Lap 5

“We’re on our fifth lap, running this wave thing,” Young Adz tells Apple Music. “We’ve been in the game for a while, and we’ve even dropped more than five projects, but in this fifth year of DBE, we’re still keeping things the same, even though a lot has changed.” On *Lap 5*, DBE is showing minimal signs of fatigue. In fact, the prolific collective is seemingly hitting its stride, delivering another abundance of melodic trap anthems, keeping the surprises coming—for each other as much as their growing global fanbase. “We still don’t write,” adds Dirtbike LB. “We just go in and work off the vibe of the day.” Young Adz returns to the haunting trap tales that helped to build his early persona (“Bando Baby Diaries”) and the brave, melodic experiments that have separated the DBE sound over the half-decade run (“Fantasy”). For Dirtbike LB, a turn behind the boards adds new chapters to his story (“Proud Of Me”) across an album recorded in Amsterdam, Paris, and London in summer 2022. “Our minds are completely different now,” Dirtbike LB says. “Our lives are different, the house is different, watch is different, car different, and so the love feels different now.” Here, Young Adz and Dirtbike LB talk us through their new mixtape, track by track. **“If I Ruled The World”** Dirtbike LB: “I felt like this track sets a nice picture to begin. Something you ain’t heard from us before. Out of all the other tracks, this was the one for the intro.” **“Conor McGregor”** Young Adz: “We don’t structure the music. We just go in, and we work off of the feeling. Feel bad or feel good, feel happy or feel sad.” **“She’s Not Anyone” (feat. Burna Boy)** YA: “This is our first time working with JAE5, which is something, as we’ve been waiting to work with him for a while. He’s a GOAT, and he gave us the bird call: saying he’s got joints, and he’s ready. This was the first beat he sent to us, and it’s going to be a hit. That’s special.” **“4 The Win”** YA: “Shout-out Nathaniel London, who produced this one. We’ve got many bangers with him \[‘Darling,’ ‘Nookie’\]—too many to mention. He’s a very, very cold producer.” **“Buy It Plain / Flowers” (feat. Dirtbike LB)** LB: “To explain the line ‘I think this money’s cursed,’ there’s money you’re owed, and then there’s money you’re not owed. You feel me? The money you’re not owed is going to be cursed, for sure.” **“Really Miss You”** YA: “This is just another real-life situation. I’m talking about missing my daughter on this song. I think we’re very good at communicating our emotions through music. That’s why they love our sad songs. You might be able to vent to your brother, like, I’m not going to call LB and sing a key to him—I’ve got to do that in the booth.” LB: “We’re actually in a good place now. So, if you hear something about us doing bad, it’s probably more about the past.” **“Bankroll Got Bigger”** LB: “This here is a continuation of ‘Bank Roll’ on \[2019 album *Home Alone*\].” YA: “So, if you play that song, at the start you’ll hear the same chords.” **“Pass The Parcel”** LB: “We recorded this one in Europe. We have a dope studio in Amsterdam. We recorded a lot of this project there, and a lot of the verses we done all over the place in different countries.” **“Proud Of Me” (feat. Dirtbike LB)** LB: “This is the first beat that I actually produced myself, so it’s extra special to me. It’s just this year that I’ve started producing, so what better way to showcase my talents, you feel me? It’s the only beat I’ve ever made and recorded straight away. I’ve got to be in animalistic mode to work that way. That’s what I call it. When I’m in beast mode, I start getting on the beats and playing the keys.” **“Bando Baby Diaries” (feat. Young Adz)** YA: “Most of the time, tracks like this I really don’t like doing—I go to a place I don’t want to keep revisiting, but it’s more like therapy. This is not a *story*. It’s a diary, and they’re completely different things.” **“Half Time”** LB: “The intro line, ‘This ain’t a love song/It’s a thug song,’ I dropped on \[2019 single\] ‘She Wants Love,’ and soon after, when I said it on \[2019 single\] ‘Home Pussy,’ it just stuck after that.” **“Fantasy”** YA: “When you travel, you start to realize there’s people in every part of the world that want a different type of song of yours. That’s what makes you an artist. We want to show that we’re those type of artists—so, we’re just going to paint every type of picture on every type of tempo. And maybe in 5, 10 years’ time, they’ll say, ‘Oh, hold on a minute. These guys have done everything!’ We stand for the wave, and we put on for the wave, but *everything* falls under the wave.” **“Elegant & Gang”** LB: “We’re saying to a special someone, ‘We rock with you, just like you’re gang.’ Honestly, everyone has got their own perception of what ‘Elegant & Gang’ means to them.” **“Lonely Lovers” (feat. Ed Sheeran)** YA: “We made this song with Ed in mind, and Jamal sent it to Ed—he was supposed to jump on ‘Pay Attention!!!’ on \[2021 mixtape\] *Home Alone 2*, but we held off, as we wanted to make something bigger. Off the back of the pandemic, everyone knows someone that’s died or felt the effects of someone dying. And it’s even more making a song about that. Then Jamal passed before the song came out. Rest in peace, Jamal Edwards.” **“Man In The Mirror” (feat. Young Adz)** YA: “I’m talking to whoever’s listening on this track. It’s one of those ones you get in there, get on the beat, and you just take it there, man. At this stage in our career, we deliver what we want.” LB: “Artists, they do it for different reasons. A lot of people get rich, but a lot of people also lose hunger, and people lose passion. You’ve got to remember what makes you yourself. Adz has been rapping since before GRM Daily existed. So, what are you still doing it for? It’s the people. It always goes back to the people.\" **“Black Beatles”** LB: “It’s simple, really. We just get in our bag, and we’re always in the charts. So, we’re considered the Black Beatles.”

Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy both appear on the rap collective's intriguing but uneven second studio album 'Lap 5'