Photo by Vernon Hood/UTD Films
Goldenboy Countup releases new mixtape 'Love Golden 2' on Valentine's Day
Goldenboy Countup is going shopping, and his generosity is evident from his gift list. There’s a Birkin bag for one lucky lady, while another will soon be dressed in Gucci.
But there’s a woman who really wins, and she’s the one who’s getting her tuition paid. It may be one class, a semester, or the whole damn four years — Golden didn’t clearly say. But tuition is being paid — he promises it on "Foot Fetish," one of 12 songs on the mixtape Love Golden 2 that drops on Feb. 14, Valentine's Day.
Lots of themes run through the tape’s lyrics, and the story of giving women what they want is a predominant one. For Valentine’s Day, Golden has a plan that does double duty. He’ll celebrate his album release while giving back to the fans.
“I think I'm gonna do a party, just to bring a whole bunch of females out, pay for their food, [for] females that ain't got no boyfriends on Valentine's Day. Just come chill with Golden,” he says.
The DeLand rapper, now an Orlando resident, has a big fanbase among women, which helped secure his record deal with Simple Stupid Records, an imprint of Geffen Records. If you don’t know, Geffen was home to Donna Summer, Elton John and Guns N’ Roses — the label has been a powerhouse since 1980. Simple Stupid nurtures rappers who, like Golden, possess a strong local identity that translates nationally.
The artist has been on a steady rise over the past few years, but he’s not new to the rap game.
“'Cause like my mama seen me when I was younger, like 5, 6. She was like, 'You was just different. You just acting. You just rapping. You was acting like you was this rapper,'” he recalls. “So like with my mama understanding, with me getting older, I was like 11, she dropped me off at the studio. She like, I'mma drop you off. That's where you wanna go.”
The studio in question was in the home of his friend Zachary Scotton.
“He was only 14 and he like had all the equipment. We just started rapping. Like it was crazy. And he was a white boy and he know how to rap better than majority of the Black boys,” says Countup.
There may be just one positive testimonial for the now-defunct FCAT, the controversial Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, and that comes from Golden himself.
“The only thing that I really learned from school, with my music career, was like fourth grade when the FCAT came out. They started teaching us how to write. Yeah, that's how I started. That's how I learned how to write music because we had like three tests. We had math, we had reading and then we had writing," remembers Countup. "My math, I had got like a three. My reading, I got like a three. But that writing, I got the six. That's the highest, you feel me? So I knew I was good at writing and for them to teach us how to prep up for this writing test, we had to write poems.”
These days he punches in, but his writing foundation got him thinking in terms of cohesive verses. He got so comfortable building stories with intent that by the time he set himself free to innovate on the fly when he’s recording, he had the skills to do so without losing what makes him special.
In and out of music for a stretch, Golden started to succeed when he got serious. It was midway through 2020 when he got a call from Rod Wave’s manager, who was attending school in Daytona, not far from Golden’s hometown of DeLand. Wave liked his music and invited him to a studio. This kicked off a new era for Golden, and things started progressing very quickly.
TNT-XD, the producer perhaps best known for making beats for YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Rod Wave, provided beats for two songs on the new album: "Forever" and "Your Fault." "Forever" dropped a few days ahead of the full mixtape.
TNT says that “when you listen to [Goldenboy], you wanna go get some money, you know? So when you listen to him, he motivates you.”
Goldenboy and TNT met up in a private studio where the engineer Chino records. This is where Wave frequently records when he comes to town.
“He was kind of coming up and people saw him cuz Rod [Wave] was coming up, too. So, eventually like, we kind of like stayed close 'cause we was just always rocking like, you feel me, from like the beginning. So when he blew up, we already had like a relationship. I just sent him [beats]. It was just kind of natural,” says TNT.
To TNT, Goldenboy Countup is a uniquely talented artist that people need to tune in on.
“His music is like, you know, he be talking for people who really going to get it. He has perfected his style, like he did it his way and his style is real distinct. Like, even like on these songs I made the beats for, he's starting to put hooks and like between the verses and actually like, making full songs," says TNT. "That's the thing. He doesn't have like a specific type beat that he'll get on. I could send him any type and he'll still do what he do on it.”
Goldenboy knows his audience. He’s got the streets. He knows what he wants to say and how to say it, and his use of language is stellar. His sound isn’t defined by the beats he raps on, but rather, he takes ownership of those beats and forces them to submit to his will. Like a boss.
Coming soon: Orlando Weekly Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting Orlando stories every morning. Subscribe now and don't miss a thing.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
