21-year-old Bktherula – born Brooklyn Rodriguez – is learning to let go in real-time with a healthy new ‘fuck-it’ attitude. “I just feel as if nothing on this earth matters more than yourself,” the Atlanta rapper tells me on a late April morning, as she approaches the tail end of her North American tour with Y2K-auteur PinkPantheress. “Not in an egotistical sense, but once I started to understand this I’ve started to say ‘fuck it’ more. I’ve been more carefree. I just do as I please. Changing yourself for the ways of others will ruin you, that’s why a lot of people get what they call ‘lost in the sauce.’”
Bktherula is no carbon copy. “Like anyone, you have to remember that your blueprint is not the blueprint that’s been used by all the greats before you,” she explains. “One day my blueprint is going to be told to other artists.” In conversation, she has the energy and wisdom of someone approaching creative enlightenment, gushing about EDM as passionately as she does quantum.
Since the late 2010’s, she has conjured chaotic charm and radical tenderness in her glitchy blend of genres, making it out of warehouse raves and into the studio, a place she now calls ‘home’ for the most part, with the likes of Destroy Lonely, J.I.D, Babyxsosa, Cash Cobain, and NBA YoungBoy. With her 2019 breakout single “LEFT RIGHT” and her head-banging hit “Tweakin’ Together” released the following year, Bk has racked up a legion of fans; in the past year alone, the artist has walked the runway for Nigerian designer Mowalola, starred in Marc Jacobs’ Summer 2023 campaign and of course, shared her latest album to boot.
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Sifting through her music is like unlocking map areas on a video game. It’s vivid and fresh, reliably fascinating and full of hidden gems. LVL5 P2, her fifth album, is a manifestation of Bk’s alter ego, Player 2, an unmercifully straight-shooting philosopher, wrapping lyrical gems within intricately structured bars. She raps breathlessly and brilliantly across the record, demonstrating mastery of music theory with her signature bunny-hop cadence.
It’s a natural progression from LVL5 P1, her first musical foray into the ‘fifth level’ of thinking, an enlightened realm, where Bk is creating capsules of wisdom-filled quips. Each song is a snapshot of how she’s thinking at a given moment, channelling a mood that would be irreplaceable if she tried to record it the next day. The subtle details like these – a drive-through on ‘sexy Drill’ with New York maverick Cash Cobain, humming God’s praises on “FEATHERS”, or an ode to Juvenile on “TATTI”– leave us with 13 full-tilt tracks of dead-pan ad libs and metallic beats.
As with this album, her catalogue shows she takes time to understand the scientific equation that goes into a song, and how it leaves you feeling. “Frequency is a very big thing. That’s why they have those little YouTube videos of different frequencies – like 425Hz love frequencies or whatever,” she tells us. “I mess around with frequencies so my fans don’t end up feeling like shit.” As of late, her musical obsessions lie in unearthing the obscure and disparate and making it into something whole. “Me and my producers use specific sounds, weird sounds. The way we make beats together is actually crazy, it should be documented. We’ll be hearing a sound on the street and want to put it in a beat, or if the speaker messes up the sound. We’ll record it, mess with it, and put it in the beat. Oh, and put a hard 808 on it as well.”
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Source: https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2024/07/05/bktherula/
Credits:
Photography — CODY LIDTKE
Styling — KARA ER
Words — SOPHIA HILL
Make-up — MARK DE LOS REYES at Paradis NY