PHOTOS BY NICHOLAS EASTMAN
Gay Rapper PrettiBoiRoq is revving up engines once again with the release of his steamy new summer jam, “In My Ride.” The song, with its sweet, catchy hook and its top-down, riding-‘round-the-beach pop vibe, is about a young and innocent California meet-cute. It was inspired by PrettiBoi’s own short-lived but high-octane romance. “I had just ended a long-term relationship and was discouraged with the dating scene when I met my ‘In My Ride’ guy,” he recalls. “He showed me I could connect with someone and that I had the ability to love again.”
After the success of his single, “Bad Bitch Alert”, PrettiBoiRoq says he aimed to show a different side of his music and aesthetic with “In My Ride”. “I wanted to show my versatility as an artist and do more than talk about shaking ass and being bad,” he says from his Los Angeles home. “In gay hip hop, I don’t feel like we have enough representation of love. We have plenty of tracks about sex and casual hook-ups, but not much about real romance, even though most of us live both pretty equally.”
Sonically, "In My Ride" is very different from anything the artist has released before. It is reminiscent of something out of Katy Perry's Teenage Dream era. “I wanted a very pop oriented sound,” PrettiBoiRoq explains. “Something that really personified summer love, and the feelings I was experiencing at the time.”
Nicholas Eastman directs the music video. It depicts a young couple on their first date. We watch as they start at the beach, enjoying a typical Southern California day. The guys then walk along the Santa Monica Pier and that’s where things between them start to heat up. “They end the night in a hotel, as all great first dates do,” PrettiBoiRoq laughs. “in all seriousness, it was important that the scene not be sexually gratuitous. It’s simply about the connection between two people. There’s no real emphasis on the actual bedroom action, just hints and glimpses.”
Diego Escobar stars as the love interest in the video. “We met while on set filming a music video for a friend of mine,” says PrettiBoi. “Diego was playing the love interest in that video, too, and I could tell he was more than a pretty face. He was an actor and his ability to create chemistry on camera was amazing.”
It helped that Diego Escobar was professional because the day of the shoot was an unusually cold one for Southern California. “Diego and I had blankets on set and we were constantly under them in between takes. Riding around in that jeep with no roof was particularly bone chilling!”
PrettiBoiRoq grew up in a tiny town in North Carolina. After his mother succumbed to drug addiction, his parents divorced and he was raised by his religious dad and step mother. He was picked on for the clothes that he wore and for being gay. “I moved out of the house as soon as I turned 18 because I was desperate to leave my hometown behind.”
He moved to Los Angeles where he started working in films. “My LA dreams weren’t on modeling or acting, it was always on the music,” PrettiBoiRoq explains. “I got hooked on hip hop, the lyricism, the lifestyle from 2Pac and Dr. Dre’s “California Love.” I think hip hop resonates with people who face adversity and with everything I had struggled through with my mom and weight and living in poverty, the aggressive nature of the music allowed me to express myself.”
He released his first single, “PrettiBoi Anthym” in December 2015. His first EP PrettiBoiRoq, a pop hop record, was released in June 2016, along with his second single, “New Sh!t.” “You Don’t Own Me,” with its music video featuring porn star Arad Winwin, was released in April 2017.
In his second album, Haus of Ken, PrettiBoiRoq honed in on his hip hop roots. The single “‘Wanna Be Me,’ had a slightly darker, Trap sound to it along with a traditional hip-hop beat.
He followed the album with “Bad Bitch Alert”, a duet with rapper Chanel Jole. It is PrettiBoiRoq’s most successful single to date, with over 85,000 views on Youtube and counting.
Over the past couple years, PrettiBoiRoq has matured a lot. “I think working with so many amazing artists and building such a great fan base has really forced me to step out of my comfort zone and continue to get better at what I do,” he says.
“The biggest thing people are going to realize with this upcoming project is how much thought and passion went into it. During my Haus of Ken era, I was making music I thought everyone else wanted to hear. I don't think I was truly comfortable with who I was as a person or an artist. With this project, I’m making music for me, that tells my story and who I am today and I’m hoping everyone else will like it. As you get older, you get wiser, or so they say.”
Visit: https://www.prettiboiroq.com
Follow PrettiBoiRoq on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @ prettiboiroq
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