“Just, watching my older brother do music and my father did music, just watching them,” Yung Bleu, née Jeremy Biddle, begins, reflecting on his whole inception into song. “Growing up, I always wanted to make my own music, and create my own things to listen to. Ever since I was a young dude in school, I always wanted to make my own music and really just do what I was seeing, for real.”
Citing influences that range from the late, great 2Pac to Boosie Badazz to Lauryn Hill – calling Ms. Hill one of his favorite artists – and Lyfe Jennings, Bleu, who hails from Mobile, Alabama, describes his music as am eclectic blend. “I think it’s just general because it’s all different types. It’s not really a genre; it’s R&B, Hip-Hop – all mixed together – Pop, whatever. It’s diverse.”
Yung Bleu, whose moniker is derived simply from being young and favoring the color blue, would incidentally go on to ink with the aforementioned artist formerly known as Lil Boosie. “I was just sending music over to Badazz Management, and that first song I sent… well I guess he heard it (and) he just wanted to sign me (to Bad Azz Music Syndicate) asap,” he animatedly recalls. Continuing, he goes on to say, “A couple of days later, I was flying out to Atlanta to sign with him and stuff like that. Then, we put out a mix-tape, Investment$ 3. We started getting hot in them streets, started doing shows, travelling. ‘Bout seven months later, we started getting emails from labels – like a couple of major labels – we just linked with Columbia. We just liked the vision they had for the music, and stuff like that as far as my creative goal. We just got together, and made it happen. It all happened within like an eight month span, from signing to Boosie to Columbia, it all happened within an eight month span.”
On working under Badazz’s tutelage, the 23 year old states, sounding very matter-of-fact, “Boosie has a lot of input as far as the moral support of what I’m doing, just being that backing, but as far as the creative side, he just lets me do my thing ’cause he really trusts the music that I bring to the table. He lets me do my thing, for real.”
If his latest single/video “Miss It” is any indication, 20-18 is sure to belong to Yung Bleu. “(It) came about just situations I was going through with one of my late exes, and I just wanted to show the world. It really wasn’t even supposed to be a single, I just put it out as a song that I thought people were gonna relate to, and it just blew up overnight for real… well not overnight, but quicker than all my other songs did, so it was kinda like unexpected, for real.”
Miss It (Official Video, Explicit) by Yung Bleu on VEVO.
Presently out on the road trekking spot dates, the self-proclaimed Bleu Vandross accurately sums up the whole touring experience in a nutshell, “Energy, a lot of energy, I give a good show. All my shows be turnt, and it don’t really be short shows. They be like a good set; probably twenty, twenty-five minutes for a club show. High energy. And I got a lot of records people like to sing, so, I mean, my shows be lit!”
As the new year approaches, Yung Bleu, who also aspires to one day take up acting as well, has a recently released mixtape, the fourth installment in his Investment$ series. He is also already promoting Investment$ 5, which is on the horizon. Earlier this year he also released the Bleu Da Ruler mixtape, which originally featured the single, “Miss It”. His sharpshooter like sights clearly are set on becoming Hip-Hop’s next generation upper echelon entertainer. “Key to my success so far has just been building an organic fan-base, and not letting my fan-base be built off just one record. I get show money, where I could actually draw a crowd (just by) my collection of music. People know the songs so I’ve been able to stay on the road and being booked and staying in the fans’ face just by the music I drop. The good music I drop.”
Concluding with humble, yet lofty expectations, “I feel like I’m gonna be in the top tier of the rap game, like I’m one of the top ten rappers that’s currently in the game. I feel like I’m gonna be one of those people that’s doing multiple styles of music, and that you get tired of hearing, but doing numbers. I feel like I’m gonna be one of those artists.”
We look forward to continuing to see the rise of Yung Bleu!
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Image by Cam Kirk
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