Hip-Hop Lives Here
Hip-Hop Lives Here
“U 2 Rare,” a fun fusion of R&B, hip-hop and rap with a soul vibe, is the product of a collaboration between Globalqtheartist, an R&B/trap/soul singer from Atlanta, and SDBoomin, beat maker and producer from Mobile, Alabama.
They have found each other in Kuwait, where they are collaborating on a set of five songs, of which “U 2 Rare” is the first. It will be released on July 9.
They approach the song in entirely different terms. One is theme, one is process.
“For me,” said SDBoomin, “‘U 2 Rare’ is one of those tracks where you’re giving women the confidence that you know that they sometimes seek. So it’s more of, ‘Hey, you’re a beautiful woman.’ You know? Understand that and move forward confidently. You’re rare.”
You look so good, you gotta be good for my health
(Baby too rare, you’re rare)
You really stood out in the crowd, couldn’t tell if you were real
I’m an introvert, but you pull me out of my shell
(Ooohhh yeah)
That right there is an old-school R&B concept. In “U 2 Rare,” it is presented in hip-hop beats, R&B rhythms and soul melodies.
For Globalqtheartist, the term that comes to mind is a beautifully technical term: “embellished reality.” (“That’s what art is. You start out with a skeleton, and then you start building around it and you make it interesting.”)
“I had to make up a name for how I write and how I create,” he said. “So, when I hear a track, first I’m trying to find what kind of melodies can I come up with. So, I’ll come up with a melody, and then next is like, ‘How does this track make me feel?’”
Next are key words, and, for this song, it was “rare.”
“And you know when you’re writing R&B and hip-hop, of course it’s got to be associated with a woman.”
And that triggered a memory, “this time back in the day when I was performing, and there was a woman in the crowd, and—I don’t know—I just took a liking to her.”
“She was just very different from how everyone else was dressed, how all the other women were carrying themselves. It was something about the way she wore her hair, how she carried herself. So, I decided to write a song based around that scenario.”
And in this way the lyrics of the singer/rapper and the beats of the producer combined to create music.
SDB began in music as a child producer and rapper. He and a brother formed a rap duo, eventually expanding the group. Later, after the group disbanded, he moved into a successful career in information technology, but, he said, the passion for music remained and endured through the loss of his two brothers.
“Once my second brother passed away a couple of years ago,” he said, “I felt like I should get back into it. That’s what got me here today, but I don’t rap as much as I used to. I’m on this producer side now.”
In the five-track collaboration, he is featured on two of the tracks.
Globalq is a singer and rapper with a reputation for his lyrical skills and performing techniques in the Atlanta area. He says he “is looking to bridge the gap between the musical styles of artists such as Future, Bryson Tiller and Brent Faiyaz.” He lists his main genre mix as R&B, trap and soul.
In the five-track mix they are working on, his vocals carry three.
“From my side,” said SDB, “I definitely wanted to collaborate with Q, and hopefully we collaborate more in the future. But, going beyond this, I want to continue to make beats, continue to work with other artists that are coming out and try to work my way into the industry to work with major artist.”
For his part, Globalq said he enjoys the work with SDB.
“The beats is dope, and the vibe is crazy,” he said. “We know how to feed off each other. I am focused now on our project. I’m not trying to become some megastar or anything like that. I just know that I’m good enough to compete in the industry, and wherever that takes me, I’m good with it.”
All except the last of the five songs are finished, and the fifth is close. Once “U 2 Rare” is released, they will release another every two or three weeks.
“I would give a compliment to Q,” said SDB. “Of these five songs that we’ve pushed out, the last song is still in progress, but over like a two-week period, Q pushed these songs out.”
He continued, “I mean, talk about somebody who can write, who can come up with some concepts.”
First, though, is “U 2 Rare.”
“I think it’s a great song,” said SDB. “Q really did a great job with the lyrics, as always. I think it’s one of those songs that will motivate women. I think I can see a lot of females putting it on their TikTok, using it as their background music.”
“I just know that it’s just a real fun song,” said Globalq. “Just like SDB was saying, I can definitely see women doing reels to it.”
See where they go. Connect to SDBoomin and Globalqtheartist on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
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Westside Cowboy caught up with NME backstage at Reading 2026 to tell us about their whirlwind year, slapping a smile on the face of modern indie, and hopes for “weirder, poppier” new music.
Fresh from the release of their acclaimed and long-awaited debut album ‘It Goes On‘, the rising Manchester alt-country outfit packed out The Ballroom tent at both Reading and Leeds sites.
This was their first time playing the legendary festival, but singer and guitarist Reuben Haycocks came as a young punter in 2019, their return bringing bad a flood of “PTSD” from that heady weekend. This time through, they were one of the most talked-about acts of the weekend – and certainly one of our highlights.
From winning the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition last year to then smashing Glasto before R+L, does anything phase the recent NME cover stars anymore?
