FEATURE:
Saluting a Rap Queen…
PHOTO CREDIT: Fraser Taylor
My Favourite E.P. of 2022: Bree Runway’s WOAH, WHAT A BLUR!
__________
A sensational talent…
who is A Rap queen and a superstar, I wanted to mention Bree Runway. The Hackney Hip-Hop legend-in-the-making has been making music for years now. She put out her mixtape, 2000and4Eva, in 2020. I have already written about my favourite albums of this year, and I have also written about the best singles. I have also written about the best debut albums and some really great E.P.s from 2022. I wanted to spotlight my favourite E.P. of this year. A bit of a surprise drop from Bree Runway, there are not a lot of interviews around it – annoyingly, the one there is free to reads but I cannot copy it into this feature! CLASH were among those to react to the news of the forthcoming E.P. from Bree Runway, as WOAH, WHAT A BLUR! came out on 8th December:
“Bree Runway has shared her new project ‘WOAH, WHAT A BLUR!’ in full.
The Hackney all-rounder has enjoyed a stellar year, opening 2022 with a Clash cover and a full-throttle headline show at Brixton Electric.
Since then, she’s accelerated. Bree Runway is a true phenomenon, a blaze of colour and originality on an otherwise flat UK pop scene.
Linking with regular collaborators EASYFUN, LIOHN and Khlar, her surprise five-tracker ‘WOAH, WHAT A BLUR!’ is on streaming services now.
A natural over-sharer, Bree holds conversations on love, heartbreak, and mental health, while man-of-the-moment Stormzy drops past on epic highlight ‘PICK YOUR POISON’”.
FADER did actually speak with Bree Runway about WOAH, WHAST A BLUR! You can listen to the interview above, but what came out of it was a sense of disappointment and anger. The E.P. news was leaked early, and I guess Bree Runway wanted to announce the project herself closer to the time. Feeling hurt by things and considering it was rude for fans to talk about the E.P. ahead of time, I feel there has been a bit of a mess coming from what should have been an incredible occasion. To be fair, she does not really see WOAH, WHAT A BLUR! as an E.P. more a mini-E.P. or an appetiser before the main meal of a possible album next year, this is something for fans. Something for people to hear before something larger arrives. I can appreciate why Bree Runway might feel aggrieved or does not want WOAH, WHAT A BLUR! talked about too much or seen as more than it is. She has released several E.P.s previously, and they are all stunning and different. I think she is being very modest! I love Bree Runway’s music, and WOAH, WHAT A BLUR! has instantly become my favourite E.P. of the year. There have been some great E.P.s released this year, but I feel WOAH, WHAT A BLUR! is at the top. I might also write about another E.P. from this year that I love. It is from girl group FLO, and it is called The Lead. Bree Runway to say that the project is regal, vulnerable, honest and glamorous. She stated how now she’s interested in blending textures and making new shapes. Not wanting people to get too ahead of themselves, she was keeping her cards close to chest. Whilst WOAH, WHAT A BLUR! is an E.P. that is a blend of sounds and rollercoaster of emotions, it is also a fabulous and hugely impressive standalone work!
PHOTO CREDIT: Fraser Taylor
I want to bring in a review from NME. Big fans of Bree Runway, they were very positive about an E.P. that was a surprise to many. Its creator felt a little angry the fact that she recorded it in a week, pretty much under a quilt and does not want to work that way. Perhaps preferring a more luxurious setting and fancy studio in L.A., there is a rawness and urgency to her new E.P. Maybe she is not so angry now it is out there, but I can appreciate she did not want fans talking about it before it was announced. Regardless, what came out of the whole thing is a superb selection of songs that confirms her place as one of the finest voices in Rap right now!
“Bree Runway has spent the year correcting her underdog status. The world has finally caught up to her inventive pop music in 2022 with a BRIT Rising Star nomination, a sold-out US tour, and an NME cover to boot. To cap it all off, the fashion queen of British pop-rap has released a surprise project, ‘Woah, What A Blur!, that offers more of her it-girl personality and ventures into new electronic styles.
The sound of revving engines careening off into opener ‘Archive Mami’ is an invigorating start. Bree gives the low-down on who is on top (“And if you say that I’m a nobody online / Why the hell did Gaultier sent me shit from the archive?”), but the song is cut criminally short. You’re left fiending to hear the full version, but the next track ‘BREEE!’ makes amends with tight melodic rapping threaded through weighty bass kicks.
Bree taps into her confident, opulent self on the hulking Baltimore club track ‘That Girl’. Doused in metallic production flourishes, she lets loose on Ballroom-tinged raps that have a touch of Cakes Da Killa in their slinky wit. “They salty ’cause I bring the pepper / I’ll be the it girl, now and forever”, she spits. “Sickening body, it’s unfair / I can pronounce everything I wear”. Bree’s cocksure performance brings out something of a thematic sum-up for her year: “I already been that girl / If you bad and you know it, better show out, girl”.
The sole questionable moment on the release is ‘Pick Your Poison’, a plucked-guitar Afropop duet with Stormzy. It’s about two people trying to connect despite having different attitudes towards drinking, but you can practically envision the music video of the two leaning on opposite sides of the same wall singing out into the distance. It lacks Bree’s typically inventive spark: while there is room for her to make a slower ballad – as the brilliant, Jai Paul-ish ‘Somebody Like You’ from this year proves – here, she feels caught in a pop formula.
‘FWMM’, however, shows Bree becoming an album artist with a captivating confessional. She expresses a desire for intimacy from her partner over a bedrock of warm interstellar synths, before taking the route of D’Angelo’s ‘Untitled (How Does It Feel)’ and painting the climax of intimacy through a godly rise. ‘Woah, What A Blur!’ is an exploratory collection that goes to multiple stylistic places, but if Bree Runway’s forthcoming debut album fills in the gaps, her stardom will be impossible to downplay”.
I shall leave it there. If some (Bree Runway included) feel it is not her best and most representative work, she should be very proud of a fantastic E.P. It has made a big impression on me, and it does mean many will ask about an album. There is no confirmed date, but you know there is going to be huge excitement around that possibility. Such an inspiring artist putting her unique footprint on Rap and Hip-Hop, I know 2023 will be a great year. If this one has been a bit of a blur, she did leave us with…
A brilliant E.P.