Bones

Elmo Kennedy O'Connor (born January 11, 1994), known artistically as BONES, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter from Howell, Michigan. He is also the founder of the music collective TeamSESH.

O'Connor is known for his pioneering work in sub-genres of hip-hop referred to as emo rap and trap metal. His parents had met at a rock concert. His parents moved from Chicago, Illinois to Muir Beach, California, before moving to Howell, Michigan when O'Connor was seven years old. A few years later, he met fellow artists Xavier Wulf, Chris Travis, and Eddy Baker online. The four artists would later come together to form the collective Seshollowaterboyz.

When he was 16 years old, he dropped out of Howell High School and moved to Los Angeles, where his brother and current manager, Elliott, had already been living. In an interview early in his career, O'Connor stated that he had wanted to pursue a music career since he was nine years old: "I started recording raps on the computer. I just didn't know how to go about making it public." O'Connor's older brother Elliott has mentioned the support Elmo received growing up, being quoted in a 2011 article for the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus: "From the start, our parents have been very supportive of Elmo's decision... They've always been open to a lot of different things."

O'Connor has a son, Howl, born in August 2019, and a daughter, Sunday, born in July 2026. In 2023, O'Connor married fiancée Samantha Strysko in Avalon, California, whom he met at Disneyland through his brother Elliott. before gaining journalistic attention for his 2014 album TeenWitch, which gained controversy for its themes based around the Columbine High School massacre. The album following TeenWitch, titled Garbage, was released on June 9, 2014, and was the first of O'Connor's albums to gain the attention of major music publications such as Complex Magazine and The Fader who labelled the project as "massive" and "boundary-pushing." In April 2014, O'Connor, along with TeamSESH producer Greaf, formed "surrenderdorothy", a side project that is notably less focused on rap, with a stronger focus on acoustic guitar and singing, with stylistic similarities to indie rock and emo rap. Although O'Connor does experiment with this style in his solo work, surrenderdorothy features it much more predominantly. Since 2014, the duo have released six EPs as surrenderdorothy.

O'Connor released several albums in 2015 and headlined his first sold-out show at House of Blues on March 4, 2015 before opening for electronic artist Shlohmo at The Fonda Theatre. O'Connor was later featured on ASAP Rocky's "Canal St.", which was a remix of O'Connor's song "Dirt". The song later became O'Connor's first feature on the Billboard charts. Bones performed "Canal St." with ASAP Rocky on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show, but was cut from the TV broadcast due to his refusal to censor some of the song's lyrics while performing. Videos of the performance were made available online. In May 2015, O'Connor and Greaf started releasing songs under a second side project called Oregontrail. The project is stylistically similar to Surrenderdorothy, but has been noted as having a "darker" and "rougher" tone. It also follows a loose narrative related to the game of the same name which is also reflected in the artwork of the singles. Since 2015, the duo have released seven singles as Oregontrail.

O'Connor released 10 albums between 2015 and 2017. It took him to countries such as Germany, Ukraine, Russia and Italy.

O'Connor is a founding member of the collective Seshollowaterboyz, along with Xavier Wulf, Chris Travis and Eddy Baker, with whom he often performs and collaborates. The name of the collective is a mash-up of their self-releasing labels TeamSESH (alongside Dylan Ross), Hollow Squad. Waterboyz and Healthy Boyz. They have performed at notable venues such as The Observatory in Santa Ana, California on November 13, 2015 and The Novo by Microsoft in Los Angeles on January 30, 2016. After Chris Travis left the group in 2019, the remaining members would continue touring under "Bones with Eddy Baker and Xavier Wulf." On March 12, 2024, after Wulf's former girlfriend of 5 years took to Reddit to accuse him of sexual assault, animal abuse and domestic violence, he was promptly kicked out of the group and off of Limp Bizkit's Loserville Tour. As of July 5th, 2024, BONES and Xavier Wulf have reunited and have performed together at a Robb Bank$ show in downtown Los Angeles and he has been added back to the Loserville Tour.

Musical style and influences Although O'Connor is often considered to be one of the pioneers of the emo rap sub-genre, O'Connor has said that he has no specific genre, though has been characterized as cloud rap, experimental hip-hop and "shadow rap". He is also considered an early pioneer of trap metal. Rotten

2015

RIAA: Gold

Hot

2015

RIAA: Platinum MC: Gold RMNZ: Gold At. Long. Last. ASAP

2022 This World Is Going to Ruin You

2025 100 26 15 13 Thy Kingdom Come

Ricky A Go Go Mixtapes PleasureUltimate (2024)

Singles "The Whisper of Sweet Nothings" (2016) "On the Run" (2016) "You Are My Everything" (2016) "Every Night" (2016) "Stranger" (2017) "You Know I Want You" (2017) "Death Train" (2021)

surrenderdorothy Mixtapes NobodyWantsMe (2014) breathingexercise (2018) ItsDifferentNow (2018) ItsTheLeastWeCanDo (2018) justwhatthedoctorordered (2019) julyrent (2019) thishouseisnotahome (2023) thankyouhero (2025)

Singles "Human for a Day" (2014) "It All Comes Together in the Final Act" (2015) "Sitting in the Car" (2016) "No Place Like Home" (2016) "Sometimes I Don't Understand" (2016) "Like the Back of My Hand" (2016) "Caught between the Seats" (2016) "What Great Eyes You Have" (2017) "Drop Everything" (2018)

Oregon Trail Singles "Goodbye for Now" "If All Else Fails" "We Have Been Keeping Quite Busy" "I Admit, It Has Not Been Easy" "Till the Whites of My Eyes Dry Out" "We Fought the Good Fight" "Ford the River" "Second Hand Pain"

Th@ Kid Mixtapes ADayAtTheGetty YoungDumbFuck [KNUCKLEHEAD] TEAM SESH Strictly for the RATZ AttaBoy BoredOfEducation Cousin Eddie DreamCatcher FOOL$GOLD TheGoodRatZ Holy Smokes Howell MARBLE Midnight:12AM RATBOY RatLyfe Stay Golden Stifler