruments are Ren's guitar and voice, and it is broadly classifiable as folk-rap, although such a categorization does not actually do it justice. Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" has been a frequent point of comparison, both for its scope and its heavy focus on internal monologue. It has also drawn comparisons to NF and Eminem, the latter of which Ren himself ironically notes in the song itself. Its heavy focus on mental health has also come in for particular acclaim. "Hi Ren" is not precisely a typical Ren song, though, mostly because even a cursory listen through his catalogue will reveal that such a thing does not actually exist. Ren calls himself "bardcore", a label that his fan base (called Renegades) has largely accepted as a suitable genre descriptor.
Ren's subsequent album Sick Boi actually made it to #1 in the UK charts, entirely on the strength of social media and word-of-mouth: he has been independent since 2016.
Discography
- Freckled Angels (2016)
- Jessica ft. Orlean (2018)
- Girls! (2018)
- Blind Eyed (2018)
- Humble (2019)
- Money Game (2019)
- How to Be Me (2019)
- The Tale of Jenny and Screech (2019)
- Demos (Do Not Share), Vol 1 (2020)
- Demos (Do Not Share), Vol 2 (2020)
- Chalk Outlines (2021)
- Power (2022)
- Violet's Tale (2022)
- Hi Ren (2022)
- Sick Boi (2023)
- KUJO BEAT DOWN (2024)
Ren's music contains examples of...
- A cappella: "Loco", which he even acknowledges later in the song.
- Age-Progression Song: "Money Game, Pt. 3" is a "story of about a boy named Jimmy", with each line covering his progression from birth to his death. He works hard at his father's request and becomes highly intelligent and successful, only to be corrupted by his wealth and pushed into more immoral practices. He gets crippled and hospitalized after a cartel turns on him, and at the age of 45, he shoots himself... maybe. (The final line of the song says he "presses on the trigger of a money game", and Ren has neither confirmed nor denied whether Jimmy died, saying he prefers to leave it up to listener interpretation.)
- Animal Motifs: The semirealistic pig mask in Sick Boi (the album). It's been interpreted as representing greed, a reference to George Orwell's Animal Farm, a reference to William Golding's Lord of the Flies... Ren has said he prefers to leave the meaning up to individual interpretation.
- Arc Words: Sick boi, sick boi, bitten by a tick boi...
- Ax-Crazy:
- Ren and his alter ego count as this in KUJO BEAT DOWN, where they not only want to "choke a bitch pale", but end up kidnapping Kujo and his girlfriend (portrayed by actors, of course). (Ren also clarified that the video is "for creative purposes, told his fans not to go after Kujo or his girlfriend, and added, "I do not condone abuse or bullying.")
- In "The Tale of Jenny and Screech", Screech goes this way after an attempt at armed robbery goes extremely poorly.
- Balance Between Good and Evil: "Hi Ren" effectively tells us that we can't try so hard to be good that we lose sight of ourselves, or of what it means to be human. Our sanity demands allowing ourselves some freedom to err; if we'll hold ourselves to standards of conduct so high that no human could ever possibly live up to them, our sense of self-worth will plummet. This doesn't mean we need to stop trying to be good, but it does mean we have to be able to forgive ourselves for not being perfect.When I was seventeen years old, I shouted out to an empty room and to a blank canvas that I would defeat the forces of evil, and for the next ten years of my life, I suffered the consequences, with autoimmunity, illness, and psychosis. As I got older, I realized that there were no winners and there were no real losers in psychological warfare, but there were victims, and there were students. It wasn't David versus Goliath; it was a pendulum eternally swaying from the dark to the light, and the more intensely that the light shone, the darker a shadow it cast. It was never really a battle for me to win. It was an eternal dance, and like any dance, the more rigid I became, the harder it got. The more I cursed my clumsy footsteps, the more I struggled. So I got older, and I learned to relax, and I learned to soften, and that dance got easier. It is this eternal dance that separates human beings from angels, from demons, from gods. And I must not forget, we must not forget, that we are human beings.
- Beware the Nice Ones: He genuinely comes across as quite personable and humble, but as "KUJO BEAT DOWN" indicates, do not push this man too far - he writes some savage bars when pushed to the limit.
- Biblical Motifs: "Seven Sins" and "Genesis".
- Bilingual Bonus: He uses Welsh occasionally in his songs. "Cymru am byth" in "Fire in the Booth" means roughly "Wales forever" or "Long live Wales". "Seven Sins" opens with the lines:Salwch yw fy athrawen
Fe dorrodd fy ngwên
Mae fy esgyrn yn teimlo'n hen
Yma y gorwedd corff Ren- Which translate as:Illness is my teacher
It broke my smile
My bones feel old
Here lies the body of Ren - Pronounced roughly:Salukh ew fin athrawen
Ve dorothe fingwen
My fin esgirn taymlon hen
Ve dorothe corf Ren
- Which translate as:
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The entire "Money Game" trilogy does this to various extents. The refrain of the first two tells us:It's easier to blame
But point the mirror at ourselves
We're all part of this old money game- "Money Game Part 3" makes a similar point:Jimmy followed the code inside the land of the free
Put your hand inside the cookie jar, take more than you need
And his example is exaggerated versions of me
And it's a version of him, and it's a version of she
And it's a version of you - there's no escaping the blame
The way we live is lunacy. Fuck the money and fame! - Immediately after this, he says "cut the music" and speaks directly to the audience, saying, "This isn't entertainment. This is real life," and comparing humanity to "mold [that] grows[s] upon the surface, then consume[s] 'til it dies."
- And of course, this trope is referenced by name in "Hi Ren":Let me break the fourth wall by acknowledging this song!
- "Money Game Part 3" makes a similar point:
- Call-Back: He loves these. Each of the "Money Game" tracks contains the same hook; it isn't actually sung out loud in Part 3, but it's implied by the presence of actual rain, and it's also weaved melodically into several different parts of the song. Part 3's phrase "It's such a damn shame" also recalls "It's such a shame" from "The Tale of Jenny & Screech". "Hi Ren", meanwhile, features a call-back to the "She sells seashells on the seashore" verse of "Money Game, Pt. 2." "Kujo Beat Down" contains references to at least four of his past songs - he calls back to the "moral, little Jimmy, of the cookie and the jar" ("Money Game, Part 3"), the heavy breathing at the start of "Sick Boi" (not to mention the name of the song itself), several aspects of "Hi Ren" (including the opening part of the song being framed as an argument between his cynical and hopeful sides, plus several elements of Ren's closing monologue), and Ren's short-lived beef with fellow rapper King Dotta (from which the two emerged on friendly terms).
- Capitalism Is Bad: Even if it's not the central message, many of Ren's songs condemn greed. Ren has clarified in interviews that he isn't necessarily opposed to capitalism in and of itself, but he is opposed to the unrestrained greed of modern business.
- Cover Version: He's done a lot of them, especially with the Big Push. They're often medleys, as well - Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff", Ziggy Marley's "Road to Zion", DJ Luck & MC Neat's "A Little Bit of Luck", and Dead Prez' "Hip-Hop" is a particularly remarkable example: if not for the video footage, you'd swear he was a Rastafarian from Jamaica. (Note that the video doesn't list "A Little Bit of Luck", likely because YouTube limits video titles to 100 characters.) And just to indicate their range, they have a medley of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" and "Paranoid", Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train", and Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name", which they performed immediately after the "I Shot the Sheriff" medley.
- The opening of "Money Game, Pt. 3" is based on Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor. Ren is performing it himself. (Whether or not you recognize Grieg's name, you'll certainly recognize his composition Hall of the Mountain King
.)
- The opening of "Money Game, Pt. 3" is based on Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor. Ren is performing it himself. (Whether or not you recognize Grieg's name, you'll certainly recognize his composition Hall of the Mountain King
- Cruel Twist Ending: "Violet's Tale" has an especially powerful one. In the final line of the song, we learn that Violet is both Jenny and Screech's mother. This means that Screech killed his twin sister without ever learning who she was, and now all three are dead. It has been compared to both William Shakespeare and O. Henry.
- Darker and Edgier: In terms of his albums, Freckled Angels is not without its deep songs, but is far more upbeat and positive than his following album, Sick Boi.
- The Diss Track: After a spat with fellow artist KUJOBEATS in 2024note , Ren released a particularly brutal one, where he warns Kujo to stop pushing him before he goes all-out.
- Doing It for the Art: Discussed Trope in Hi Ren:Yeah, but, my music's not commercial like that
I never chased numbers, statistics or stats
I never write hooks for the radio,
They never even play me, so
Why would I concern myself with that?
But my music is really connecting
And the people who find it respect it
And for me, that's enough,
'Cause this life's been tough
So it gives me a purpose I can rest in- As "Kujo Beat Down" shows us, do not mess with this man's artistic self-expression. The results will not be pretty.
- Domestic Abuse: "Violet's Tale" provides an almost relentlessly bleak look at the cycle that perpetuates it.
- Downer Ending: All three parts of "The Tale of Jenny & Screech", plus "Money Game, Pt. 3" (probably).
- Dramatic Pause: Many of his songs feature pauses in the music for dramatic effect. "Hi Ren", "Money Game", and "Money Game Part 3" all provide particularly powerful examples of this.
- Epic Rocking: "Hi Ren" and "Money Game, Pt. 3" are both in the nine-minute range, while "Fire in the Booth" is around eight. The first two also feature other noteworthy characteristics of this trope, such as having multi-act structures. The Big Push has a few examples, too; "I Shot the Sheriff / Road to Zion / A Little Bit of Luck / Hip-Hop" runs for around eight. Counting multi-part tracks, the whole "Money Game" suite runs for about sixteen and a half minutes, "Love Music" runs for about sixteen, and the Tales of Jenny, Screech, and Violet collectively run for about thirteen and a half. Vincent's Tale will undoubtedly also run into the double digits.
- Epiphora: In Sick Boi:
Bitten by a tick, boy
Looking for that fix, boy
- Grief Song: Both "Freckled Angels" and "Suicide" are about Ren's best friend Joe, who he lost to suicide when they were 19-20. Both songs end with Ren in tears. "How to Be Me" is also about Joe. "Mackay" is an instrumental tribute to another friend he lost during his teens.
- Heel Realization:
- In the video for "Money Game", the character Ren is portraying pours gasoline on the faceless guitarist (played by Ren's Big Push bandmate Romain Axisa, though we never actually see his face.) However, he also draws eyes on the guitarist's mask, which suddenly causes Ren to see him as a person, resulting in a last-minute change of heart. Instead he pours the rest of the can on himself. The final shot is of Ren flicking the lighter, but we never actually see what happens after that.
- In "Money Game, Pt. 3", Jimmy undergoes one after being paralysed, though it doesn't improve his emotional state:
Let me tell you a story about a boy named Jimmy
He was 40, and he cursed the words, "Mine, mine, gimme"...
44, inside a palace with a mountain of gold
But those riches turn to rubble when perspective evolves
Weighing heavy on his conscience is the value of gold
Lamborghini for a life, trading money for souls - Hymn to Music: "Love Music, Pt 1" starts out as a blatant example of this, although the subsequent parts focus on this theme a little less.Whenever my skies turn to grey and life starts getting too much
I turn on and tune out
I love this music so much - Intercourse with You: "Love Music, Pt 4" and "Uninvited".
- Lyric Video: Most of the songs from Sick Boi got one on account of practically half the album being singles, as well as several older tracks like "Dominoes", "1990s", "Dear God", etc.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: "Hi Ren" in and of itself has him doing at least seven, depending on how you count them (the intro yodel, his cynical side, his more frightened but hopeful side, the voice of the devil, the voice of hope, his reggae-influenced singing style at the end, the outro yodel). Now go listen to The Big Push performing "I Shot the Sheriff / Road to Zion / A Little Bit of Luck / Hip-Hop". He doesn't even sound like the same person. Now go listen to "Chalk Outlines". He again sounds like a completely different person. He is arguably as close as anyone in modern music comes to being a vocal chameleon along the lines of Scott Weiland.
- Meaningful Echo: "Money Game, Pt. 3" starts by introducing Jimmy's childhood. Once he gets corrupted and is crippled as the result of his immoral decisions, the lines are repeated with emphasis that he lost his childhood innocence.
1 years old and his first words were "Mine, mine, gimme!"
2 years old he was walking, 3 years old walking quickly
4 years old he was running 'round the pavements of his city
He was 40, and he cursed the words "Mine, mine, gimme"
41, he wasn’t walking, 42, not walking quickly
43, never running 'round the pavements of his city
- Medley: The Big Push performed a ton of them when they did covers, and he's done some by himself or with collaborators as well ("Back on 74/Message in a Bottle" being a particularly acclaimed example).
- Midword Rhyme: From "The Hunger"I start making my mark
Like Frankie Sina-
-tra, king, call me Ar-
-thur - Motor Mouth: He's capable of rapping at ridiculous speeds. You can be forgiven for having to look up the following words in "Money Game" just because he says them so quickly:We have pillaged and plundered and murdered like savages
Colonized all of the rest- He goes even harder in "The Hunger". He delivers the following verse at double the speed of the preceding verses: (bonus for Added Alliterative Appeal making them especially hard to say):Tick tock off the top of the tip of my tongue I am tapping telepathy
Terrify them with the terrible telekinesis tantrum yes I torture the enemy
Slowing the flow and then growing the flow and I swallow the flow like a Toblerone
I'm a beast with the flow, I’m a feast on the flow
Then I’m ripping it up and I’m taking it low- And as if that weren't already enough, he then takes it to triple speed:Kiddie with a black heart in a car park by Primark
Jamming Django Reinhardt
Living like a rockstar, refine rap to a fine art
Vincent van Gogh I start - (Ironically, he pauses for a moment after that line.)
