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.
Founded in early 2016, the WordUp Collective has brought together a series of artists to present a snap shot of some of the most exciting creatives in Ireland today. From hip-hop to Afrofusion, soul to RnB, production to spoken word, the WordUp family are all pushing boundaries individually and often come together to take their work to even greater heights. Building international careers, their work has been found on the media and playlists across the world from the US to Nigeria. Notable TV placements have included FIFA and Normal People, with live and online performances at The Great Escape, SxSW, Electric Picnic, Eurosonic, Longitude, Body & Soul alongside a series of high profile spoken word commissions. Developing an acclaimed education programme, Word Up artists can often be found in the classroom inspiring the next generation of poets and musicians.