Bobby Sessions Drops New EP, I’d Rather Keep It To Myself

Grammy Award®-winning Dallas rapper Bobby Sessions – who recently wrapped the sold-out 22-city Westside Boogie More Black Super Heroes Tour  – keeps the momentum amped up with the arrival of I’D RATHER KEEP IT TO MYSELF, his brand new 6-track EP available today via High Standardz / Def Jam Recordings.  The EP includes the new focus track, “Smile,” as well as “ISO,” Bobby’s single + video release of last June, along with four new tracks, many of which he debuted live during the MBSH Tour.

As an introduction to I’D RATHER KEEP IT TO MYSELF, Bobby Sessions joined STEREOVISION co-founder and host Miles Hagan for an exclusive 23-minute video interview.  The candid conversation, which took place right before Bobby took the stage at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles for the final night of the MBSH Tour (October 9^th), is sub-titled: Writing for Beyonce, Mental Health, and Embracing Your Gifts.  WATCH HERE.

I’D RATHER KEEP IT TO MYSELF is Bobby’s first new studio long-player project since the release of Manifest, his long-awaited major label debut album of June 2021. The album included Bobby’s 2021 single + video releases, “Cog In the Machine” (March); “Gold Rolex” featuring Benny The Butcher & Freddie Gibbs (May); “Penthouse Prayers” featuring Rick Ross (June); “Triple Deity” (July); “Dream More, Doubt Less” featuring Hollyhood Bay Bay (September); and “Made A Way (Remix)” featuring Lecrae.

Manifest found Bobby serving up more vividly realized bars than ever before, while still managing to sneak wisdom and grace into every verse.  It sounds like something he’d been working his whole life to make, full of songs meant to bring dreams to life.  It was created in a span of 10 days during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.  Bobby and his two producers, AJ Ruined My Record and J. Scalez locked in at Westlake Studios in West Hollywood, in the same room where Michael Jackson recorded Thriller more than three decades earlier.  A collection of sharp, affecting songs mixing soul samples with a bubbly trap bounce, Manifest is nothing less than a self-help audiobook in hip-hop form.

2021 brought Bobby his first career Grammy Award® for Best Rap Song as co-writer of Megan Thee Stallion & Beyoncé’s landmark RIAA platinum “Savage Remix.”  Bobby and Meg continued to collaborate on “I’m A King,” lead single from the Coming 2 America Original Motion Picture Soundtrack album on Def Jam.

This breakthrough year for Bobby also saw the climax of his collaboration with Marvel Comics, as his original three-page character-driven story about Black Panther debuted within issue #24 in March.  It was part of the final three-issue “Intergalactic Empire” saga of Marvel’s Black Panther comics series, from the acclaimed guest creative team of writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and artist Daniel Acuna.

MANIFEST builds on the impact of the RVLTN series of controversial EPs that began after Bobby signed to Def Jam in 2018: RVLTN – Chapter 1: The Divided States of AmeriKKKa, RVLTN – Chapter 2: The Art of Resistance, and RVLTN (Chapter 3): The Price of Freedom, including the original “Made A Way.”  The track was featured in EA’s FIFA 2021 interactive game trailer, and later segued into the “Made A Way (Remix)” featuring fellow Texas MC Lecrae (included on Manifest).  The third EP was released on 9/11 (2020): “You typically dial 911 when there’s an emergency,” Bobby said that day.  “And the state of affairs in the United States of America, and actually around the whole world, is that we’re literally in a state of emergency…”

In the summer 2021, Bobby was featured on Here Comes the Break, the serialized hip-hop music-breaking audio drama podcast (starring Asante Blackk and Daniella Perkins), that spotlighted individual new emerging Def Jam stars and their music within every new episode’s story line.  The podcast’s success inspired the innovative 22-track Here Comes the Break: Original Soundtrack Album, with songs (including Bobby’s “Repeat”) and podcast interview interludes woven throughout.

Bobby first won 4-star praise in 2018, for “The Hate U Give,” his title track (featuring Keite Young) from the critically acclaimed motion picture’s all-star soundtrack album released on Def Jam.  Prior to that, Sessions had attracted nationwide attention with his first two incendiary singles for the label, “Like Me” and “Pick A Side.”

Listen to I’d Rather Keep It To Myself: https://bobbysessions.lnk.to/IdRatherKeepItToMyself