4batz has a message for his haters. “I’m literally just a n*gga from the hood that ain’t never had shit, so I’m just as surprised as y’all. I’m shocked as hell,” the 20-year-old newcomer cooly murmurs. “I’m not really mad at people because when they was calling me, ‘industry plant this and industry plant that,’ from their side, they’d just seen a dude blow up everywhere and they only got a couple of songs. Obviously they gonna be like, ‘Yo, what the fuck is going on?’…That’s why I dropped my mixtape “u made me a st4r”, [because] calling me an industry plant and doing all this stuff made me a star.” You might be wondering what prompted the internet to sew the seed of this industry plant conspiracy. Well, in the short six months since his debut, he’s landed a feature from music behemoth Drake, released a debut mixtape that entered the Apple R&B charts at the number one spot and wracked up a mammoth 12 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Essentially, he’s packaged a lifetime of success into half a year. But the young Texan shrugs off the haters with a giggle and promise of disbelief on his part too. His new track “umademeast4r.mp3” is the ultimate comment on the negative narrative that’s reared its head amidst his triumph: ‘Man, y’all ass prolly wondering how I got here / Shit, I’m wondering the same shit / All I know is that heartbreak shit a motherfucker, boy, no cap / It’s like one moment, I’m going through the worst shit I ever been in my life / And then the next moment, I’m one of the biggest artists in the world / I guess.’

There is no denying that reality was very different for Batz – born Neko Bennett – this time last year. “I was working a 12 hour job. I’d get up at 10AM in the morning and then I’d come back in the house around 11PM, and I would still make two to three songs. That was a lot for me because being on your feet for 11 hours a day is kind of crazy. It’s kind of nasty actually. But that was life. I was hurt about a female that I was in love with who cheated on me. I had that going on and I also lost my father last year. I had no money. I felt like nobody was with me. I felt like nobody believed in me, even my family. It was me against the world and that energy and that feeling that I had made me want to say, ‘You know what, I’m going to do what I want to do.’ I don’t care what nobody says.'”

Heartbreak and hustling might be the catalyst to this story, but his intuition is what kept him going. “I just stayed with my gut and I knew once I trusted my gut and once I felt good about something, it was in God’s hands. I think I got a good gut feeling about things and that happened to be one of them.” Thankfully, that very premonition was enough to encourage him to make his debut – unapologetically and authentically. “My sound is futuristic. It’s therapeutic. And I think it has an aesthetic to it, but it also has some type of raw, uncut shit about it that I just love. I think [people love] the beauty that comes with my voice. [Then] you see me and now you’re getting both worlds. Now it’s more interesting because if I was just a regular, small, light-skinned dude with curly hair it would be kind of different. But the fact that you get both of our worlds and you get me…I think that’s the beauty about the whole 4Batz situation.”

The situation he’s talking about? In December 2023 he set YouTube ablaze when the music video for “act ii: date @ 8” (which has 11M views at the time of writing) revealed Batz’s smooth-as-silk and pitched-up vocals layered over the compelling visuals of the singer donning a bally and serenading a mic with his gang in toe. Imagine all of the sickly R&B sensibilities that make you swoon unleashed into a Trap fantasy. Viewers couldn’t help but revel in the contradiction of it all. And, there was one person in particular that Batz captivated with his innovative approach to R&B: Canada’s very own 6 God. After catching a glimpse of the newcomer on Timberland’s Instagram, Drake put his knack of collaborating with future greats at the inception of their career – his work on Migos’ “Versace” in 2015 and Future’s “Tony Montana” in 2012 are just a few examples of this – to good use. “Bro had viewed a video from Instagram that Timbaland had posted. He saw it, he liked it and then it was up from there. His team contacted my team and we just worked it out. I’m glad that happened because that was a big moment in my career”.

To read the full interview, pre-order the issue here.