B Lovee on championing New York drill and his love for South Bronx

When New York Drill comes to mind, one of the voices that have helped cultivate its presence worldwide is B-Lovee. Before meeting face to face at Black Butter Records, where he was slightly late because of a peckish trip to Nando’s, B-Lovee had a busy week feeding the streets with a series of live appearances in Manchester, Birmingham and London. 

With only a few years of being in the scene, his music has already created several viral moments, such as when his single “My Everything,” which samples Mary J. Blige, had a snowball effect across social media. It stockpiled millions of views and streams, which led to the New York Artist making remixes with the likes of G Herbo and A Boogie Wit da Hoodie. 

B-Lovee’s inclination to his craft draws attention to nostalgic rudiments with a mash of the contemporary, addictive rhythms of today, making them incontestable hits. There came the point in time where I couldn’t scroll down my TikTok without hearing “give you my time, you better not waste it (grrah-grrah)” followed by fanatical TikTokers dancing in sync. But at the core of his artistry is his authentic approach to music which makes for these viral, trendy, moments. “You know, you’ve just got to be yourself,” he says confidently. “Most of the time, people would see somebody doing something, ‘like, oh! he did this, and he went viral. So let me try that.’ But I never tried to go viral. My song leaked, and I just woke up one day, and a famous woman on Instagram was dancing to my song.”

Thinking and reflecting on the South Bronx community that raised him, B-Lovee remembers the edifying moments and the undesirable ones. “Growing up in a project was like an adventure, you know, every day something going on – Good things are happening every day. Bad things happen too.” 

Now that success is familiar to him, the idea of discovering more than what he is used to from his local ecosystem is a feeling of sensation and sanguinity. “It feels good to explore the world and see what’s out there. Because all we ever did was be in the projects and then stay in one place and not get to see anything,” he admitted. “We don’t know anything about the world. We don’t. I never got to see certain things. So yeah, it was just good for me to be able to bring hope to the hood. Be able to let people know it’s more to life now.”

His overarching ambition is to spark that same hope and optimism in his brothers from the South Bronx – “I want to show them like it could be anybody. They have seen how I came up and how it just happened.” We speak about the time when life significantly altered for the better: “The moment I got back in the studio from the time I gave up on rap for a couple of months, my first three songs back were the songs that got me where I’m at now,” he says. “You should never give up. It doesn’t have to be rap. Like, whatever you do, you’ve got to keep working.”

Creating a flock of sample-heavy tunes with fiery energy to match – B-lovee feels like he was the initiating artist that helped prompt the New York drill sampling wave we’re seeing across the genre today. “My first sample on ‘IYKYK’ shook the town. Once it went big, and ‘My Everything’ went big; everybody thought sampling was the way out.” He follows up: “like I said, when people see somebody do something, they’ll try to go do it.”

While his songs were burning through steam in the streets, he quickly started to attract attention from record labels. Picking and choosing from an option of multiple different offers – B-Lovee decided to sign with RECORDS and Columbia Records due to their willingness to adapt. “All the other labels, I feel like they are selling dreams,” he says. “But with Records and Columbia, they’ll talk about if stuff goes wrong, they won’t give up on me, other labels won’t even mention if it goes left.”

One of his latest features on British rapper Digga D’s song ‘What You Reckon?’ adds to the growing catalogue of sampled old-school tunes. Thinking back to how this song came into complete form, B-lovee reveals how quick and easy the process was. “A YouTube reactor and Digga D were talking about some songs,” he says. “So, we got on a FaceTime call and chopping it up, and then he sent me the record, and we linked up in Miami a couple of weeks.”

With his first UK feature in the bag and another set to be released with Jnr Choi, B-Lovee wants to collaborate more with UK artists. “I’ve just got to get to know them like. I’ve got to figure out who is who, you know?” he says. 

His advice to young artists is to differentiate between following the crowd and following what’s for them. “If you feel like something is not for you, but you keep forcing it because what you see others do is never going to work out for you,” he asserts. “know when what’s for you and what’s not.”