We sat down with the viral Spanish star to talk about her eventful 2023, new EP Sadtrickz, and teaming up with fellow Dazed 100-er Stolenbesos for a Bling Ring-inspired shoot
“I knew I wanted to be ‘baby’ something,” Belize Kazi tells me at the start of our conversation, “then I knew I wanted a word with the same amount of letters as my first name. And I feel like I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve – so it was Bb trickz.”
When the Spanish rapper blew up in April, it was clear even then that this playful yet considered approach extended further than just a name. There was Bb trickz, decked out in pastel, private school clobber, flanked by four girlfriends sporting slick up-dos and tartan mini-kilts. “We wanted the video to be Clueless, Gossip Girl, kind of preppy, rich school vibes,” she says of the looks. The video she’s referring to, of course, is “Missionsuicida”, the song that acted as our entryway into Bb’s world. Arguably the most memorable debut of 2023, the track and accompanying video set the internet alight, and for good reason too. The concept was simple yet inspired, that drill bassline unforgettable, the sample of Law & Order’s theme song even more genius. With zingy one-liners like “ew, you’re tacky” and “I don’t wear Zara”, Bb trickz had declared herself as an artist worth keeping an eye on.
From the beginning, it was clear that fans had gravitated towards Bb for her playful style, both sonic and aesthetic. As soon as “Missionsuicida” landed, “Bambi” followed, the Vanilla Ice referencing track establishing her as a rapper with a deft sense of humour. “If you want that Birkin, put that work in,” she jokes unhurriedly over an “Ice Ice Baby” sample. “If you wanted me, why you say nothin?”
Along with this lyrical sense of humour, Bb also revelled in the visual side of things, too – just look at her Bling Ring-inspired shoot for Dazed. “The idea was a suburban girl dreaming about being a star,” says the rapper. “That was the photographer Stolenbesos’s idea. It’s a photoshoot I would’ve loved to do as a teenager, because that was kind of me, with the magazines and icons in the pop world”. When I ask Bb what it is about these tastes that people hone in on, she’s quite simple in her response. “I’m just being myself,” she says, “and if people see that you’re being real they gravitate towards that. When something is real it works, I guess. Nothing’s going to work in the long term if it’s not coming from the heart, and it’s not pure and original.”
“My life used to be a poem. I liked living things like poetry… now it’s rap bars” – Bb trickz
After the track “Bambi”, debut EP Trickstar came next, its six tracks expanding on the bubblegum drill sound that “Missionsuicida” presented to the world. But just as Bb’s journey to clout had been fast-tracked, so had all of the unwelcome accompaniments. “This EP stems from all the sad, negative parts of success and fame in the music industry,” the rapper says of her second EP Sadtrickz, which just dropped in late November. “It came out of making Trickstar”, she continued, “Sadtrickz wouldn’t have happened without that. I’m not a person who likes to focus on the negatives in real life, but this is kind of like a raw, emotional EP.” The searching sister project to its livelier predecessor, this rawness manifests on tracks like “lil peep”, where Bb raps about losing friends over moody guitar licks, or on “Deja a tu novia”, where she wistfully proclaims “I’ma find someone that’s like the opposite of you.”
Despite the obvious successes of Sadtrickz, it’s surprising to know that Bb has only been at this for a grand total of 12 months. “I only started rapping a year ago”, she tells me. “I always knew I wanted to be an entertainer, but I didn’t realise that it would be through rap until a year ago.” Although it’s been a fast turnaround, Bb seems confident that she’s got the voice to back it up. “When I started, I even surprised myself. I was like ‘Woah, I’ve got some shit to say.’ I had never considered rapping until I took it seriously, then I was like ‘Oh, I want to make music.” And although she may have only been doing this for a short amount of time, when we go deeper on the subject, the musician displays a kind of artistic dedication that could only come from someone who’s serious about the endeavour. “My life used to be a poem,” she says, quite matter-of-factly, “I liked living things like poetry, now it’s a bit different. Now it’s rap bars – everything I do is a bar.”
Though she’s committed to the rap game, Bb’s entrance into the arena hasn’t come without its fair share of comparisons, though. When “Missionsuicida” first dropped, people online began likening her sound and aesthetic to the other drill princess across the Atlantic, Ice Spice. When I mention this to Bb, she’s neither delighted or annoyed, but calmly brushes past it, an unimportant footnote in an otherwise more interesting story. “It can be a compliment,” she says, “but at the same time I don’t really care. I’m me, and making my own sound and decisions.” When the same conversation about online commentators segues into one about haters, she’s more forthcoming. “Yes, 100 per cent people say bad things online. I’m the most hated [rapper] in Spain, but I love it,” she begins, before spinning it in a positive note. “The same amount of people that hate me, there’s the same amount of people who love me,” she says. “There’s that same energy in love.”
Throughout our conversation, what’s noticeable is the rapper’s reserve, but one that’s accompanied by an assertive confidence. She may be new to the game, but Bb trickz knows exactly who Bb trickz is – and she’s not changing that for anyone. At one point she confesses to not loving interviews because she doesn’t like explaining herself (“I prefer for my work to do the talking”). At another, when asked about influences, she cites Cash Cobain and Shawny Binladen as inspirations for Trickstar, but also adds “I enjoy a lot of rappers, but it’s not like I grab them for inspiration, like I want to be them. I want to be me, you know?” In an industry full of people doing their best not to be themselves, it’s oddly refreshing to hear someone speak with such plain candour. It’s this self-assuredness that will carry Bb trickz through.
Sadtrickz is out now.