ON THE RISE
Maryland-based rapper and song-writer Flex Kartel is teaming with Detroit rapper Sada Baby to produce a motivational tune meant to push people to move on in their lives.
Kartel’s newest single “Get A Bag” was created specifically to bring these two hip hop heavyweights together.
“‘Get A Bag’ is meant to get people to get up and be motivated,” Kartel said. “It gives you the motivation to want to get up and go get some kind of hustle or ambition or get to your next goal or get to that next point where you can collect your next big fee so you can move on to the next step in your life.”
Kartel said Sada Baby got involved at the suggestion of his company, Haplios and GATC Entertainment.
“My distro called me and said what do you think about Sada Baby, he’s pretty dope?” Kartel said. “They said what do you think about doing a record with him? I said for sure I’d want to do a record with him. I was in the studio in Los Angeles and I was in there with my twin brother, my engineer and I created something to see if we could get a record with him.
“That night I made that song in about an hour and sent it to him. He was like yes, he loved it, he wanted to get on the song and next thing you know we were doing the song and shooting the music video.”
The song features Kartel’s unique blend of hip hop, combined with a bit of Go-Go, a subgenera of music originated by musicians in Washington, D.C., as well as some of the R&B and dance hall that his parents used to play at home.
Kartel said he got his musical start with Go-go before venturing off to hip hop in his late teens.
He got into rap when another rapper suggested he try it.
“Shout out to Boomer Chamberlain, he had a studio set up in his house and he was like man, you need to get on a song and try it,” Kartel said. “I said, no, man, I’m not a rapper, I don’t make music like that. He said come on man, just try it. He asked me for the whole day and by the end of the day I tried it and I was like, hey, I actually don’t sound that bad. The ball kept rolling from there.”
Kartel said his collaboration with Sada Baby in “Get A Bag” was his first experience collaborating with another artist, and he’s looking forward to more.
“It was dope, Sada Baby is very energetic, he has a lot of fun,” Kartel said. “It was definitely dope, it was my first record with an artist from a different city, like that. It was definitely a great experience.”
Kartel described his own music as something that takes on a variety of sounds.
“My sound is like a Picasso, very beautiful work of art and there are going to be different versions of different pieces of art, but you’re always going to get something beautiful and masterful,” he said. “It’ll be like the only one in the world, no one will have that sound or that style.”
Kartel said “Get A Bag” is a single for now, and h’s working on a new EP called “Untitled Emotions.”
Next year he’ll headline his own concert at the Union Stage in Washington, D.C. He also has a new single and music video featuring Sauce Walker and Peso Peso from Houston.
“People need to stay tuned for all of that,” Kartel said. “Expect to be blown away. I don’t even want to give them too much, I just want them to hear it and tell me what they feel, but expect to be blown away.
Make sure to stay connected to Flex Kartel on all platforms for new music, videos and social posts.
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ON THE RISE
Blossoms caught up with NME to discuss competing with The Beatles and Johnny Marr for this week’s Number One album. With ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ in the running, the band also explained why making things themselves remains such an important part of their work as AI becomes more common.
The Stockport group put out their sixth album last Friday, October 2. By the midweek update, it was sitting at Number Two, between The Beatles’ expanded edition of ‘Rubber Soul’ and Johnny Marr’s latest solo album, ‘The Age Of Everything’.
“It’s mad, to be honest,” singer Tom Ogden said to NME about the chart race. “Liverpool on one side, Manchester on the other and Stockport in the middle. If you’d told us this 10 years ago, when we were releasing our debut, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I mean, we’re in good company aren’t we?”
Discussing the stories behind the album, Ogden described ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ as “about being married and all the everyday stuff that comes with it”. He married Katie Donovan, the sister of Blossoms drummer Joe, in 2021. Married life has since given him a new appreciation for what he describes as “the extraordinary ordinary”.
“Saying the wrong thing in an argument, losing your wife’s no claims bonus, crying at the Kardashians, it’s all in there,” he explained. “The album is named after Stockport Town Hall, which everyone round where we live calls the Wedding Cake, and it’s where I got married, so it couldn’t be much closer to home.
“The last album [‘Gary’, 2024] had a song about a stolen fibreglass gorilla, which everyone loved, and that gave us the confidence to bring the same playfulness to this one, just with more personal subject matter this time.”
Alongside tracks that came out of writing sessions with Declan McKenna in a hot tub, the album reflects the band’s desire to stay involved in every part of the creative process.
“It started with the recording,” Ogden explained. “We made the album with Shawn Lee, playing live straight to tape, and once you’ve done it that way you can’t really go and fake everything else. We sat down as a band and picked the colour palette, and everything visual followed from that. We had body scans taken of ourselves and cake toppers of the five of us 3D printed, put them on a real cake and photographed it. I’ve directed and edited the videos, and the sets are all built by hand, no green screen. For the pop-up shop on launch weekend, a local artist hand-painted the album cover for the sign outside.
“It’s more work, but you end up with a world that’s yours, and I think people can tell when a band’s had its hands on everything.”
With AI tools and digital effects becoming increasingly widespread, that approach feels particularly relevant. For Blossoms, though, the motivation is simple: “the fun is in the making”.
“Tape doesn’t let you cheat and neither does a real cake,” Ogden said. “If a set’s a bit wonky, it’s because one of us or our mates built it. I think the more stuff gets generated, the more people want to know a human being actually did it. We’ve been in this band together for over 10 years, five lads from Stockport, and that isn’t something you can ‘prompt’.”
Maya Jama also appeared in the video for the album’s first single, ‘Meet Me In Love’. Her appearance came shortly before the UK launch of Celebrity Traitors, where she took on the role of a traitor alongside a cast that included Richard E Grant and James Acaster.
“She was brilliant,” Ogden recalled of working with Jama. “We’d met her at the MTV EMAs in Manchester a couple of years ago, so we took a chance and sent her a DM …and she said yes. Next thing she’s in a theatre in Cheadle miming my vocals while a load of people dressed as me serenade her. She got the idea straight away and was a proper laugh about it.”
The conversation then turned to whether he thought Jama could take home the win on Celebrity Traitors.
Ogden joked: “As for Traitors, she spent a whole day pretending to sing my song and I almost believed her, so I’d say she’s got every chance.”
Fans can listen to ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ now. In November, Blossoms head out on a UK arena tour with The Royston Club. Tickets and further details are available here.
Before the tour begins, the group is also scheduled to appear on SNL UK on Saturday, October 24.
