Lovers by cbakl
Presented by WordUp Collective
“As soon as I looked through the archival footage I knew I had to work with it in some capacity. Being from Portrush on the North Coast & seeing the archive footage of the races from the 1950/60s, alongside footage of the way the town used to look, I knew it would perfectly fit the aesthetic & vibe of this track I created. I wanted to include archive footage that painted a picture of the landscapes that shaped me as a person & artist over the years, paying homage to the country I’m very proud to be from!
Lovers marks a slight shift in direction with regards to my music, originally garnering a lot of attention in the ‘lo-fi’ scene, I wanted to branch away from that side of things & show that I’m capable of making a variety of different genres whilst keeping the signature ‘cbakl’ sound.” - cbakl, 2023
Lovers came from the live event cbakl: seanfhocail that took place on 27th January 2023 for TradFest Temple Bar in the Button Factory, Dublin. It was presented by WordUp Collective and featured Alicia Raye, Bricknasty, Matt Ó, Natalya O’Flaherty and Sasha Terfous.
cbakl: seanfhocail was a bold reimagining of traditional music for the modern age – combining archive samples with hip hop, eclectic beats, spoken word, jazz, R&B, soul and house. Composed and performed by the Belfast based producer cbakl alongside guest artists, the show brought a sense of musical adventure rooted in years of history. The live performances were accompanied by visuals selected by cbakl from Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Film Archive. cbakl explains “Having worked and lived in several places around the country, including Belfast & Dublin, and seeing the vast assortment of amazing footage the Digital Film Archive had to offer I knew I could edit it together to showcase some of the best things the country has to offer.”
Special thanks to cbakl for their creative response and to Annette & Phil Udell at WordUp Collective for their creative direction.
ABOUT
cbakl is an alternative hip hop artist producing eclectic beats drawing influence from jazz, R&B, soul and house. Starting out uploading tracks to SoundCloud aged 15, he began gaining an organic following online and has now progressed to becoming one of Ireland’s most in demand beatmakers. Successfully transitioning focus from SoundCloud to Spotify & Apple Music, he has amassed over 10 million streams across various platforms and had two songs featured on the RTE show Kin, starring Aiden Gillen (Game of Thrones, Peaky Blinders) and Emmett J. Scanlan (Peaky Blinders, The Fall) and supervised by David Holmes. Joining WordUp Collective in early 2022, he released two more soul sampling singles - man she loves and new girls every night - before starting work on a brand-new project featuring some of the most exciting musicians in Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK, the lead single of which will see him bring together some of Dublin & Belfast’s finest Hip-Hop artists.