Saudi rapper Blvxb says hip-hop 'saved my life' – now, he is using it to help others

The expression “music saved my life” gets tossed around enough for the phrase to have morphed into a cliche.

For Blvxb, pronounced “black bee”, music was respite at a crucial time, helping him to process profound grief. In 2016, the Saudi rapper lost his father and older brother within four months, plunging him into depression.

Speaking candidly from his home in Riyadh, Blvxb says the seminal J Cole album 4 Your Eyez Only pulled him out of a dark place. “That album helped me a lot, it saved my life,” Blvxb tells The National. “Even if it didn't talk about my situation in a specific way, the music just helped me. It changed my mind. It changed my mood.”

That profound connection with the album provided an outlet for the artist to immerse himself in intense emotions and grieve. Blvxb later released his song, Lail, in 2021 about the passing of his father and his brother, detailing his mental state at the time. The song has since garnered close to three million streams on YouTube.

The rapper believes that his responsibility is to do for his fans what J Cole did for him, create a space for people to process their feelings. “In our culture, in our community, in the Arab community... if you talk about your mental health issues, I think people will judge but music doesn't judge you,” he says reflectively.

“When fans contact me on Instagram or X or even in the comments on YouTube... saying that I [helped lift them out from] the dark world – I love that feeling that Blvxb’s music helped them.”

The Saudi artist has cemented himself as one of the premier lyricists in the Gulf hip-hop scene, pushing Khaleeji rap to new creative levels both within the region and broadly across the Middle East and North Africa.

Credited for popularising trap in the Saudi rap scene, Blvxb has remained a fixture in regional hip-hop through his distinctly low, haunting voice melodically floating over minimalist, dark production.

Blvxb fell in love with hip-hop in 2007 when he first heard Mockingbird by Eminem as a teenager in Saudi Arabia. The song, a reinterpretation of the childhood nursery rhyme into a dark ode for Eminem’s daughter Hailie, sent Blvxb down a rabbit hole of rap, exploring the discographies of other juggernauts of the genre like 50 Cent.

“I loved the vibes,” Blvxb jovially expresses. “It was something new to us. The community in Saudi Arabia, it's just about Khaleeji music and love songs. When you listen to something different, it just hits.”

He tried his hand at writing rhymes later in 2013, watching YouTube videos of how to be a rapper and releasing his first few songs in English on the platform.

“I studied how to do vocals, melodic rap, conscious rap – how to do it in a perfect way,” Blvxb says. “I like to study anything before I do it.”

After three years of releasing music in English and “studying the market”, Blvxb switched to rapping in Arabic to connect more with fans locally.

That switch in language led Blvxb to producer and frequent collaborator RUHMVN, who teamed up with him on his first Arabic language studio song in 2016. The duo has gone on to release eight albums and many singles since, including the renowned album Majara in 2020.

Their most recent creative output, Valhalla, is a double album, hearkening back to the nostalgic double-disc era in music, and undoubtedly represents their most ambitious project to date.

The album, which was recorded and produced over the course of a year and a half, features high-profile, pan-Arab collaborations with artists across the Middle East and North Africa, like Palestinian hip-hop stalwart The Synaptik, Egyptian rapper L5VAV and Iraqi artist Nayomi, among others.

Sonically, both Blvxb and RUHMVN break through the boundaries of their artistry to explore genres beyond hip-hop. The Afropop Boulevard and house-inspired Mstahla showcase the creativity each strategically sought for this album.

Blvxb emphasises that the artist collaborations and genre explorations were purposeful, components of Valhalla that he and RUHMVN meticulously planned to both show love to regional Arab artists and to bring Blvxb to the rest of the Mena region.

“I had a connection with them, they were friends to me before they were artists,” Blvxb says. “My first goal actually on Valhalla was just to make music with the artists I love. My second purpose behind these collaborations was to expand my fan base to Jordan, Syria, Egypt, North Africa – beyond Saudi.”

Blvxb has slowly become a voice of a generation in Saudi Arabia, representing his country and creating a distinct sound in Khaleeji hip-hop through his conscious lyrics and ability to explore dark themes, coupled with his uniquely eerie melodic vocals.

“I really want to be the face of hip-hop in Saudi Arabia. I love doing music and I just go for it. If it's good, it will take me somewhere.”