Sabodi aligns with his potential in debut project lead “Flower$ in the Rain”

If the sign of a good rapper is a desire to evolve from their discordant SoundCloud-squatter rap era, once they’ve paid their dues on the platform, perhaps the sign of a potentially great one is a willingness to have a sense of humour about their past tumblings with the subgenre.

Operating with the sort of high-octane creative temperament that expedited the growth of similar artists by multiplicities – think Mac Miller or Dominic Fike – on 2020, Sabodi airs out his desire to be acknowledged as more than the perpetually blissed-out TikTok and SoundCloud freestyle rapper. With an elastic rhythm that glides on top of a flexible vertebra of citrusy guitar, “Flower$ in the Rain” stands out as one of the most actualised moments from the eight-pronged collection of dimorphous R&B-indie fusion aspirations.

“Sometimes artists make music that sounds cool, but there’s no point to it,” Sabodi shares. “I want people to connect emotionally to every song that I make, that’s always the main goal.” Still, using emotional honesty as his creative salient point isn’t used as an excuse for expressive one-dimensionality. Often regardless of the topical matter, he prefers to make upbeat music, particularly when in the studio with others. “For ‘Flower$ in the Rain’, I tried to convey the emotion of being in love with someone, but it’s also about how hard love can be. I wanted to really get that feeling across while still making it cute and catchy.”

Considering the track’s frictionless pivots and sense of inevitability, the uneducated ear would not suspect that ‘Flower$ in the Rain’ marked Sabodi’s first attempt at stitching a melody. Yet, he had “only ever rapped” before the promising initial outlines of the track enticed him to flirt with the prospect of delivering a smoother rhythmic cadence. He enthuses over approaching new frontiers of possibility in his craft: “I was listening to more Dominic Fike at the time and was like, ‘Let me just try this out.’ It was definitely a risk because it could have just sounded horrendous, but it was probably the most fun I’ve ever had making a song. It made me realise this is what I want to do more of.”

“I think I want to find a medium where it’s half indie, half rap. For example, Mac Miller is a huge inspiration for me. His work is so clean, and you can just hear his soul in the music. I’m paying homage while putting my own spin on it.” Only Mac Miller could make the perennial maternal warning, ‘You are who you hang out with,’ sound worthwhile, but the proverb tracks compatibly with the tendency for artists’ evolution to move in synchronicity with their shifting taste.

“When I first started making music, I was obsessed with SoundCloud rap, Chunkz, Ski Mask [the Slump God], all of that,” says Sabodi. “It was horrendous, but it’s what got me into this, so it’ll always have a place in my heart. I also used to rap in an American accent, which obviously did not sound good coming from a kid from Bristol.”

Likely in repentance of his American-accent era, Sabodi defaulted to more hyperlocal styles despite a lack of enthusiasm for making ‘Bristolian music’: “A couple of years ago, I was making garage because I felt like that was the ‘Bristol thing’, but I didn’t actually enjoy the process. I’m probably the furthest thing from that now. Don’t get me wrong, there’s an insane amount of talent here, but drum and bass, house, garage – all of that is massive. Even for them, though, it’s very hard to break out beyond the city. Musicians here think they’re world famous, and then they leave the city and realize nobody knows who they are. I’m trying to get known outside of Bristol”.

“I don’t think I could write the songs that I do if I grew up anywhere else, though,” he later amends. Owing to his roots, Sabodi has already performed across major festival stages in the UK, including Glastonbury, Love Saves The Day, and Boomtown. While the online exposure afforded by an undersupplied market of local rap in Bristol gave Sabodi an appreciated boost, the ‘Bristol Bubble’ resulted in his reputation as an online rapper outpacing his more determined work.

“A misconception about my work is that I’m just a TikTok rapper,” he explains. “A lot of people know me from freestyles I’d post online over beats from Amy Winehouse and Michael Jackson. People come up to me and say, ‘Oh, you’re that TikTok guy.’ I’m obviously grateful that anyone knows me, but I’m not a TikTok rapper. I’m an artist, I make actual projects. As I grew out of all that, my inspirations became so different, I barely listen to rap anymore, but that’s just a part of life. Your ears change.”