Pre-Listening thoughts

 

The randomly chosen Bassline song this week happened to be Rapstar, a song that I am already well familiar with. Polo G is an artist that I know quite a few songs he’s featured on, Patience by KSI and Better Days by Neiked come to my mind. I find his verses to be a fun break from the rest of those songs, but haven’t really thought about what really makes him pop as an individual. That’s hopefully what I’m going to be finding out today as I take a listen to his solo hit, Rapstar.

 

Post-Listening thoughts

 

Rapstar is a really solid rap song (Never could’ve guessed that genre from the title) about the high and lows of being famous. This I find kind of interesting because I had never heard of Polo G until this song got famous. After some quick research, he did have a song reach number 11 on the Billboard hot 100, so that is more on me being oblivious to what’s big outside of NZ. Rapstar was the third single of his 2021 album Hall Of Fame and the most successful of them. The song has a plucky ukelele sound throughout the track and I believe that that was an interesting choice as I don’t really hear ukelele in rap music. I like it though, it’s really refreshing to hear something experimental like that. The lyrics are also interesting to think about where he discusses both feelings of anxiety and loneliness as well as the usual dangerous gangster persona that is often present in a lot of rap music. Polo grew up in a very dangerous gang-ridden place and he’s reflecting on that and what it has to mean for him now that he can afford to leave that kind of lifestyle because of his successful career. Polo is also an artist that has faced many mental health issues over his years and anxiety would be a daily struggle.

 

This song has some great and thought-provoking lyricism. Hearing what he had to sat now made me think a lot 8/10