Rap UK
paq teamed up with Spotify UK to activate the Rap UK playlist through a culture-shifting campaign.
SPOTIFY
RAP UK
Campaign Strategy / Creative Direction / Brand Design / Film & Photography
“From day when I said I was serious.”
Without despising its humble beginnings, UK Rap has come a long way from the days of imitated American accents and the hustle to get budget visuals on Channel U. The graft was necessary and the incline is undeniable.
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UK Rap is now one of the most influential genres in the world, transcending music to impact fashion, lifestyle and youth culture. Spotify therefore approached paq to create a new visual identity for their Rap UK playlist. In celebration of the rebrand they also asked us to lead on the wider playlist campaign, activated via the Day 1s Club platform.
As the Day 1s Club originally ran in the US with Rap Caviar, we needed to create a distinct re-articulated expression of the platform, that authentically tapped into the core of Black UK culture.
Purpose
We researched and distilled UK rap, interrogating the nuances of the sounds and identities across the scene. Our key observation was how the genre embodied diverse perspectives, influenced by the source of first generation immigrants and culture of the wider diaspora. The definition of a melting pot.
Our goal was to re-energise the Rap UK playlist by creating a community experience that embraced this understanding and put Spotify at the heart of the conversation; between the listeners and creators of the sound.
A celebration of UK Rap from every perspective.
Authenticity
We drew from our personal experiences to hone in on what it truly meant to be a Day 1 fan of a UK Rapper and landed on two profiles.
One being the fan that discovered an Artist before they ‘blew’. They were plugged in from their first show, project or song. The other being the fan that may not have been there from the first song but when they did discover an Artist, dug deep into their archives and put in the listening hours.
In essence, sometimes you just had to be there to get it. Other times, when you got it, you really got it. We had to find the synergy between these two parallels and create a campaign that seamlessly spoke the language of both; from the backend data framework to the frontend visual communication.
Our answer was LEVELS. A celebration of UK Rap from every perspective.
A statement that in as much as the campaign was about bragging rights, it was also about the collective feeling of being rooted in an artist’s journey. A recognition that all listeners have played an integral part in the UK rap scene.
Quality
We created an original score for the microsite and collaborated with Sound Designers to incorporate interactive audio elements, deepening the immersiveness across the user experience.
Each floor was named after everyday words that have their own definitions within UK slang; Active, Certified, Top Tier and Levels (if you know, you know). We then utilised Spotify’s data to rank Day 1 listeners, allowing us to extend the campaign’s visual language to create share cards of each artist for socials.
Levels offered a fluid identity for Spotify Rap UK that stood out undeniably; sparking conversations between artists and fans upon its launch and in the weeks that followed.
Collecting the Award for Music Consumer Innovation category by the Music Week awards was the icing on the cake. The moral of the campaign is: we win and elevate together.
