MYKKI BLANCO Releases New Single 'Pink Diamond Bezel'

On October 14, Mykki Blanco will release their new album, Stay Close To Music, via Transgressive. Adventurous and expansive, it shatters any previously held assumptions about Mykki's artistry, leaving them free to define their sound for themselves. Today they share a new taste of the LP via "Pink Diamond Bezel" which, like the rest of the LP, was created with producer FaltyDL. Mykki shares:

I am always hoping to create a new alchemy for my sound and for my entire entire career I have been experimenting with how far I can push rap - from the production to the musical choices to the inspirations. Much of my new album and last year's "Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep" is a departure from anything I had done in the past and I hadn't really made a hip-hop track in years when I wrote 'Pink Diamond Bezel.' The song feels as if it's the love child of Pharrell Williams and The Neptunes as much as Jack White.

When I think about the vibe of 'Pink Diamond Bezel' I imagine a stretch limousine riding through snow capped mountains, drinking Kahula and cream with a group of friends in cashmere sweaters, very après-ski- then out of nowhere a shaman appears in the middle of the road, the car halts - a spell is cast, the road catches fire, and we're forced to kneel in supplication to the forces of nature!

I had fun creating this song, it's a flirtation, it's sexy and thumping and the second half is pure psychedelic rock chaos.

Mykki spent last week on the road as the direct support for Florence + The Machine and was just added to select upcoming dates including Thursday (9/15) night's show in Boston, MA at TD Garden Friday's (9/16) stop at New York City's Madison Square Garden. All tour dates are listed below.

Blanco announced Stay Close To The Music with the the Lou Reed-indebted single "French Lessons" which features Kelsey Lu (ANOHNI lends a feature on the album version). Most recently, they shared the single "Steps" (ft. Saul Williams and MNEK) and previous to that, they shared two additional songs from the LP - "Your Love Was a Gift" featuring Diana Gordon and "Family Ties" which features Michael Stipe.

Throughout their evolution, poet, artist, musician Mykki Blanco has continuously blurred genres - pulling rave, trap, grunge and punk influences into a swirling pool of experimental hip hop that celebrated queer and trans experiences. With their upcoming LP, they are stepping into the next phase of their career with music that represents an artist who now understands their limitless potential.

In 2018, after completing years-long touring schedule, Mykki found themselves living in Lisbon, Portugal, slowly readying themselves to record new music. They note, "I wanted to see what it would be like to go back and be a musician from another time where you had to start every ingredient raw from scratch. That process, ideology and that way of making has not only changed me as a musician, it has creatively changed me as a person."

Working with FaltyDL, the songs spun together through numerous jam sessions, with writing taking place in Lisbon, Paris, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. By 2019, Mykki realized that they were working on two different records concurrently. The first became 2021's lauded mini-album Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep and now Mykki readies the second collection of the sessions via Stay Close To Music.

Mykki Blanco is an artist revered for their fearless ability to evolve, placing their creative exploration at the forefront of their career. With Stay Close To Music, Mykki Blanco is leveling up. By stepping into unchartered territory untethered and free, they have fulfilled their ambitions and created a rich, complex and accomplished sound that belongs entirely to them and which only solidifies their status as one of the world's most innovative musical pioneers.

It's been just over a decade since the moniker 'Mykki Blanco' was created - first as a video art project portraying a teenage female character posting vlogs and raps on social media, but it inevitably evolved into a vehicle of self-discovery in the artist's journey of forming their personal self-identity.

Mykki has pushed hip-hop to some of its most untethered bounds, melding noise and experimental elements with club and trap sounds, whilst also forging a uniquely subversive path within a genre historically entangled in a problematic ideological web of misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia.

And while Blanco has been widely recognized as leading the charge as a pioneering trailblazer in the so-called 'queer rap' sub-genre, the music being creating in this new chapter of their career represents such significant musical evolution toward eradicating the confines of genre categories and mashing the previous perception of the ceiling of their potential reach.

Watch the new music video here:

Mykki Blanco - Live Dates

Sept 14: TD Garden - Boston, MA (w/ Florence + The Machine)

Sept 16: Madison Square Garden - New York, NY (w/ Florence + The Machine)

Oct 25: Petit Bain - Paris, FR

Oct 26: Atelier 210 - Brussels, BE

Oct 27: Bitterzoet - Amsterdam, NL

Oct 29: Kampnage - Hamburg, DEl

Nov 1: Loppen - Copenhagen, DK

Nov 2: Gretchen - Berlin, DE

Nov 6: Meet Factory - Prague

Nov 7: Heidelberg Karlstobahnhof

Nov 8: Rote Fabrik - Zurich

Nov 9: Queersicht Festival at Bee-Flat - Bern

Nov 12: Mousonturm - Frankfurt

Nov 14: CBE - Cologne, DE

Nov 21: La Nau - Barcelona, ES

Nov 22: La Casa Encendida - Madrid, ES

Nov 23: Music Box - Lisbon, PT

Nov 29: Heaven - London, UK

Dec 02: Trinity - Bristol, UK

Dec 03: Mother @ Lost Lane - Dublin, Ireland

Dec 04: G2 - Glasgow, Scotland

Dec 05: The Cluny - Newcastle, UK

Dec 06: YES - Manchester, UK

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