Kap G plays homage to Ritche Valens in official music video for “The Bomb” – courtesy of Atlantic Records

The Official Music Video from Kap G “The Bomb” premiered on BET JAMS, spinning all day on Monday January 20, 2020, simultaneously broadcasted on Viacom Billboard in Times Square, NYC.

In the music video for “The Bomb,” Kap G sings an homage to “La Bamba”  while rapping about the woman who’s  always on his mind.Kap G is no stranger to the recipe for a legitimate hit. The Atlanta-bred emcee has been kicking addictive cuts from time and now as he emerges from something of a hiatus, Kap drops off his newest catalog entry, “The Bomb.”

Interpolating Ritchie Valens’s timeless “La Bamba” track and produced by Squat Beats, “The Bomb” finds Kap resorting to an uncomplicated series of rhymes as he crafts yet another sticky track that adorns his track record wonderfully. The last time we got a full-length offering from Kap G was with last year’s No Kap album. Hopefully, “The Bomb” points toward the road that leads to No Kap’s follow-up.

Few Atlanta rappers have been hovering just below the radar as long as Kap G. Despite a high-profile Pharrell co-sign, XXL Freshman cover, a gold single (2016’s “Girlfriend”)-he has yet to ascend to the status of the collaborators and peers in his age bracket, like Playboi Carti or Lil Uzi Vert. He continues to keep his nose to the grindstone regardless, releasing Spanglish mixtapes like El Southside and SupaJefe full of lightly Auto-Tuned raps that turn on infectious melodies. His latest single, “The Bomb,” is representative of his best work; it’s catchy, to the point, and winkingly clever. The song interpolates Ritchie Valens’ 1958 interpretation of the Mexican folk song “La Bamba,” bringing bits of its sound to the present day.

Kap’s Mexican heritage has always been an important part of his music, but in reimaging an iconic Chicano rock song as trap he takes his cultural synthesis to new heights. He works plenty of Latin signifiers into his mellow flows and squeezes in Spanish phrases, but more impressive still is how the mix of reference points speaks for itself; how seamlessly he threads genres together. The two things seem inextricable from one another, to the point it’s unclear which is influencing the other.