Corbin

Corbin Smidzik first recorded under the alias Spooky Black and built a loyal underground audience with his somber, death-haunted strain of lo-fi R&B and rap. Maintaining an intensely private stance, he has consistently declined interviews and allowed only his tracks and videos to convey his perspective. Although born in Baltimore, Maryland, he lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota and surfaced in 2013 at age fifteen with the EP Forest. That early project differed from his later output by placing rapping on every cut and exploring a horror-inflected brand of hip-hop. Early the next year he issued Black Silk, shifting into R&B territory and unveiling his silky vocal style. The unpolished yet engaging clip for “Without You” circulated widely online, prompting multiple publications to list the song among the year’s strongest. Leaving also arrived in 2014 and prompted comparisons with Yung Lean and King Krule. Around the same time Smidzik joined Allan Kingdom, Psymun, and Bobby Raps in the hip-hop/R&B outfit the Stand4rd; their self-titled album surfaced in November, after which the group completed a sold-out headline tour of the United States.

By year’s end he had retired the earlier stage name and began performing simply as Corbin. He and Bobby Raps released the Couch Potato EP in 2015, yet Corbin stayed largely out of sight for the following two years. After unexpectedly posting the track “Destrooy” early in 2017, he unveiled his debut album Mourn later that year. Far more emotionally purging than his previous work and featuring several moments in which Corbin nearly shouts, the record was produced by D33J and Shlohmo and issued on their WeDidIt label. The three musicians then toured North America as a package.