Kick 5000 unveils his latest single, “M.B.D,” a dark, supersized song that sounds like the opening theme to a film that may not yet exist, but totally should. It is a scene-setter that makes your speakers feel like they’ve just transformed into a movie theater.
A mysterious title for an eerie vibe, “M.B.D” works the kind of retro-gangster storytelling that’s classically inspired, in its way, invoking the haunted, high-stakes energy of something that would be a direct ripoff of Scarface 2 if there were such a thing. The tension is established from the first notes, with the creeping pace of a slow pan across a blood-red Miami skyline. It’s not a beat, it’s a background. And Kick-5000 is the narrator, the orchestrator, and the outlaw protagonist all in one.
There’s an unmistakable sense of striving behind this release, both musically and visually. As the track rolls, the dramas unfold in the mind. Each note and percussive hit feels deliberate, or like it belongs to a scene in which someone is either about to ascend to power or plummet from it. It’s the storytelling without words, and that’s very hard to do.
“M.B.D” is the work of a band that knows what it’s about. This is theme music, not filler. It doesn’t court fashion, it creates its universe. The palette is lush but grungy, smooth yet rough, conjuring everything from orchestral menace to trap muscle. It’s a score for ambition and danger and the unspoken rules of the empire-building game.