Seven years and seven records into the game, Vancouver rap prankster Alexander Gumuchian—aka bbno$, say it “baby no money”—is still figuring out the purpose of releasing proper albums. “For me, making an album just means you’re bored for this period of time, and you’re not touring,” he tells Apple Music. “I love making music, and an album just means I made too much music to release as singles. There’s no narrative arc or anything—I'm just putting some of my favorite songs on an album together. I wish I had a better story!”
On bag or die, we get the full buffet of what’s made bbno$ one of Canada’s unlikeliest DIY success stories: the everydude deadpan flow; the precarious tightrope walk between swagger and self-deprecation; the nerdy references to video games and anime. And that’s to say nothing of an eclectic, pleasure-seeking production palette—spanning disco, trap, flamenco, ’90s Bad Boy jams, surf music, drum ’n’ bass, even classical piano—that ensures every track is a potential party-starter. However, the very title bag or die suggests that bbno$’s freewheeling approach to making music is starting to cohere into a serious life philosophy. “I feel like we live in a capitalistic society,” he says, “and if you want to live a reasonably decent life, you gotta make money. That's not me being like, 'God bless capitalism!' But working can be fun—make it fun, and you'll make money and your life will be better. Either that or you die. And we're all gonna die anyway, so you might as well have as much fun as you humanly can.” Here, bbno$ offers his track-by-track guide to the bag or die lifestyle.
“bag or die”
“I went to my friend dwilly's house, and he's classically trained in piano and jazz. He's one of the most talented individuals I've ever met in my life—it kind of pisses me off! And I was like, 'Yo, just rip the piano.' And the first thing he laid down was that intro, and then I just copied the melody with my vocals. Tonally, I think this is one of my favorite songs on the album. It has a lot of artistic value, and it’s also stupid as hell. That's the bbno$ vibe.”
“top gun”
“Honestly, I've got nothing against Tom Cruise, but…fuck Tom Cruise. And that's all I have to say about this song!”
“I see london i see france”
"Most people in the world have said [the schoolyard chant] 'I see London, I see France,' so I'm just making things as relatable as I can. I do think the beat is super unique. No one's really making flamenco claps on rap beats. And no one's really putting up the BPM to, like, 117 and keeping it halftime. The 'fuck cancer' line is about my grandmother, on my father's side. She was just diagnosed again. She's beat cancer, like, three times, so she clearly doesn't give a fuck. But it's getting to a point where it's pretty sad. She did outlive the Queen, but at what point is living really necessary? When I get old, if I'm even close to my deathbed, I'm doing heroin on site and I'm puilling the plug. I don't care.”
“chipotle”
“I just want a Chipotle [celebrity] black card. So I wrote this song, and even though I say I'm gonna rob Chipotle in it, I’m still promoting them, so they should just me a fucking black card!”
“touch grass” (feat. Yung Gravy)
“When you play video games online as a shooter, and you absolutely annihilate, like, three people, you scream into the microphone, 'Touch grass, you fucking nerds!' It's like saying, 'Go outside, because you're garbage at this game.' I've been a gamer my whole life, and I have been very mad at people online—I used to be a ginormous troll. But if you think about this in non-gamer terms, 'touch grass' is probably a good statement, because not a lot of people go outside anymore and do things. So enjoy it—go for a hike!”
“let em know”
“This song is an ode to how stupid my music can get, and how lighthearted people should take themselves sometimes, because at the end of the day, nothing even matters. Quote my nihilism!”
“piccolo”
“Look—I like Dragon Ball Z, so I’m just going to say: 9000. People who watch Dragon Ball Z will get it. And other people won’t get it, and that’s fine.”
“robert patekson”
“Patek Philippe watches are auto-ticking—they never die, so it’s a vampire watch. There you go: Robert Patekson. This song is really stupid, but I really like it—I haven't really done a typical triplet flow in a very long time.”
“b to the b”
“This is like an interlude but my fans love this type of track. They love the sporadic nature. It's two minutes with no repetition, except for the 'B to the B to the N to the O' hook, but even on those notes, I change the frequency shifter on 'money' so they all sound different. This was probably one of the worst songs on the album, but after sprucing it up on production, I genuinely think it's the most creative song on the project.”
“deadman” (feat. Lil Toe)
“This is the one song that I genuinely don't like. That's the one where I was like, 'I think this album needs a generic rap song.' If I listened to the album, I would skip it. But I've had so many people be like, 'Yo, this the one!' I wrote that song in, like, 2017 and I just held on to it. And I was always like, 'I wonder if we can get this reproduced well enough to make it good.' And [producer] Diamond Pistols made it really good—or at least substantially better.”
“vasectomy”
“Having a vasectomy will not affect your emotional stability; being on birth control, or having an IUD, will literally fuck you up. Once I have a solidified partner and maybe a kid or two, I'm getting a vasectomy. You can still nut, you just don't produce, and it's fine.”
“mathematics”
“I recently fell in love with drum ’n’ bass—I saw this guy Bru-C at a festival and it was the best performance I've ever seen. It was super-electronic drum ’n’ bass and was really wubby and the energy of the show was crazy. So this track is my first little introduction to drum ’n’ bass—I’m going to make a full EP next year.”
“sophisticated”
“Nothing is sophisticated in my life—I wear cheap clothing. Guys, this song is a lie. I live with my parents.”
“e-girl anthem”
“This is one of my favorite songs on the album—it’s just so positive and really nice to listen to. But it had to go at the end because it doesn't make sense in the middle at all. It makes sense at the end because it's almost like a Jack Johnson rap record—which also makes no fucking sense!”