POST-BURNOUT
The Cavan-based hip-hop artist Bless’s origins as a musician begins at church. Speaking to Post-Burnout, he explains: “I grew up in a church, and me and my brothers, we played instruments in the church; like, I learnt guitar and drums. So, I was always kind of musical from the start.” From there, his brother initiated him to hip-hop. “My oldest brother was my first influence of rap music,” he says. “I remember he used to play Eminem’s Encore for us, and he’d get the TV remote, and he’d make us learn 50 Cent and Dr. Dre’s parts, and he’d do Eminem, and that was, like, my first introduction of rapping.”
With the interest sparked, he started writing lyrics at 11 years-old and began rapping under his current moniker at age 17. It was when he went to college in Dublin that things started to take off. “I went to college, and one of my friends – like, my close friend from secondary school – he was doing Computer Science, and he introduced me to this guy named KxngBari, who was in his course,” he says.
KxngBari was a producer, and he and Bless initially had little overlap with the music they were listening to; with Bless citing the likes of Stormzy, Dave, Fredo, Drake and J. Cole as who he was listening to then, while KxngBari was listening to the likes of Lil Nas X and Travis Scott. Still, the two began collaborating. “When I met KxngBari, he was like, ‘Yo, I make beats,’ and stuff like that, and ‘Let me produce for you,’ and then he sent over the first set of beats, and we started making music together, and that was just a whole journey itself, you know?” says Bless.
These successful collaborations spun off into the two finding their own music collective, The Spider & the Crown. “So, essentially, The Spider & the Crown is like, I’m the Spider and he’s the Crown, because obviously he’s the king,” says Bless. “Honestly, we toyed with a lot of different names for our collective, in the way that a Drake would have OVO, or whatever it is, or J. Cole would have Dreamville. We actually just needed to set up an email [address] for an event we were hosting, and we needed a name, and we were just like, ‘Alright, let’s just call it “The Spider & the Crown!”’”
“And obviously, one day, we want it to grow to this thing where we have artists under us, and, you know, we work with all sorts of different people, producers and stuff like that,” he adds. But the collective has already began growing. Bless explains, “The plan is, honestly, to just keep growing, keep striving and keep working hard. In the next sort of year or two, we’ll be looking to bring more people on board. I feel like we’ve grown the team slightly in the last year; we’ve added a manager, obviously we have full-time video staff now, KB’s obviously in charge of mixing and music production, but we’re still looking to, you know, have someone on photography. Maybe a couple of more artists, you know what I mean? So, we do actually just want to grow.”
On how The Spider & the Crown differs from other collectives, Bless says, “I think what we do differently is just our attention to detail and obsessing over the tiniest little detail. I think having that in your back pocket will make you almost dangerous. You know, people can just make music, but what are you going to do to really make sure that this music is heard, and that people love this music? And we have a few trade secrets that we employ to make sure that we’re heard, you know?” On whom the collective looks to attract, Bless says, “I think what we’ve learnt now is that people can be interested in music, but a lot of people can kind of treat it as a hobby. I think what kind of people we’re looking for is people that are ready to work, you know what I’m saying? Like, ready to really work, and work hard. And is this the thing that you imagine feeding your kids with, or is it what you imagine buying your first house with? If that’s what it is, then you’re locked in with us; that’s the same kind of mentality that we have.”
Now, at age 22, Bless found that coming from having no scene in Cavan to competing in Dublin’s hip-hop scene gave him a driving force to prove himself against what the other musicians in the field had to offer. His secret weapon was the utilisation of the Jersey club sound, which he found missing in Irish hip-hop. This sound can be heard in his latest single at the time of this interview’s conduction, “HMU.”
“Part of it was, when we make music, we want to be relevant, of course, but we also want to be different to what everyone’s putting out,” explains Bless. “And if we’re looking at the scene and we’re like, ‘OK, it’s flooded with these dark drill beats. OK, let’s come up with something different.’ And in New York and different parts of the world, the Jersey club sound is popping, so we’re like, ‘Yo, let’s be one of the first people to do it here.’ And that’s kind of where ‘HMU’ came from.”
“It was definitely a record inspired from fun,” he continues. “Like, we wanted another single out before the [headline Sound House] show, and we were working on this song, but it was a bit more dark and just a bit more aggressive, and we liked it, but weren’t too sure about it, and then I remember KB went up to bed, and I found this Jersey club beat – which is the beat that “HMU” was – and I wrote the song in, like, two hours.”
Their intent was to make a feel-good summer anthem. “We were definitely going for summer vibes,” he says. “We made it in, like, March, so we knew, that like, ‘Yo, the weather is starting to get a bit better. This is the kind of song that people want to hear.’ Because we were just thinking of where we like to listen to music. So, like, all the guys are over, maybe you’re having a few drinks, it’s sunny, whatever it is; that’s the kind of song that you kind of just want playing in the background, you know what I mean? And, obviously, getting it on radio, as well. So, we have the opportunity lately to get our songs on the radio, and these are the kind of songs that people want to hear at this kind of time. So, it just made sense.”
Since this interview was conducted in May, Bless has released a follow-up single to “HMU,” called “HERE 4 U” (feat. Koatz). You can follow Bless’s music and his social media here. A more extensive version of this interview, which expands on the topics discussed, as well as Bless discussing his headlining show at the Sound House, the video production of The Spider & the Crown, working during the lockdown, ideas for a compilation with the collective, his first album, and more can be found on the latest edition of POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews, premiering at 17:00 (IST) today on YouTube and available on all other platforms after.
Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.