The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.
Brenda Wireko Mensah has achieved a cold fusion of the catwalk to the mic. Her love of fashion trickles down from her stage name, Bree Runway, to her bars, which are always peppered with at least a few designer brags. Raised by Ghanaian parents on a Hackney, London block dubbed “murder mile,” she’s now risen to the peak of haute couture, and she sees no reason to be humble about it. Whether you’re a fan or a hater of her cocky persona, you’d be unwise not to respect it.
Her new single, “THAT GIRL,” is an unreserved flex on anyone less fashionable than she — which, if we’re being honest, is all of us. “I already been that girl,” she reminds us five times across three choruses before the song begins in earnest, her pummeling approach emphasized by a beat from PC Music signee Easyfun that’s entirely 808 kicks and loud, rhythmic breathing for the two-minute track’s first 35 seconds. “Speechless, he don’t know what to say / My body look good in that new Gaultier,” she continues in verse one. “Switch up the swag four times in a day / It’s just like whatever.”
At this point, Easyfun introduces a few house chords into the mix, followed by some by some blistering sub bass that dissipates as the synth settles in. “My face stunning, its top tier / Been cold, where’s my Moncler?” she asks later as the drums drop out for a moment. “Sickening body, it’s unfair / I can pronounce everything I wear.”
The track’s video treatment, directed by Ruth Hogben (best known as Lady Gaga’s visual muse) finds Bree rotating through a flurry of flawless fits as she raps, dances, and self-duplicates for the camera. Watch it above.
