Ray BLK has just dropped a music video for her new track ‘Games’, a brand new collaboration with Giggs. This is the first time that the South London pair have collaborated on a song together and the result is an infectious R&B track.
The song begins with the characteristically nonchalant flow of Giggs, as the rapper humorously describes his perspective of a relationship where, as the title of the track suggests, both parties are “playing games”. His calmly delivered witty observations are perfectly complemented by Ray BLK’s smoothly sung chorus, where she says to her fellow women, “Don’t trust the game, baby/ Don’t fall in love”. The song is driven by this dual-perspective, something that the music video itself seeks to emphasise as the camera pans throughout a room where various couples are having arguments.
Games featuring king @officialgiggs OUT NOW > https://t.co/bwFJGupnXC pic.twitter.com/kKa1uFYQyR
— Ray BLK (@RayBLK_) March 4, 2021
Giggs has been particularly busy in 2021, releasing both a collaboration with Ghetts on ‘Crud’ in February and a new ‘Daily Duppy’ freestyle last week. It is unsurprising that Ray BLK enlists the veteran MC on this track, having had a history of collaborating with artists from the UK rap scene. Notably, in 2016, the 26-year-old teamed up with Stormzy on ‘My Hood’, a song that celebrated her South London roots.
Whilst afroswing and rap are currently huge parts of the British music scene, R&B is perhaps struggling a bit more to establish itself in the mainstream. This is something that Ray BLK herself acknowledged in an interview with NME in 2020. She spoke about the current state of R&B in the UK; the genre’s history in the country; and where it needs to be in the future: “I feel like sometimes we forget the people that have come before. Definitely there’s a lot of work to be done to bring R&B in the UK to the forefront, but I also don’t want to negate what the people who have come before us have done: Ms. Dynamite winning a Brit, winning MOBOs, winning a Mercury; Estelle having a global smash. They’re from the UK.” Indeed, the Catford-raised singer will hope to emulate the artists that came before her and be part of any R&B renaissance that the UK might host.
Despite the popularity of Ray BLK, she has only dropped two EPs thus far: ‘Durt’ in 2016 and ‘Empress’ in 2018. Without the release of a full-length project yet, fans are still waiting for her debut album. Towards the end of the ‘Games’ music video, the song fades out and Ray BLK seems to tease her fans with a preview of another new song, as she sings, “I know I got some issues/ Loving me ain’t easy.” Therefore, if this indicates that the singer is putting together a string of singles, fans could be lucky enough to receive her highly anticipated debut album this year.
Check out the video for ‘Games’ below:
