The Downfall of Members Only..

- Members

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was a rap collective started by XXXTENTACION and Ski Mask the Slump God in 2014, as the SoundCloud rap era flourished, so did Members Only. Their first and final studio album, Members Only, Volume Four, peaked at number 18 on the Billboard charts. But it seems that shortly after the death of ring leader XXXTENTACION, the group began to fall apart. Today we'll look at how the group formed, how it fell apart, and what they're up to today. First I want to establish a brief history and member list of Members Only since, like most underground rap collectives, it can be very confusing.

The issues within the collective are also very confusing. And I spent several hours of lives on IG trying to figure it all out as best I could. And I'm sure I'm missing some things that happened behind the scenes, but I'll give it to you as best I can. In 2014, X and Ski, who met in prison, created the collective called Members Only. Although X claims that he created Members Only and Ski created Very Rare, they are somewhat interchangeable. In April 2015, they released the first

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mix tape which was called Members Only Volume One. It was just X and ski at the time, and featured popular songs like Freddy versus Jason, which actually recently became popular on TikTok, however, around this time, the first.

This is when the

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-only membership list gets quite confusing, with many members coming and going throughout the history of the collective. I will also mainly focus on the members who are crucial to the development of the collective. In July, X tweeted that there were already 20 people in Members Only, later that year in October, they released volume two of Members Only. By the end of 2015, there already seemed to be some confusion in the group, which honestly happens when you have more than 20 members in a collective, by the beginning of 2016, they had already done live shows as you can see in the infamous Members Only Road vlog to Denver, and X claimed that they already had 30 members.

Members Only on this bitch X even created a Very Rare Members Only theme for Google Chrome, which I think is just hilarious. I wonder if anyone was actually using the members-only Google Chrome theme at the time. Throughout the life of the collective, X would say on Twitter that the group was ending. And shortly after, he followed up by saying that he wasn't. However, on October 2, 2016, The group remained dormant for a while until a few months later when Ski tweeted that Members Only had returned, then in April 2017, X was released from jail and in June, Members Only volume three was released.

At this point, Members Only was thriving because X's newfound popularity was propelling Members Only into the spotlight, especially since volume three of Members Only was released under his name. Some of the most popular members at the time, besides X and Ski, included Kid Trunks, Craig Xen, Bass Santana, Flyboy Tarantino, and Cooliecut. And I know there have been many more members in the group who are great, like maybe Wifisfuneral or Killstation, but these are some of the members who would play a bigger role in the future of the collective. But anyway, throughout 2018, all of the Members Only artists were continuing their careers until one fateful day, on June 18, 2018, X was shot and killed, which would change Members Only forever.

It was quite evident that Once X left, the group was left without a leader and that would eventually lead to the

downfall

of Members Only. Five months after X's passing, Ski released the album Stokely, sparking probably the biggest dispute in Members Only. The intro track to Ski's album, So High, originally had a verse by Flyboy Tarantino, but Ski removed the verse and put the song on his album. This upset Flyboy and other members who had a number of lives on IG, arguing about the situation. Ski argued that he had done several songs with Flyboy. So a song shouldn't matter.

And the other members of the group were making multiple statements about Ski: bro, come on, bro. I'm nothing more than a good friend, brother. We got seven songs together, my black, seven songs. And you're mad because I played a song that I took from my album for you. Regardless of who was right, Ski apparently distanced himself from the group. And finally he only had two songs on Members Only volume four, speaking of which, Members Only volume four was released in 2019 on X's birthday. And it gave the group even more attention. X was already incredibly popular at the time of his passing, and his death further expanded his fan base.

So when volume four of Members Only was released under his name, it attracted a lot of attention. He put up the best numbers the group has ever seen and probably the best numbers they will ever see. At the time I really enjoyed the project and I think it had some very solid songs. The album peaked at number 18 on the Billboard charts and the group toured after the release. They also did a media tour with some freestyles and some interviews. At that time, it seemed that fans looked at Craig Xen as the group's leader and his personal favorite artist.

However, another dispute occurred between Craig and some of the other members of the group. Bass Santana claimed that Craig Xen's Run It Back, featuring XXXTENTACION, was intended for members-only volume four, but Craig took it and used it on his own album, just so he could make more money. Regardless of what happened or who was telling the truth, Craig left Members Only soon after and claimed it was all love. Other members like Trunks and Kinsoul seemed pretty salty that Craig was leaving. Around the same time Craig left, Cooliecut claimed he was kicked out of the group because he didn't want to sign a 20% contract.

It seemed like most of his problems stemmed from money and fake love. They all got together thanks to a mutual friend and that mutual friend was no longer there to keep them all together. During each fight, people had conflicting stories and used X's name to justify what he said. It was really strange and seemed really fake, which made both sides hard to believe. Regardless of who was right or who was wrong. The group no longer had its most popular members, X, Ski and Craig, after this, there has been no other members-only release. And it seems like the group is dormant after losing all of their leaders and most popular artists, Members Only had clearly peaked that year.

And from there it only went down. After 2019, we haven't really heard or seen much from Members Only as a collective. Obviously, Ski has had a very successful career so far. Of the rest of the group, Craig seems to be the most successful occasionally doing live shows and releasing music. Killstation, another member who left in 2019 but wasn't really involved in the issue, has had a fairly successful career outside of Members Only. Cooliecut is also still making music and seems to be doing well. And boy Trunks, well, you know, the rest of the other members are pretty inactive on social media, don't make music, or have fallen off completely.

It seems that the members who distanced themselves from the group and tried to build their own solo careers have done the best for themselves. While other members have simply tried to hold on to X's legacy for their own benefit. It's sad to say that Members Only as a collective has officially fallen and will likely never return. I think there are some members of the collective who have potential, but so far they have peaked. It's really unfortunate to see something that X and Ski have built since 2014 fall apart so quickly after X's death. Let me know what you think of Members Only in the comments below.

If you liked this video, you might like the video where I covered the lost and deleted songs and mix tapes from X. Anyway, thanks everyone for watching, this has been mattyballz and I'll see you next time. (instrumental music plays)