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. Since 2010, O'Connor has released an extensive discography and developed a large fan base. As of 2024, he has released over 100 albums, mixtapes and EPs across several aliases.
Early and personal life Elmo Kennedy O'Connor was born in Muir Beach, California in 1994 to mother Rachel Culp, a clothing designer, and father Danny O'Connor, who worked in the music business. His parents had met at a rock concert. His maternal grandfather was actor Robert Culp. 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." Despite moving away from his parents at a young age, O'Connor has spoken positively of them, stating, "If I tried to write a book about, 'oh, what would be dream parents?', I couldn't even make anything better than them. All they do is shower me in love. Unconditional love, forever." 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 described Howell as a "mundane" place where its residents are "born and they die there", also calling it "one of the most racist towns in Michigan".
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. Since 2017, O'Connor has resided in Glendale, California.
Musical career O'Connor first started making music at the age of nine after his father purchased an iMac G3. He would download hip hop instrumentals from SoundClick and use the computer's built-in microphone to record himself rapping, though it wasn't until 2010 at the age of 16 that he would start releasing music online under the alias "Th@ Kid", often on MySpace or other early internet blogging services. After moving to Los Angeles, O'Connor connected with other artists he met online including Xavier Wulf, Chris Travis, and Eddy Baker, who at the time were members of the now semi-disbanded Raider Klan. He later officially changed his stage name to Bones in 2012, often associated with the release of his debut album named Bones.
On July 4, 2012, O'Connor released his eponymous debut album under the alias Bones. From 2012 to 2014 he released 12 albums 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 ten albums between 2015 and 2017. In 2016, he began releasing music under a new persona called Ricky A Go Go. He uploaded five tracks in total to a SoundCloud account for this persona with the fifth one being uploaded in 2017.
On January 19, 2018, O'Connor performed in Koko, London, thus starting his first ever European tour, called the Deadboy Tour. 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 five 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". O'Connor's singing has been compared to grunge and emo, while his rapping has been compared sub-genres such as horrorcore and emo rap. He is also considered an early pioneer of trap metal.
O'Connor rarely talks about his musical influences, although during interviews he has cited Nas, Master P, Marvin Gaye, Earth Wind & Fire, Bootsy Collins, Stevie Nicks and Joni Mitchell as well as being a fan of popular Myspace-era bands like Enter Shikari. Over the years of his music career, O'Connor helped underground hip hop develop into new styles and has been noted as "one of the most influential underground artists of the internet age".
Discography Bones Studio albums +List of studio albums shown WhiteRapper Released: July 4, 2012 Labels: Self Released Formats: digital download TypicalRapShit Released: September 26, 2012 Labels: Self Released Formats: digital download BLVCKNWHITE Released: November 21, 2012 Labels: Self Released Formats: digital download Bones Released: December 1, 2012 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download 1MillionBlunts Released: December 25, 2012 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download LivingLegend Released: February 1, 2013 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download Saturn Released: February 23, 2013 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download Teenager Released: March 31, 2013 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download ダサい (Lame) Released: June 6, 2013 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download Creep Released: June 8, 2013 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download Scumbag Released: August 8, 2013 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Cracker Released: September 28, 2013 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming PaidProgramming Released: November 1, 2013 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming UndergroundGods Released: November 26, 2013 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download DeadBoy Released: January 1, 2014 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming TeenWitch Released: February 24, 2014 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Garbage Released: June 8, 2014 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Skinny Released: September 1, 2014 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Rotten Released: December 2, 2014 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming SongsThatRemindYouOfHome Released: February 13, 2015 Labels: TeamSESH, Handzum Formats: digital download Powder Released: April 11, 2015 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Banshee Released: August 23, 2015 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming HermitOfEastGrandRiver Released: November 30, 2015 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Useless Released: February 7, 2016 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming PaidProgramming2 Released: July 24, 2016 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming GoodForNothing Released: October 16, 2016 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming SoftwareUpdate1.0 Released: November 5, 2016 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Disgrace Released: January 11, 2017 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming UNRENDERED Released: April 20, 2017 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming NoRedeemingQualities Released: June 16, 2017 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Failure Released: October 2, 2017 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Carcass (СКЕЛЕТ) Released: December 23, 2017 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming Augmented Released: April 20, 2018 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming LivingSucks Released: August 13, 2018 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming TheManInTheRadiator Released: November 1, 2018 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming SparrowsCreek Released: February 11, 2019 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming UnderTheWillowTree Released: May 3, 2019 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming KickingTheBucket Released: August 30, 2019 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming IFeelLikeDirt Released: November 29, 2019 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming OFFLINE Released: February 24, 2020 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming BRACE Released: March 2, 2020 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming DamagedGoods Released: April 20, 2020 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming REMAINS Released: May 30, 2020 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming FromBeyondTheGrave Released: November 6, 2020 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming BURDEN Released: January 29, 2021 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming PushingUpDaisies Released: March 23, 2021 Labels: TeamSESH Formats: digital download, streaming InLovingMemory Released: June 18, 2021 Labels: TeamSESH