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STICKS

STICKS

Gothenburg rapper Bobby Blaque’s second single “STICKS” introduces us to a sound with certain noir undertones, without fully abandoning the whimsical flow approach that defined his breakthrough debut “Thirty Rack$”. Somewhere in between the identity crisis derived from his background as a trans-racially adopted child and the quirky bubblegum-influenced aesthetics of his producer Trap Teddy, Blaque rhymes effortlessly over an alternative beat with influences ranging from BROCKHAMPTON to Tyga.

Following the overwhelming streaming success of “Thirty Rack$”, Blaque now experiments with a raw sound devoid of the autotuned singsong that characterized his debut. The rapper’s flow in “STICKS” flirts with crude imagery, which creates the atmosphere of a noir comic book when combined with Trap Teddy’s strange beat: Equal parts coarse Gothenburg underground and peculiar humor.

There is more than one noir parallel to draw where Bobby Blaque is concerned. Beyond laid-back appearances, the alleyways of his unconscious mind still revisit the traumatic experience of trans-racial adoption in early childhood. Providing his flows with lyric realism would’ve been simplistic, however. Instead, his work with Trap Teddy has led to the ambiguous aesthetics crystallized on “STICKS”.

The experiment of combining Blaque’s background with Trap Teddy’s production turned out to be a massive success, with Thirty Rack$ quickly becoming the fastest-growing song in Rexius Records History, reaching the 1,000,000-mark in a record-breaking 73 days.

The sound of ”STICKS” is an appetizer for an EP that will be released in February. According to Trap Teddy, the aesthetics of the song are derived from another track of the compilation, which ended up becoming a different song after countless transformations in the studio. Blaque’s new single will be released on January 24th.

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