Knowing that trap has been a dominant trend in K-pop during 2020, and that Blackpink basically barged there way into the international scene proficiently with trap, clearly ‘Black Mamba’ is looking to emulate something similar while also forging their own identity. The sound design of the ‘riff’ actually seems like a budget version of the famous ‘Seven Nation Army’ riff, since the output sound rings more like a gritty trap guitar synth compared to a pure and dynamic electric guitar riff. Starting right off, I’m going to be honest when I say I’m not entirely sure what instrument that exactly is throughout the introduction, however if I were to guess I’d say it’s a synthesiser over an electric guitar. It feels unique in a way, but I’m not entirely onboard with the mixture of sounds combined together. However, focusing instead on aespa’s debut, track ‘Black Mamba’ hits the ears with a bit of grit, a bit of screech and a bit of melody which is for sure going to split opinion greatly as most variations of the trap genre does. Obviously there is a lot of discussion surrounding the group because of the fact they are under SM, which is also the home of mega-group Red Velvet, with most of that discussion being based around what is next for the group after a very unfortunate 2020. In what could be one of the most anticipated debuts of the year, SM’s new girl group, aespa, have so far teased an AI concept for their overall identity which I think is simply best described as ‘interesting’ – you can interpret that in whatever way you want.

Black mamba song