Q&A: LBFRmikey

London-born, NZ-raised up & coming hip hop artist LBFRmikey is a young bandit on the rise. Known for his raw & hard hitting vocals, he’s opened for international artists such as Bladee (Sweden) & Shakewell (US), plus his smash single “Don’t Rain On Me” has gained over 500,000 plays across all platforms! He chats to us about his new 3-track EP “Aim & Fire”, his musical journey as well as his challenging mental health journey, and more.

We’d love to know a little bit about your musical journey so far from when you first started rapping and creating your own music!

Uhh damn … well back in 2012 was when I bought my first microphone. I started messing around on my MacBook 08 with GarageBand & I just fell in love with the recording process! How to manipulate your voice & what you could do with your voice on a track ... I was just obsessed from the start.

A year later, I started LBFR, so my bro bought a laptop and started making beats for me (haha our music was trash at the beginning!). Then in 2016, I went to the UK for a year trying to grow LBFR, which was where I made my debut performance as LBFRmikey in Leeds. In 2017, I ended up over in Perth, Aus where I released one of my first mixtapes (which is no longer out) & performed numerous shows all over the city until mid 2018 when I finally moved back to Wellington, NZ. Everything started properly growing when I released my “Blind” EP. Since then I've done countless shows all over the country. Opening for international artists and yeah, I’m grateful for everything so far but it’s just the start, trust!

Congrats on releasing your new EP “Aim & Fire”! How would you describe the overall theme of your EP?

Thank you! I’ve been excited to release this project. It's hard to pinpoint a theme so to speak cause I've got so many messages in the EP that I’m addressing. Addiction, depression, suicide, self worth, betrayal, self loathing etc. which are all situations I’ve personally been through. Everything I say in my music, I've done or experienced & from my perspective, these issues are the worst they've been in a long time. Not just worldwide but in New Zealand especially. I don’t bullshit with my lyrics, which I think a lot of people can relate to because it’s pretty rare these days.

What were your main highlights working on the EP?

Shooting the video for the second track “Serve It On A Plate” with dbvisual. That shoot was fun asf! We pretty much just messed around for 6 hours & the video came out fire so I think that definitely would be a main highlight!

Let’s take a small throwback to “BANDIT KEEFE”, your last album that you dropped back in 2019. Can you tell us about the concept of this album and the meaning behind the name?

2019 really was a year to just release as much material for people to listen to as possible. I really wanted to bring out a project with a load of diversity & show that I can do all sorts of styles of music. 9 is my favourite number so I put 9 tracks on the project & got a variety of producers to work with.

“LBFR” stands for “Lost Bandit Forgotten Royalties”, my last name is O’Keefe & I also love “Yu-Gi-Oh!” which has a character on the show called “Bandit Keith” who’s this huge big boss geezer. This relates with the tape well cause there's a few big boy tracks on there. So I just put all that together & called the project “Bandit Keefe”.

And a HUGE congrats for your single “Don’t Rain On Me” with over 350K streams on Spotify alone - such an incredible achievement! What inspired you to write this track?

Much love, thank you so much!! I dunno, I guess it was more like an overview on my environment at the time. I wasn’t in the best place in my life at that point but the song is pretty much like an anxious/paranoid state of my mind. Like watching my world from the outside. I’ve seen people completely change up trying to fit in with certain crowds & they lose sight of everything that’s important. 

Who are your biggest inspirations in music?

Sooo many but the mains are Mac Miller, Juice Wrld, XXXTentacion, Elton John, Tyler, the Creator and Polo G.

If there’s anything you could change about the current music industry, what would it be and why

Support in one & another whether that's music or anything creative. There’s so much talent in this country that’s slept on. NZ needs a better pathway for artists & more opportunities.  

Who are some of your favourite NZ artists right now and are there any songs in particular that you love or connect with?

So many dope artists from this country! But I love that Melodownz tune with Denzel Curry - that shit goes crazy!

What do you love most about living in New Zealand? Do you have any favourite places to travel to or local spots to visit?

Well my old man is from Christchurch so I have a lot of family here! My favourite place in NZ is probably Queenstown or Lake Tekapo though, it’s just crazy beautiful.

What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learnt in your career so far, and what advice do you have for new artists out there?

You can’t depend on people & be careful who you affiliate yourself with. There are a lot of people tryna bring you down & fail in this business. Fuck all that, just do you.

Lastly, if you could say one thing to every person in the world, what would it be?

Love more. Look after your loved ones & each other x

Thanks so much LBFRmikey! Make sure to keep up with him on Instagram, Facebook, Spotify & Apple Music.