Photo by Sam Bovarnick

“Cafe Racer” opens with LVL1’s Spanish rap verse over a thumping filtered house beat as they beg for a ride on a motorbike. The chorus makes a sharp turn with stark 808s & engine revs as queer pop icon Rebecca Black takes control like we’ve never heard her before, leaning into her Mexican-American heritage in the spirit of the bilingual track. The buzzing, ever-building DAGR production pierces even the most fried brains at the club. “Cafe Racer” is an unapologetically sexy anthem that is set to become a staple on the dance floor this summer. 

Rebecca Black says, “This song and working with DAGR to create it is and has been the fastest, sexiest wild ride. I won’t get in the bed of a truck for just anybody, but it’s been the best time to live in DAGR’s world and get to be just a little bit of the chaos!”

We caught you at the beginning of a content creation session today. Tell us more about how you approach conceiving and making your content

Well we have notes here that include visiting a cemetery and a car wash and a few other silly things like that so we always try not to take ourselves too seriously which is a bit of a common theme throughout our visuals and music. There’s an element of gag, trolling and irony for sure. 

Clearly! How did these elements play into the making of your latest project?

We wanted to make something very EDM forward and realised that  most of the EDM we grew up listening to is actually pretty cringe. Even dubstep when it first emerged in the scene seemed a little off but after hours of running down memory lane together we actually realized we loved it wholeheartedly and decided to fully embrace that sound and style

How did the two of you become DAGR?

We became friends about 5 years ago when we found each other in LA. We were both producing music for other people and just started getting into it. We were making beats and I think the first packs we made were for Lizzo back then. 

Oh, wow! 

Yes exactly! I remember she ended up this one beat we made called Genevieve which she liked a lot but she ended up sitting it out because it was a little ‘too weird’ haha 

Still such a cool accomplishment!

Oh yes no doubt! And looking back you realize how important those early days were for our growth. A lot of A&Rand labels prompted us to experiment so much because they needed variety so we basically developed our skills while having to provide ‘weird beats’ to labels haha

Let’s talk about this amazing collab with Rebecca Black. What made you want to have her on this track?

We are big fans of her style and music and her latest project is just stunning. It was clear that she wanted to push her musical boundaries and make her way into the hyperpop scene so we started writing together quite a bit and actually Cafe Racer was supposed to be for her project.

Interesting. Carry on! 

Well we kept listening back to what we had both realized it was a DAGR song after all and we were chatting about having Rebecca as a feature on our project for forever so it just made all the sense in the world! 

What about the rap portion of it? How did you come up with that?

We all kind of agreed instantaneously on the fact that the track was begging for a rap verse. So we sent the lyrics of an extra verse that Rebecca had written to LVL1 and literally within a day she sent a demo back with the message of the lyrics perfectly translated in Spanish. It was just meant to be! 

So let’s close with the big question: what’s this song all about in a sentence?

This track is about ‘Fuck Off! Go Dance! Be in Your Body!’ and nothing more!