ZOOMERCORE
Bladee - 333
2020 will be remembered by some as The Year of The Bladee. In a year which found many of us unable to leave the bed to do simple tasks like showering or doing the dishes, 26 year old Benjamin Reichwald, better known as Bladee, had the energy to release three - let me say it again - three full length albums. While the other two albums, Exeter and Good Luck, were impressive moments in the 2020 Cloud rap scene, 333 is by far the best of the bunch.333 finds the Swedish rapper creating a sort of ambient-emotive hybrid album, mixing elements of trap, ambient pop and pop rap. In this way, the album is worth more than the sum of its parts; the record is wholly successful in creating a world. In 333, Bladee plays with his voice a lot, and reveals that without the overbearing presence of autotune, he can really sing.
333 has been described by fans as “symbolis[ing] change to me, and makes me strive to be better and more in connection with my inner self.” No song better illustrates this wholesome outlook than “Noblest Strive.” In it, Bladee sings over melodic, arpeggiating harps, saying:
“Turn your mental prison to a maze
Turn the maze into a place where you're safe
…
Blue and black I change another shade
And I'm trapped and in the grey
Change the rainbow in my brain, it's a ray of colour”
These lyrics may seem trivial to some, but digging a little deeper, the importance of their meaning is revealed. You see, many of Bladee’s most loyal fans were birthed into the internet age, where sincerity is seen as cringe, and doomer mindset rules many corners of the internet. Drain Gang, the artistic collective of which Bladee is the leader, has notedly had a small yet noticeable alt-right fanbase. In response to this, Bladee has commented:
“It has a lot to do with these white boys that relate to me, because they’re sad and lonely and girls don’t like them so they fuck with my music. They make themselves victims. That’s what [the] alt-right is anyways: you feel like someone has done you wrong. I hope they find out and see that it’s fucked up.”
And this is where the importance of the sincerity of Bladee’s music comes to light. It is hard to separate Bladee from his massive online cult following, and by creating a genuinely positive, bloomer album such as 333, Bladee is doing something I wish other influencers in this realm would do: preaching positivity, love, sincerity. 333 marks a break in Bladee’s sadboy past, and gives listeners a lush, spiritual, psychedelic album with which to spark hope in their lives. And more than anything, this album just makes me really, really happy.