June is the month of dads n’ grads here in the states, but it’s September of this year that delivers the yearbook we’ll all want to sign. That’s when anti-pop riser Baby Queen drops her new mixtape, dubbed The Yearbook, a 10 track release out September 3 via Island Records. It’s the follow-up to last fall’s breakout Medicine EP, and includes Vanyaland fave and early SOTY contender “Raw Thoughts”, as well as a bursting new joint that features emerging Australian artist MAY-A called “American Dream.” Listen to it below.
“American Dream” is all about communicating with a crush, but doing so through the lens of some time-honored American manifestation. Baby Queen’s Bella Latham may be a London-based, South African-born artist, but she’s got the stars n’ stripes of ambition all figured out.
“This song compares a childlike infatuation with the idea of the American dream, which in hindsight is a bit of a fallacy, but there were people that did get to experience it and reach the prosperity they’d heard about. I’m really into manifestation — not in a spiritual way, just in a very practical sense. I think if you put all your energy into something by talking about it all the time or thinking about it, the course of your life will naturally bend towards that thing. This song is me manifesting my dream to be with a certain person. It’s essentially a song about a childlike crush you are cheeky enough to plan out inside your own head.”
Get into it.