Timeless
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.
Bktherula can’t be contained. At 20, she’s far too restless to be boxed into a single subgenre. The 20-year-old Atlanta emcee lulls you with melodic runs one minute only to pummel you with pulverizing bars the next. Her new song, “PSSYONFT” — which follows “Tan” as the second single from her forthcoming LVL 5, Pt. 1 EP — is firmly in the latter camp, packed with jittery jabs and emphatic body blows that will leave you sore after your first listen. Still, the sub-two-minute track’s energy is so contagious you’ll be ready for a second round as soon as the beat fades out.
Though one could easily be confused by the stylization of its name, “PSSYONFT” is has nothing to do with cryptocurrency. Instead, its title is a truncated version of its main refrain: “Yeah, hoe, show that pussy on FaceTime.” It’s an undeniably forward request, backed up by all the bravado in the world, recalling some of Boosie Badazz’s most memorable early-lockdown antics. Luckily, the sentiment feels less sleazy from Bk than it did from the 40-year-old Baton Rouge veteran.
Elsewhere in the song, Bk is equally outrageous. “Oh, you like me? Well I like you too / Rubber band man, get the checks on blue / Ooh yeah, Rula san get guap too / Ooh yeah, lucky man if top two,” she raps over chaotic 808 fills and a bass synth run through a lawnmower (courtesy of her frequent collaborator azure) at the start of what could be considered the song’s second verse. “Ooh yeah, ooh yeah, ooh yeah, ooh yeah, ooh yeah,” she continues, sounding a lot like Rob49 at the climax of “Vulture Island.”
In the song’s music video, directed by Jewish Jordan, Bk starts a party in first class on a plane that appears to be headed for a disastrous crash, winning over her initially reluctant fellow travelers. Kick your weekend off right by watching it below.
LVL 5, Pt. 1 is due out February 17 via Warner Records. Read Timmhotep Aku’s Gen F profile of Bktherula here.
