Boslen is ready to enter his pop era

"On this album, I don't rap at all." 

Rising West Coast star Boslen is all smiles when discussing his upcoming album, Conversations Over Dinner (slated to be released this fall), admitting that just thinking about this next chapter in his career "gives me butterflies in my stomach." 

Up until this point, Boslen has made a name for himself by fusing trap, pop and rock, pushing the boundaries of rap with an unabashed experimentalism that has earned him millions of streams, his first Juno Award nomination earlier this year for rap album/EP of the year for his 2022 EP, Gonzo, and even comparisons to megastar Travis Scott. 

In some ways, Boslen's successful genre-blending approach goes hand in hand with the city he's been repping since the start: Vancouver. While born in Chilliwack, B.C., a place he also loves and claims as his own, Boslen's move to North Vancouver after dropping out of school marked the beginning of his music career. Instead of creating a straightforward style of hip-hop, though, Boslen tapped into the creative freedom of his surroundings to produce something unique. 

"A lot of artists from Vancouver are not following the trends of Toronto or the U.S.," he points out. "They're actually leaning into their alt-life, they're leaning into their goofiness — they're just doing things they want to do, and I love that." He specifically shouts out acts like BBNO$, Manila Grey and Ekkstacy for helping further cultivate spaces in recent years where they and others can feel safe to play around with their sound.  

Boslen's own take on rap is edgy and distorted, yet on tracks like Gonzo standouts "Gone" and "Scars," also emotionally candid. Fostering a level of connection with his listeners is an important part of his work, because it's what Kid Cudi did for Boslen when he first fell in love with music. When Boslen was young, his mother and stepfather separated, and Kid Cudi's "Up, Up and Away" provided solace for him, as he said in his bio: "I was trying to protect my mental health as a 12-year-old kid." In other interviews, he has credited the Cleveland artist for being the "first in rap to talk about mental health issues," as he explained to Complex. 

The first time he recalls being vulnerable in the studio was when he was recording "Forsaken," a track off his 2021 album, Dusk to Dawn. "I was trying to hit this high note and my voice kept cracking, and I got very embarrassed," he remembers. "I told everybody in the studio to leave so I can hit this note, and I kind of let the insecurity take over me ... I didn't like that version of me. So ever since that day, I made it a goal of mine to work through that, which got me to a moment of being able to make a song like [2022's 'Scars']."

"Vulnerability in music is like, you can hear it in the tonality of Post Malone; you can hear it in the storytelling of Drake and his mother … I'm just coming to learn lately that [vulnerability leads to] the most powerful, timeless type of music that you can ever make in your entire life. And the reason why we call some songs timeless hits is because they can cut through every generation and tap into a feeling or a moment there that is so relatable." 

Boslen's vision of authenticity nowadays isn't focused on vocal productions or complicated beats. In fact, his vision has simplified: "It's just about my voice, what I'm saying and like, a guitar. I think that's the realest thing ever." That hardly sounds like the hard-hitting, layered style he's refined over the years, but a look at a couple of recent singles hints at this new direction. On "Santa Muerte," Boslen flexes his falsetto on the chorus, sounding lovesick over a slinky soundscape (indeed marked by an acoustic guitar riff). Even catchier is "Crazy," a funk-filled pop anthem about an ex that sonically shares more in common with Bruno Mars than any rapper in the game right now. 

"If I'm honest, I was just tired of the comparisons," Boslen revealed, specifically focusing on the Travis Scott example. "He's an amazing artist, but I was like, I want to be my own artist." Although that's not the main reason he's expanded his musical palate: hip-hop as a whole proved to be too small of a box for Boslen, and while he's never been afraid to experiment, he found himself falling into tropes that he has since realized weren't true to his persona. 

"When I was rapping, I was just saying things that I thought other people thought were cool," he confesses. "I thought saying the word 'bitch' was good, but it's not. I can't regret it because it's gotten me to where I am now, but just as every great artist does, they just evolve, right?" (Boslen also credits conversations he's had with his girlfriend, whom he calls one of his current influences, as a contributing factor to this change and maturity.)  

Another chapter in Boslen's evolution was connecting with his Black identity later in life. In a 2021 essay he penned for Atwood Magazine, Boslen opened up about his upbringing in an Indigenous household, where he grew up learning more about his mother's heritage and traditions.

Having never met his biological father, Boslen wrote: "As I grew older the only exposure I had to Black culture or Black identity was through music. I learned how to dress, the slang I use, and how to navigate in the world subconsciously through listening to Black artists." But as the years went by, he went from absorbing that culture from afar to being embedded in it, spending time in studios with other Black creatives. "That's been one hell of a journey," he says, of finding and learning about himself as a Black man and a Black artist. "Now I don't really even think about it, it's just a part of me now, which is beautiful. But, I still want to learn more." 

I used to think it was harder to make the most experimental, out-of-this-world song with three minutes of distortion.- Boslen

That level of personal growth and acceptance has opened up new doors for him musically as well. Wanting to push himself even further, Boslen reached a point where he says he "wasn't satisfied by just making hip-hop anymore." After being connected with Swedish producers Gino Nano and Otto Posado in Los Angeles — in their first meeting, they played a "futuristic, Weeknd, 'Can't-Feel-My-Face'-type beat" and Boslen came up with a melody for it within 15 seconds — he decided to fly to Sweden and spend a month and a half writing songs with the duo. That trip yielded 40 songs, and 12 of them will appear on Boslen's next album. 

"I challenged myself in Sweden," he says, adding that he spent time researching the greats like Michael Jackson, Prince and Justin Timberlake. Boslen became fascinated by pop structures and grew a real appreciation for how hard it truly is to create a simple-seeming hit. "I used to think it was harder to make the most experimental, out-of-this-world song with three minutes of distortion," he admits. "But I had an epiphany in Sweden that doing simple things and actually appealing to a wider audience is much harder to do for a long period of time." This, Boslen thought, was his next challenge. And so far, as heard on "Santa Muerte" and "Crazy" (both of which were produced by Nano and Posado and will appear on Conversations Over Dinner), he's showing that he can transfer his ideas and music intuitions into melodic gold. 

When he first moved into his one-bedroom apartment on Hastings Street, Boslen drew a picture of himself on Vancouver's Rogers Arena and put the drawing up in front of his bed. Staring at that illustration motivated him: "It brought me out of where I was at the time, and it helped me live in the future." While he now divides his time between B.C., Los Angeles and wherever else his career takes him, Rogers Arena remains one of his biggest goals. Boslen's pop pivot isn't solely to one day achieve that goal, but it could very well accelerate it. 

"I didn't know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do," he says, when looking back at his old music, which he is still very proud of. "But with this music, I can happily say I will be performing some of these songs at festivals for the rest of my life because there's some timeless music on this album. I always said in my old interviews that I wanted to be that artist for Vancouver and be the one that cuts through. With the music I'm doing now, it will be undeniable."