“A lot of things phase us, every day,” replied fellow singer and guitarist Jimmy Bradbury. “It’s a strange one. We have a very lovely team of people around us who help keep us sane. I feel like we’re still playing music with our friends, and that’s the way I hope it stays.”
He continued: “We’re at that stage of a tour now where we’ve been away for a very long time and we’re questioning our own existence. Is this real? Are We real?”
It’s been a whirlwind year for the NME 100 alumni, starting with supporting Geese on tour back in March when they called at London’s iconic Hammersmith Apollo. What was it like to be part of that bubble of hype and madness?
“We were sort of leeching off the bubble,” replied Haycocks. “We were very lucky to get that tour and they were so lovely. Generally the atmosphere of the whole tour was great and all the crowds were amazing. Hammersmith was the first time I ever walked on stage and noticed how big it was. We’re excited to hopefully play our songs to that many people who know them, now that the album is out.”
Bradbury agreed: “That was one of the first stages where you go out and you immediately notice and take in the history that’s been there: Springsteen’s first London concert, the last ever Ziggy Stardurst concert – which I was watching the other day and his guitar player Mick Ronson is amazing. There’s a moment where it’s really dark, the lights flash and you can see Bowie being projected onto the side of that place. It still looks the same as that and it’s an amazing venue.”
Still, the band modestly that admit that the highlight of 2026 so far has simply been putting out their debut album.
“I don’t know if we intended to go this far, but we’re here and we’re liking it,” Bradbury admitted. “There are so many different stages to putting an album together: finding which songs, recording the songs, mixing them, getting your masters back and it’s like, ‘We’ve done it!’ Then you get the cover back and it’s like, ‘We’ve done it again!’ By the time it comes to releasing it, you feel like you’ve done it already five times. It’s a moment of it finally just clicking together and it’s really exciting.”
Speaking of how it feels to finally have the record out in the universe and have listeners understand their true selves, Haycocks shared: “We’re making an effort to read reviews as little as possible, considering we’re already on tour and questioning our existence. My dad will send me a bit of a review that’s really nice, and then just to ground me he’ll send me a horrible comment, just so I don’t get above my station.”
“We’ve just played, and it was nice to see people sing the words to songs that were sort of new to us. Seeing people with their arms up in the air and knowing these songs that were once just a thought, that’s a pinch-me moment.”
The band recently told NME how their primary focus was “bringing the fun back into the music generally” and “taking everything a little less seriously” in terms of songwriting. It’s rarer than you’d hope to share joy at these hellscape times such as this, but it’s admirable. Have Westside Cowboy felt that reflected back at them?
“We could feel it today,” replied Bradbury, speaking of their Reading performance. “There were bucket hats flying off in the air, people had some lovely signs written. We try and keep it light-hearted. There are so many instances from when we’ve been in bands before where you take it so seriously that you run yourself into the ground. Everybody just really try to let go of that. We wanted to do the best we can with what we have and use as few chords as possible.”
Do they feel more new bands adopting that approach as the world continues its doom spiral?
“There are a lot of new bands that come from the scene we come from that do that amazingly: there’s Pushbike, Bramwell, Holly Head, countless, countless bands that have that idea woven in,” said Haycocks. “It’s really lovely to see bands smiling on stage again. Maybe it was a little fashionable to be smouldering for a while.”
We briefly pause the interview to give us their best ‘blue steel’ smoulder. Their attempt gets points for effort.
“Some people can do that really well, and there are some bands I really love that can do that, but most people – especially those who are similar to us – just look like idiots,” Haycocks continued. “It’s nice to see people smiling and looking like they’re enjoying themselves. This should be the thing they want to do, so show it.”
It may seem a selfish question given that they’ve just dropped one of the year’s best-reviewed albums, and we ask only because we know how restless and unstoppable they are, but are Westside Cowboy already at work on album number two?
“We were driving down to London when the album came out at midnight. We all stood up, shook each other’s hands as the van was moving and went, ‘Cool, we’ve got until we get to the hotel then we’ll start thinking about the next one’,” Bradbury told us. “We’ve got a few things floating around, and we’re excited to crack on with it. We’ve been nattering about it in the van a lot. We’ll kick it around a bit and see where we end up.”
Asked where they were looking to take their sound from here, Haycocks shared: “Currently, we’ve been really, really loving a band called Women, we’ve been listening to loads of The Magnetic Fields and we love The Drums, so we would hope that the next album is both poppier and weirder. You never, ever know how it’s going to turn out until you start doing it.
“We want to just continue the journey that we’ve done from the start. The way I described it to Paddy [Murphy, drummer] the other day was that ‘The mists were appearing’. You can’t quite see it yet, it’s not yet tangible what the second album will be but there’s a faint outline there.”
He added: “You describing us as ‘restless’ is a good descriptor. We really just want to get on it and go.”
‘It Goes On’ by Westside Cowboy is out now, with the band heading out on their biggest UK and European headline tour to date this autumn. Visit here for tickets and more information.
Check back at NME here for all the latest news, reviews, photos, interviews and more from Reading & Leeds 2026.
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