- And as if that weren't already enough, he then takes it to triple speed:
- "Fire in the Booth" is almost eight minutes of this. This man's breath control alone must be incomprehensibly good.
- He goes even harder in "The Hunger". He delivers the following verse at double the speed of the preceding verses: (bonus for Added Alliterative Appeal making them especially hard to say):
- The Oner: He and his videographer Samuel Perry-Falvey are absolute masters of these and have earned several awards for them. The audio in his videos is almost always the actual audio of the performance you're witnessing. The first "Money Game" apparently required over a hundred takes to get correct. There's actually a single cut in "Money Game Part 3", but it was effectively a requirement and is also extremely easy to miss. For "Hi Ren", they only were able to do four takes; the audio is from the fourth take, though some of the footage was actually spliced in from other takes due to various visual issues. The Tales might be the most astonishing examples in his filmography, though - he's performing extremely complicated guitar parts while singing, rapping, acting, and walking through the streets of Brighton.
- Only One Name: Releases his music mononymously as simply Ren.
- Precision F-Strike: Whenever he uses profanity, he makes it count. Occasionally it crosses over into Cluster F-Bomb (there's a good example for a few lines in the middle of "Hi Ren", and another in "Screech's Tale"), but not without reason.
- "The Reason I Suck" Speech: In his viral song, Hi Ren, two sides of Ren argue over the artistic value and worth of his music, with both of them exchanging some pretty vicious jabs.I'm not leftover dinner, I'm not scraps on the side
Oh, your music is thriving? Delusional guy
Where's your top ten hit? Where's your interview with Oprah?
Where are your Grammies, Ren? Nowhere!- Which became Hilarious in Hindsight when Sick Boi hit #1 in the UK, largely on the strength of "Hi Ren" raising his profile. He acknowledged that despite the above verse, though, once it became clear he had a shot at #1, he surprised himself at how emotionally invested he'd become in whether he actually did so.
- Sanity Slippage Song: Subverted or maybe even inverted with "Hi Ren", where he starts out barely holding it together, but ultimately reconstructs his sense of self to come out stronger than before.
- Seven Deadly Sins: The appropriately titled "Seven Sins", which namedrops every sin:Sin one: Pride, pride makes a man kill a man for his ego to survive
Sin two: Lust, lust makes the grass look greener, crucifies trust
Sin three: Gluttony, humans consume and consume, planet Earth gets a frontal lobotomy
Four: Sloth, rinse and repeat, reruns, repeat, time lost
Sin five: Envy, that's when one man's win is another man's frenzy
Sin six: Wrath, rage, vengeance, killers, psychopath
Sin seven: Greed, greed plants the seed that will destroy us all - Shadow Archetype: The dark, cynical voice in "Hi Ren". Incidentally, the song suggests that although we need to learn when to ignore our cynicism, it's not possible or even desirable to shut it out entirely. (The more overtly satanic monologue that begins the song's second act represents the collective shadow, which is less beneficial.) Throughout the first two acts of the song, whenever the cynical voice speaks, the lights behind Ren flicker. This continues in the final act, even as Ren sings a Triumphant Reprise of the intro yodeling, suggesting that instead of shutting out the cynical voice, he has instead integrated the two parts of his personality. The closing monologue (see Balance Between Good and Evil above) also backs this up.
A related note: the line "The more intensely that the light shone, the darker a shadow it cast" is paraphrased from Carl Jung himself, who used this exact metaphor as an example of enantiodromia
, the observation that in imbalanced systems, things tend to turn into their opposites. (This observation is not original to Jung, but he popularized it in the West. A similar observation is arguably the core underlying principle of Taoism, and the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus made similar observations several millennia ago. Friedrich Nietzsche also made similar observations.) In essence, the entire song illustrates this exact principle, and only when Ren brings his personality into balance does he find peace. - Solo Duet: Almost the entirety of "Hi Ren", but also at the beginning of "Kujo Beat Down".
- Take That!
- "1990s" repeats "Screw Calvin Harris" - though the song is an ode to the 1990s and likely isn't personal.
- From "Love Music, Pt 2":
You're losing the plot more than Quantum of Solace
That film's seriously really quite bollocks - Talking to Themself: In-Universe, "Hi Ren" and "Kujo Beat Down" are especially noteworthy (and powerful) examples in modern music.
- Textless Album Cover: Sick Boi and Violet's Tale.
- Title Track: "Freckled Angels" and "Sick Boi".
