Apollo Red Taps Bryant Barnes For 'Demon'

(IC) Apollo Red releases his genre-melting track "#demon" featuring Texas singer Bryant Barnes out now via YVL / Interscope Records. The single kicks off the rise of a new force from the underground and is the first official taste of the Atlanta rapper's upcoming DEMONHEARTRADIO mixtape, release date TBD.

Apollo Red has been steadily shaping his vision and amassing followers the past couple of years, independently dropping a run of darkly stylish, sonically diverse, and distinctly introspective songs and projects - plus working with PlaqueBoyMax, sosocamo, 1300Saint, and others. He lit up Rolling Loud Orlando earlier this month, after wrapping up his run on the arena-crashing, headline-making Antagonist 2.0 Tour alongside Playboi Carti, Ken Carson, Destroy Lonely, and HXG.

"#demon" harnesses that intrigue and energy. Produced by Cardo Got Wings (Travis Scott, Drake) and Johnny Juliano (Kendrick Lamar, Young Thug), the track mixes moody soul, swirling psychedelia, hypnotic melody, and expressive lyrics. Blending meaning and texture, Apollo Red paints a picture of blurry infatuation ("You do things that the drugs can't do / I know your mind but I don't know your heart"), while Barnes delivers the spectral hook: "My love, this is who I wanted you to see / Caught up in my ways so you believed, that I was an angel that'll save you."

The "#demon" music video leans into occult imagery that only heightens the tension between love and lust, control and release, good intentions and ill will. Out in the countryside in a decrepit home with a dank basement, a group of women in white frocks and crimson gloves participate in strange rituals, while Apollo Red raps backlit by a blood-red sky.

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