A few years ago, Ty, Deiondre, and The Babe Gabe were only teenagers, vibing in a basement-turned-bedroom, watching their favorite childhood shows, and making music in Kansas City, Missouri. Now they are the indie DIY darlings BLACKSTARKIDS, currently touring with The 1975 and playing the vibrant songs from their new album CYBERKISS* (2022). When I speak to them, they are driving through the heart of Boston, Massachusetts to get to the sold-out venue that will soon evoke the intimate and lively communion of thousands. There are only a few hours left before they open for The 1975 “At Their Very Best,” but there they are, the three young talents who make up BLACKSTARKIDS, gathered around a mobile device, ready to dive into the band’s history and dreams for The B-Side.
BLACKSTARKIDS’ success shows that Ty, Deiondre, and The Babe Gabe are clearly bandmates with great synergy, but the strength of their friendship is also abundantly clear. Similar to the impact of their music, I immediately feel welcomed into their circle, their world. As soon as the Zoom call connects., The Babe Gabe compliments my newly orange hair, and I was not only awe-struck by her kindness, but was also reminded of a part in their song “TANGERINE LOVE” on the album Whatever, Man (2020) where Ty recites, “You had orange hair looked like tangerines.” Before I even begin asking questions, the band exemplifies how they are not afraid to recognize and uplift people from all walks of life.
They greet me with limitless warmth as they each introduce themselves, then say in cohesive solidarity “and we are BLACKSTARKIDS.” A name like BLACKSTARKIDS deserves to be written in bold font and showcased in bright lights. For this trio of young Black rockstars who continue to reach new heights, the band’s name harmoniously aligns with who they are and what they aim to represent. In regards to the name, Ty tells me, “We never considered another name. It’s been BLACKSTARKIDS from the jump. I don’t know why, honestly, but I came up with the name years before we started. I just had it in high school, so when we decided to start the band I was like Yo! How about BLACKSTARKIDS? and nobody disagreed.”
Deiondre agrees as The Babe Gabe adds, “He put us in a groupchat called BLACKSTARKIDS and I was like this is lit!”
While some bands go through a laundry list of potential band names, workshopping their name until it is perfect, the name BLACKSTARKIDS arose naturally. In fact, the band itself came together naturally.
“It’s just crazy how synced up things came to be without trying,” declares The Babe Gabe when she reflects on the band’s past and current dynamic.
Before they were bandmates, BLACKSTARKIDS were just three young Black teens who happened to attend the same high school. While Ty, Deiondre, and The Babe Gabe were each going through their own Black coming-of-age experiences, it was a blessing that their paths intersected. I asked the band about the time leading up to the birth of BLACKSTARKIDS when they were young high school students who barely knew each other, but saw their adolescent experiences colliding right before their eyes.
Ty laughed as he reminisces, “[Deiondre and I] were bad students in high school. We both got kicked out of our first high school for our grades. So because of that, we ended up going to the second high school with Gabe. I had better grades in high school because Gabe used to do my homework—”
“I didn’t use to do your homework, I used to send him the homework,” The Babe Gabe clarifies to me.
Ty does not hesitate to agree with The Babe Gabe’s correction on their shared memory of their blooming friendship: “No yeah, it was some homie shit.” I was amazed. Even before they were bandmates, before they were friends, they still rooted for the success of one another, even if it was through sending each other answers to algebra homework. This growing support, solicitude, and synergy only grew between the three as time went on, and that was clear to me as they explained the origins of BLACKSTARKIDS. As their story unfolded, each member would corroborate with ease, nod their head with agreement, and laugh with nostalgia.
“We were loosely making music back then and we didn’t know each other too strongly while we were going [to high school],” explains Deiondre.
Ty jumps in, “I was friends with Gabe in high school. We used to hang out every day at school. Deiondre and I were cool, but we didn’t really become friends until late 2017. Then, we started making music together because we were both into the same shit. I used to go to his parents’ house—when Deiondre still lived with them—and we’d go down to the basement which was his room. We would listen to music and make music and just talk. Then eventually, we had the idea to add Gabe to the mix and the band came from there.”
The Babe Gabe exclaims with her bright smile, “Shout out to that basement!”
Ty concludes that BLACKSTARKIDS became the next chapter to follow their high school experiences: “I would say that a lot was done in the high school building, but the association of going together was enough to want to make music together.” They were no longer just classmates but were collectively BLACKSTARKIDS—three kids whose individual dreams to make music and express themselves aligned perfectly.
