Up-and-coming Belfast alternative hip hop artist cbakl has teamed up with Alica Raye and Keanu The Pilot for ‘Oh My Days’ the lead single from his upcoming EP ‘Former Blessings’ which also features contributions from Bricknasty, Kibo, Curtisy and Leo Miyagee.

“It’s difficult to create great music if you aren’t out experiencing different things and meeting new people. My older music is very centred around nostalgia, love and heartbreak and I’ve definitely kept bits of those things with this new release,” explains cbakl.

“The main theme on the new songs is how a lot of us can often get hung up on people and periods of our life that seemed like they’d be around forever so we took them for granted at the time but they eventually faded away.”

‘Oh My Days’ sees Alicia Raye (as heard on Sello’s Sellotape) and Keanu The Pilot (part of the Gliders collective and soon to collaborate with Ghostface Killah) combine on a tail of modern relationships.

“I kind of disappeared for a couple years with regards to serious music releases and I felt I had a lot of growth to do, both personally and as an artist. I think that really resonates in this new music. As an artist it’s quite easy to get pigeon-holed into one particular sound, especially with the success I had when I was younger with the lo-fi stuff. I didn’t want to just be known as ‘that lofi guy’ or ‘that hip-hop producer’.

“This new single especially is kind of a hybrid between garage, house, rap and drill; if there’s one main thing I want to achieve with the project it’s showing people that I’m not a one trick producer” adds cbakl on his artistic development.