Trick takes the risque with Some Girls

SINGAPORE — When we last spoke to Trick, the local hip-hop duo comprising Marc Lian and Richard Jansen, they had just signed with major label Sony Music Singapore and were looking forward to promoting their then-current single, Sunshine. The song would eventually lodged itself in the Top 10 on the 987FM Top 20 charts and was on heavy radio rotation across the region as well.

Now, Trick is back with a new track, Some Girls. According to Jansen, the duo had immersed themselves in making music in the past year. “A couple of months back, we were focused on completing Some Girls, including its music video. We are now working on a bunch of new originals and videos for these as well.”

That is good news for fans of Trick and Singapore hip-hop in general. The song itself, though ostensibly a typical rap paean to the ladies, is more conceptual in nature than it seems.

“For us, the song is a love letter to hip-hop culture — music, dance, fashion and attitude,” Lian elaborated. “We’re shifting towards hip-hop music, so it also marks a new musical rebirth of sorts.”

This might sound like a rather lofty perspective of a song that may feel somewhat incongruent with the accompanying music video, where the duo is flanked by scantily clad women adopting suggestive poses, (which Lian describes as embodying “the fun and carefree spirit of a night out”.)

Whatever the motivations were, the video has proven to be immensely popular, garnering more than 100,000 views online in slightly over a month. Lian attributed this to “a combination of tight editing, complementary colours, fashion and dance”.

While cynics might instead highlight the risque (by Singapore standards, at any rate) nature of the video as a more salient explanation for its popularity, Jansen bristled at the suggestion.

“At the end of the day, the creative work that was put into the song and music video was genuine and none of it was with any purpose of going against or challenging ‘Singaporean standards’ or with intentions of going viral — none of that.”

He added: “We’re always grounded by the fact that different fans and listeners have different tastes in music, styles and standards, and we respect that fully. What we were doing was going back to the roots of the music we really enjoyed.”

Lian was at pains to highlight the fact that the ladies featured in the music video — Rebecca Chen, Ally Irwin and Cristina Purdea — were “super talented models, dancers, actresses and singers”. At the same time, he pointed out: “They’re all extremely passionate about hip-hop culture, too, so we were all working on the same wavelength.”

As for plans for a possible full-length album, the duo said they’re focusing on promoting their song at the moment. “We’re working on going out regionally to promote Some Girls, notably in the Philippines,” Jansen explained. However, he did offer a teaser: “We’ve got lots of songs that are in the midst of being completed (and) those will be released in the coming months.”

Some Girls is available on all digital music platforms.