NEW MUSIC | BAVA DISCUSSES NEW FREESTYLE SINGLE ‘LEAN’

‘Lean’ is the impress­ive new free­style from Rich­mond, VA artist BAVA. ‘Lean’ was cre­ated in an unplanned stu­dio ses­sion with Aj Brandn who made the beat. We inter­view him to find out more!

You wrote your first song at the age of 11, how did you get into rap?

From free­style bat­tling with my dad to free­styl­ing with my peers at school music always gave me a feel­ing of com­fort. Hear­ing music from my favor­ite artist and old cd’s of my dad influ­enced me to put my own music on papers.

Tell us about your homet­own in Rich­mond, what is the Hip-Hop scene like there?

Rich­mond is a city full of com­pet­it­ors. The most pop­u­lar and praised genre in Rich­mond right now is trap music. I’m being dif­fer­ent and bring­ing a new sound in my city that I hope will con­tin­ue to gain atten­tion and grow.

Free­styl­ing is a skill with­in itself, when did you first learn you could free­style, and is there any­thing that inspires or encour­ages your cre­at­ive flow?

My dad would turn on ran­dom beats from You­Tube and start to battle me. Over­time I con­tin­ued to get bet­ter with free­styl­ing until sub­con­sciously I could close my eyes feel the beat talk to me and find a flow that com­pli­ments both the beat and my lyr­ics.

Your music seeks to evoke emo­tion, and real issues – How import­ant is it for you to use Hip-Hop to inspire?

Hanging out with the old heads and being part of the young­er gen­er­a­tion, I have come to the real­iz­a­tion that we both can feel the emo­tions in music. Although we some­times butt heads when it comes to how music is sup­posed to sound, I make it an effort to find a bal­ance in between. I con­sider myself a middle­man when it comes to music between gen­er­a­tions.

Tell us about your latest track ‘Lean’? What was the pro­cess behind cre­at­ing and the music video to accom­pany it?

One night I went to talk to the pro­du­cer “Aj Brandn” and he pulled me in to show me a beat he was work­ing on. I instantly felt a con­nec­tion with the beat and star­ted to free­style on it. Once I came up with the hook I sat down and star­ted writ­ing the verses so that I could per­fect it. We stayed up till 6 in the morn­ing as I per­fec­ted the lyr­ics and AJ per­fec­ted the beat. A few weeks later, me and “Mood­ie” aka “Mood­ie Visu­als”, got togeth­er in Rich­mond to shoot a run and gun music video. He drove all the way from Atlanta to record.

What are your thoughts on gun crime, and do you think artists need to be more socially respons­ible with their lyr­ics?

I don’t agree with unne­ces­sary gun crime, but I do believe in respons­ible gun own­er­ship. I don’t believe in bring­ing a gun to a fist fight. I also don’t believe in artist cen­sor­ship. I believe artist should be able to make music without any lim­it­a­tions to express them­selves. It is up to the listen­ers to determ­ine what choices they make and learn to sep­ar­ate what they hear and see from real­ity. That’s like say­ing movies and video games are respons­ible for what people do after they watch them.

What oth­er music have you got com­ing out and when?

I’ll have two new singles out by the end of this month and an EP out some­time in august.

Where can we fol­low your music?

I’m on all plat­forms. Apple music, Spo­ti­fy, Sound­cloud, etc. Here is a link with a short­cut to my most vis­ited plat­forms: https://linktr.ee/804Bava

Sup­port BAVA on Social Media 

Face­book | Twit­ter | Ins­tagram 

Listen to more of BAVA

You­Tube | Spo­ti­fy | Apple Music

The fol­low­ing two tabs change con­tent below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

Latest posts by Rishma Dhaliwal (see all)

• INTER­VIEW | KING KEESE DIS­CUSSES NEW TRACK ‘RID­IN’ WITH A BOSS’ — May 2, 2024
• INTER­VIEW | CHO­REO­GRAPH­ER BROOKE MIL­LINER DIS­CUSSES BREAKIN’ CON­VEN­TION 2024 — April 29, 2024
• Remem­ber­ing Blair Peach… — April 23, 2024

Read More:

What is New The Lost Chil­dren Of Babylon (@TheLCOB) ‘Beware of The Zeit­geist’ No Bounds Launch Pic­tures + Video ! FOR THE LOVE OF MUSIC WITH MIKEY SMITH Rebel Diaz Live Per­form­ance at “Cul­ture is a Weapon”