Listen HereBy: By: Olivia Wile
Twitter: o_wile
Email: wileo@findlay.edu
After a nearly nine month dry spell, Blackbear is back with his first single of the year, “the 1.”
The 27-year-old Hip-Hop and R&B singer released the track, along with a music video for it, last week.
The Blackbear fans out there will be happy to hear he doesn’t stray far from his roots with this song. Bear accompanies an upbeat, funky sound with another melancholy message.
The song opens with piano cords and, of course, Blackbear’s usual vocal effects: reverb and auto-tone. The track is inevitably a breakup song as the first verse reads:
“Getting over you, moving on.”
“Letting go of you, moving on.”
Though Blackbear is known for masking dark lyrics in catchy, pop ballads, this song separates itself from the pack for being a bit more empowering. It tells the story of, you guessed it, a breakup, but instead of Bear being seemingly broken, he’s come to terms with reality and is moving on.
Blackbear has a special way of telling a story through his music with descriptive lyrics and authentic vocals. This song does not fall short of this as the artist paints a vivid picture of his breakup throughout the song:
“So tell me why it is you’re moving
All the way to Portland?
Tell me why it’s so important?
I text you, you ignore it.”
The message clearly means something to Bear, explaining why he released a music video for the song, something he rarely does.
Being his first single of 2018, the way Blackbear went about promoting this new single is impressive. Leading up to the release, he changed his Twitter name to the day it was scheduled to come out, “august 23.”
The artist used his social media account to tease the song even further by tweeting lyrics from it.
As a very loud Twitter presence, Bear is no stranger to vocalizing his emotions and personal struggles. This makes his tactic that much more effective. Fans would have no way of knowing his tweets over the last few weeks were from this new song. They also would have no way of differentiating his raw emotions from lyrics from new music.
You may now be wondering if this means all of his recent tweets could in fact be lyrics from new music to come. The answer is most likely yes, as the album cover for “the 1” is the same cover as a newly announced Bear album titled “Anonymous,” scheduled to come out on Feb. 14, 2019.
And though February 2019 seems like a while away, keep in mind Blackbear is coming back from a monster year, releasing three major musical projects in 2017.
So whether you’re a die hard Blackbear fan, looking for a funky track to fuel or combat your heartbreak, or are now committed to trying to crack the Morse code that is the Twitter account of @iamblackbear, give “the 1” a listen. The song is available on iTunes, Apple Music and Spotify.
Be on the lookout for new singles from “Anonymous” as well, I know I will.
