SoundCloud is in trouble. Earlier this month, the streaming platform laid off nearly half its workforce, positioning the move as what it needs to do to remain "independent." Since then, there have been reports that the company doesn't even have enough money to survive the next two months, even after the mass layoffs. Publications like Fortune are already writing obituaries, pondering where things went wrong for the company. It's hard to believe that SoundCloud will just straight-up die this year; I have an easier time imagining a cash-rich streaming service or a social network swooping in just before the clock runs out and buying it for relative pocket change. Still, the timing of this implosion is a sad irony. SoundCloud might be financially destroyed, but it's never been a stronger cultural force than it is right now, especially within rap. Just about every rapper who's risen to stardom in the past five-or-so years has done it largely through SoundCloud, a service that works as an efficient discovery engine and mostly removes the corporate-gatekeeper systems that make services like Spotify and Apple Music so much less exciting. (One of those ascendent rap stars, Chance The Rapper, is apparently working on the SoundCloud problem, though God only knows what that means.) And lately, SoundCloud has become something other than a vehicle. It's become an aesthetic.