Cakes da Killa Announces New Album Black Sheep, Shares Video for New Song: Watch
Cakes da Killa has announced a new album: Black Sheep, the New York hip-hop and house artist’s third proper album, arrives March 22 via Young Art. He has also shared a new song from the album, a collaboration with Stout titled “Mind Reader.”
Cakes da Killa details new album Black Sheep, shares lead single
“Mind Reader” arrives alongside a Sam Frank-directed visual treatment that follows Cakes as he rides through Los Angeles in the back of a black convertible, eventually pulling into a warehouse party where revelers surround the car.
A SERIES OF ARTIST-CURATED PLAYLISTS FROM THOSE IN THE KNOW
Through it all, the New Jersey native has set his own pace, combining dancefloor-ready instrumentals with clever wordplay, rapid-fire delivery and provocative lyrics as he takes an unapologetic approach to his craft. Bradshaw’s sound is both innovative and infectious – as his 2022 album SVENGALI also showcases.
‘Cakewalk’ is a fun, tongue-in-cheek song of revenge, a real warning to a significant other. Lyrically, Cakes da Killa is asserting his worth, and reminding that special someone that if things don’t improve… he walks.
Cakes da Killa Shares New Single ‘Cakewalk’
New York club-rap trailblazer Cakes Da Killa has been making confrontational, innovative music for a long time, and he’s in no danger of slowing down anytime soon. After releasing the album Svengali last year, he’s got a breathless new dance-rap single, recorded with longtime collaborator Sam Katz, out today.
New Music: Cakes Da Killa – “Cakewalk”
Cakes Da Killa is ready for his close up
Blending hip-hop, house and influences from New York’s ballroom scene, Cakes Da Killa has been opening up the conversation around LGBTQ+ artists in rap. He speaks to Nathan Evans about developing his style, the appropriation of queer and ballroom culture, and finding inspiration in the Harlem Renaissance for his new album ‘Svengali’
Cakes da Killa is making music for himself again
Besides, Svengali wasn’t what he or his audience needed. “I was already crying enough at home,” he says. “I didn’t want to go and be crying in a booth.” His focus shifted. He started working with the producer Proper Villains on harder club tracks, music for people who were “partying in their bathrooms and partying on their roofs.” The two EPs they released — Muvaland (2020) and Muvaland vol. 2 (2021) — contained some of Cakes’s most intense and energetic music. His process changed too. For the first time in his adult life, he got a 9-to-5 job, a less-than-perfect scenario he plays out hilariously in his semi-autobiographical short film Visibility Sucks, released last summer.
Cakes Da Killa: Svengali - Album Review
The jazz clubs and speakeasies of the Harlem Renaissance have been replaced by the cyphers and ballrooms that Cakes came up in, and now he’s here to spit. He’s namechecked rappers like Busta Rhymes, Lil’ Kim, and Cam’ron as inspiration in the past, and he shares their fierce commitment to technique and rhythm. “W4TN” feels like a moody inversion of Busta’s “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See,” as if reimagined by Kevin JZ Prodigy; the digital shuffle of producer Sam Katz’s beats never throws Cakes off the trail of a sudden fling that could turn into something more. Katz—who produced every song on Svengali—creates an understated version of the four-on-the-floor chaos the duo has been pumping out since at least 2013.
Cakes Da Killa: Svengali review – lusty tribute to queer dance pioneers
Produced with immaculate beats by Sam Katz, Svengali pulses with nods to house and brushes of live instrumentation, making for a sweaty, decadent album. Bradshaw’s assured, slick delivery – sometimes a sultry whisper, elsewhere an elastic bounce – charts a relationship’s breathy highs and quaking lows (“This from me to you, a love letter on wax/Had to block you on the apps, now I’m venting on a track”).
A sleek, enticing record that certifies Cakes Da Killa’s place at the forefront of this sound.
Cakes Da Killa's Love Is Not Lost
Over Zoom, Cakes Da Killa and I chat with a disarming familiarity. We greet each other with a sigh of relief, an unspoken sign of solidarity. Our first chat was over half a decade prior for a freshman-year final of mine about the double-edged sword that is queer representation in hip-hop.
As two people who have voyeuristically watched each other's growth through social media over the years, the digital space between us was filled with a familiar understanding of the turmoil of the past three years. As the conversation unfolded, there was so much more to Cakes that no one knew.
Cakes Da Killa Returns With ‘Sip Of My Sip’
Out now, ‘Sip Of My Sip’ is a moody return, the twilight feel reflecting its theme about things that go bump in the night. Yep, it’s a one-night-stand banger, blending club tropes with some seductive lyricism that leaves a sting in the tale.
The no-holds-bar rapper and producer weave a tight tapestry of musical references that only hundreds of hours spent sweating to music by queer elders could produce.
Muvaland Vol. 2, the second collaborative EP from Brooklyn rapper Cakes da Killa and house producer Proper Villains, starts with a bang: “This is for f**gots,” Cakes drawls before nary a rhyme has been spit. He repeats the statement again and again, in case you misheard it the first time. Then, about 30 seconds in, a pulsating beat drops, and Cakes unleashes his signature military-grade precision flow, which resides comfortably between Lil’ Kim’s confident snarl and Busta Rhymes’ full-chested bravado.
“Cakes Da Killa, the unapologetic house & battle rapper talks Lyrics vs Flow, giving reality tv “a walk-through”, his new single Don Dada and being on our playlists for over a decade.”
“ Cakes da Killa's rhythm and flow have never been as tight as they are on his new single, "Don Dada," but the rapper was still apprehensive about dropping a new track during a global pandemic and societal reckoning with systemic racism. Cakes ultimately followed his intuition, for which those of us who needed to dance are grateful. "I will never let things that are wrong or the world mute me," the rapper tells PAPER. "And also a lot of this shit that's coming to boil and the world is not really new to me. I've been Black for almost 30 years. So this is not breaking news to me. I'm just happy that it's now being put on the main stage.”
“The Atlanta-based rapper made waves on Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow, and his future looks bright.”
“In his faux-fur bucket hat, white shirtdress, and fuzzy silver coat, Rashard Bradshaw—better known as Cakes Da Killa—is an undeniable presence. I met with the provocateur in an intimate corner of one of his favorite local haunts, Mood Ring, a queer-friendly bar that serves a specialty cocktail based on the month’s astrological sign. He’s there to shoot a video for his upcoming single, “Luv Me Nots,” and while the cameras roll, he dances up to each of the extras, making out with them amid clouds of smoke from a fog machine. One might assume that after hours of filming (and kissing) he’d need a breather, but Cakes doesn’t stop.”