Uploaded August 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
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"Cocaine Biimbie" by Siimba Selassiie
Curated by: Natalie Silver
Spotify: bit.ly/CocaineBiimbieSIIMBASELASSIE
Genre: #hiphop
You’re reading the words of a total, unapologetic music snob--so it’s POSSIBLE that you’re inclined to believe that I, and people like me, have a brutal stranglehold on our methods of music discovery, and that we meticulously and intentionally hand-craft every single thing we listen to. It’s POSSIBLE that we’re not the most open people in the world to new music.
I get it. But listen, at least consistent with my pretension is that I tend to heavily believe in omens and signs; I let energy guide me. So, when the forces that be shove me into a reckless stumble into the abyss of new music, I don’t question it at all.
I can--sometimes--be sold on new music without even hearing the song, but only through a haphazard assembly of the bits and pieces of information on the artist orbiting my world, like the content, the social media presence, the headlines, the hooks and riffs and beats and voices and words.
If that’s the case, however, those bits and pieces had better be pretty damn enticing. It’d better be a hard sell.
And when it came to finding SIIMBA SELASSIIE--the Ethiopian-American hip hop artist based in Brooklyn who spent a couple months darting in and out of my cognitive periphery--it was, and I fell in love with the dude before I even pushed play on “Cocaine Biimbie.”
These were my clues:
5) He runs in the same musical circle as and has collaborated with one of the most brilliant and poetic artists of 2019 hip hop, KAMAU. I trust KAMAU’s taste and sensibilities with all of my being.
6) I have found footage of some insanely rowdy pits at SELASSIIE’s shows. My college music magazine once put me on a one-month probation for glorifying the epic violence of the pits in Bay Area punk scenes. Some people think there’s a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow; I believe there is a neck-breaking, moshpit orgy of pent-up aggression.
7) Rumor has it that Mr. SELASSIIEhas a cunnalingus appreciation song on deck with the impending release of his next album, VIICES.
8) The man breathes fire. Literally.
I was sold. Here would be the part where I talk about how Cocaine Biimbie actually SOUNDS, but I kind of don’t want to do that. I want you to succumb to the forces that be (i.e. me) and blindly delve in like I did.
I’ll see you in the pit.
Rock With This (http://rockwiththis.com) helps you discover your new favorite songs. We deliver the best of what's breaking and uncover the left behind tracks that need to be heard. Subscribe for more music, it's free. ;)
Follow us on:
Instagram: instagram.com/rockwiththismusic
Spotify: bit.ly/SPRockWithThis
SoundCloud: bit.ly/SCRockWithThis
Facebook: facebook.com/rockwiththis
-----------------------------
"Cocaine Biimbie" by Siimba Selassiie
Curated by: Natalie Silver
Spotify: bit.ly/CocaineBiimbieSIIMBASELASSIE
Genre: #hiphop
You’re reading the words of a total, unapologetic music snob--so it’s POSSIBLE that you’re inclined to believe that I, and people like me, have a brutal stranglehold on our methods of music discovery, and that we meticulously and intentionally hand-craft every single thing we listen to. It’s POSSIBLE that we’re not the most open people in the world to new music.
I get it. But listen, at least consistent with my pretension is that I tend to heavily believe in omens and signs; I let energy guide me. So, when the forces that be shove me into a reckless stumble into the abyss of new music, I don’t question it at all.
I can--sometimes--be sold on new music without even hearing the song, but only through a haphazard assembly of the bits and pieces of information on the artist orbiting my world, like the content, the social media presence, the headlines, the hooks and riffs and beats and voices and words.
If that’s the case, however, those bits and pieces had better be pretty damn enticing. It’d better be a hard sell.
And when it came to finding SIIMBA SELASSIIE--the Ethiopian-American hip hop artist based in Brooklyn who spent a couple months darting in and out of my cognitive periphery--it was, and I fell in love with the dude before I even pushed play on “Cocaine Biimbie.”
These were my clues:
5) He runs in the same musical circle as and has collaborated with one of the most brilliant and poetic artists of 2019 hip hop, KAMAU. I trust KAMAU’s taste and sensibilities with all of my being.
6) I have found footage of some insanely rowdy pits at SELASSIIE’s shows. My college music magazine once put me on a one-month probation for glorifying the epic violence of the pits in Bay Area punk scenes. Some people think there’s a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow; I believe there is a neck-breaking, moshpit orgy of pent-up aggression.
7) Rumor has it that Mr. SELASSIIEhas a cunnalingus appreciation song on deck with the impending release of his next album, VIICES.
8) The man breathes fire. Literally.
I was sold. Here would be the part where I talk about how Cocaine Biimbie actually SOUNDS, but I kind of don’t want to do that. I want you to succumb to the forces that be (i.e. me) and blindly delve in like I did.
I’ll see you in the pit.








![Nyxen - Running
Rock With This (http://rockwiththis.com) helps you discover your new favorite songs. We deliver the best of whats breaking and uncover the left behind tracks that need to be heard. Subscribe for more music, its free. ;)
Follow us on:
Instagram: http://instagram.com/rockwiththismusic
Spotify: http://bit.ly/SPRockWithThis
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Running by Nyxen
Curated by: Maddie Swarr
Spotify: http://bit.ly/RunningNyxen
Genre: #electropop
I’m a self-described feminist. Find me screaming on the streets about how women can do everything that men can do, and it should never be assumed otherwise. So it frustrates, confuses, and ultimately kills me a little when I find myself gendering music. And what I mean by this is this subconscious habit that I have to hear a song with pulsing baselines and eardrum-blowing drops and immediately assume that there’s a dick behind it all.
I’d like to think that I make these assumptions knowing that the EDM world is dominated by mainly male producers (somewhere on the order of 90% of EDM music is produced by men), but if I’m being honest with myself I know it’s actually the deep-seated biases and internalized misogyny that have been subconsciously ingrained in me that are responsible. I could go ahead and turn this post into a thirty-page essay about the effects of systematic sexism on the music industry, but instead I’ll transition into talking about this awesome song and how it was produced by a dope-ass LADY.
As you probably could infer already, when I first heard “Running” I immediately wanted to know who this guy Nyxen was, and was extremely excited but equally angry with myself when Google presented me with pictures of Chelsea Lester, the Tokyo-born, Sydney-based producer behind it all. She’s been a musician since grade school, but, as the story often goes, stumbled into the electronic music world in her teenage years when she discovered Ableton and its ability to design sounds drafted up in one’s own imagination. Since her transition into the EDM world, Nyxen has steadily built a name for herself with a few hits, including “Running”, which bears testament to her keen musicality. To me, this song is gold. Incredibly mixed, not too long, not too repetitive, a tasteful dose of ethereal feminine vocals that are indeed her own, and that pulsing baseline that chugs the song along to perfection.
So in conclusion [insert thirty-page thesis above], the ability to create great electronic music is not an issue of gender, but as one Reddit post so elegantly puts it, “men are just more likely to spend an entire afternoon/evening clicking around on a computer”. Maybe I should be doing more of that… Nyxen - Running](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jEZtO2mknOg/mqdefault.jpg)

