Bakar

A London-based artist whose output merges mellow rap cadences with laid-back R&B textures and the occasional jagged punk pulse, Bakar has pursued a shape-shifting approach since his earliest recordings. He began by uploading material on his own before shaping a clearer identity with the 2018 album Badkid, then broke through on streaming platforms via the 2019 track “Hell n Back.” The following years brought a consistent run of standalone releases—“The Mission” in 2021, “NW3” in 2022, and “Good News” in 2023—before a Summer Walker-assisted take on “Hell n Back” surfaced on his sophomore LP Halo. The new single “React” arrived in 2024.

North London roots steered Bakar from an initial devotion to hip-hop toward indie rock, a shift that informed his 2015 experiments slicing King Krule samples into tracks he posted online without attribution. By 2017 the palette had widened, yielding the buoyant rocker “Big Dreams” and the hazy, cyclical “Something I Said.” His first full-length, Badkid, followed in 2018 and drew praise from figures as disparate as British rapper Skepta and Elton John. In 2019 the restless style produced the bluesy R&B cut “Chill” alongside “Hell N Back,” the upbeat soul number that became his signature song; both appeared on the Will You Be My Yellow? EP, which collected five additional stylistically varied pieces.

Three further singles emerged in 2020—“1st Time,” “Play” featuring Lancey Foux, and “Having a Good Time, Sometimes”—with “The Mission” and “Build Me a Way” arriving the next year and “NW3” following in early 2022. Bakar opened 2023 with the dreamy, infectious “Good News.” Already viewed as a quiet success after “Hell n Back” topped Billboard’s Adult Alternative Songs chart nearly twelve months after release, the track gained wider traction once the Summer Walker remix appeared on Halo, an album that peaked at number 15 on the U.K. chart. The Walker version later entered the Billboard Hot 100 in 2024, the same year Bakar issued “React.”