“There’s a lot of things that we all feel similar about, like the same way, or relate to. So, we’re able to be in harmony a lot of the time, and a lot of the time it’ll be natural too. But then, our differences—we have enough differences that there is the contrast and there are different perspectives. So I feel like it, it makes like the perfect balance for the three of us,” Ty revealed.
Photo by Daniel Ruiz
While they are no longer the young high school teens they used to be, BLACKSTARKIDS still incorporate this youthful and nostalgic spirit in their music. They are not afraid to reference teen-based media, such as when they are feeling “like Rue running all through the streets,” in their song “DIGITAL WORLD” or “like Jonah Hill, I’m super bad” in their song “SEX APPEAL.”
“A lot of the older stuff like ‘FRANKIE MUNIZ’ or ‘BRITNEY BITCH’—we’re really going back to our childhood. It’s almost like Family Guy or something where we’re just addicted to making references,” Ty responds when I asked about the pop culture references they artistically blend into their DIY-pop sound.
“The things that shaped us, they’re just stuck with us,” The Babe Gabe adds.
Deiondre continues with The Babe’s Gabe sentiment, “Yeah, the things that stick around in our head since we were kids and stuff. I mean when they came over to my house to make music, like when we just started as a group, we weren’t all super comfortable with each other yet. Sometimes it’d be awkward. I was just like Uh, well welcome to my room. We’re gonna make music here. And then what I would do is just be like, Okay, I’m gonna just throw on Netflix while I make this beat.”
“So nobody is forced to talk,” explains Ty.
Once again, it is clear that BLACKSTARKIDS are on the same page as Deiondre effortlessly finishes Ty’s thought: “And it won’t be awkward as fucking shit. But because of that, we would bring up a lot of movies that we know and be like: Oh, remember this. Remember that. Yeah. Sometimes when we were making SURF (2020), we would have those same moments.”
After our discussion about the nostalgic past, BLACKSTARKIDS and I cannot help but chat about the shared experience of being young and Black in the United States. In the young indie scene full of angst and revolt, there is a noticeable lack of Black representation; however, BLACKSTARKIDS is changing that with their multiplicity and wide range.
I praise BLACKSTARKIDS for the diversity they bring to the DIY scene with their representation and revolutionary music: “Your music, there are humorous tones to it with those pop cultural references, but then there’s also times where you guys are angsty or rebellious or radical. Then there are other moments where you guys are vulnerable, but then also satirical. There are just so many different traits that come together to provide a multifaceted commentary on what it means to be young and Black. It’s not one-dimensional. Cause obviously, we’re [as Black youth] not one dimensional.”
BLACKSTARKIDS respond, “Our whole journey with music has been to make it easier for people who look similar to how we look and share the same skin color as us to exist the way they feel fit without much hassle because of what we did with our music and with our story, like that’s been the big goal the whole time.”
It was then that The Babe Gabe embodies the universal desire for Black youth to be seen and heard in pop culture when she says, “I wish we had us when we were younger.” I immediately understand what she means.
They may not have had a band like their own when coming of age, but this only motivates Ty, Deiondre, The Babe Gabe even further. BLACKSTARKIDS are not afraid to use their music to highlight Black kids and their unique adolescent experiences.
In 2020, the group even released what they called the Black coming-of-age trilogy made up of their three albums Let’s Play Sports (2020), SURF (2020), and Whatever, Man (2020).
Ty beautifully explains the trilogy more in-depth during our conversation when I ask about what each album characterizes: “I feel like Let’s Play Sports was us bonding about our early challenges, if that makes sense. Like that young [coming-of] age. So, the experiences that maybe a Black child would have. SURF was definitely an in-the-moment thing, what we were going through at like 19, 20ish versus Whatever, Man feels more like a reference to the age range of being 16 and dealing with a lot of things for the first time and shit like that. SURF is very in the moment. “Let’s Play Sports and Whatever, Man, were more nostalgia based and then Surf was very in the moment. But they all come together to paint a picture of what the first phase of the band was like. That was phase one of BLACKSTARKIDS, that phase is over now. Like sonically, musically, we’re something else now. But that’s who we were before we were discovered, before we were signed, before we were on tour.”
I can’t help but tell them, “I’m just super happy that the Black coming-of age experience is being told in a way that’s super true and super real and based upon real life. Because growing up, I loved the coming-of-age music and the movies and all of that, but oftentimes, I was like, ‘I don’t see myself represented. I love these movies and I love these songs that tell a story, but they don’t look like me.’ And then you guys became that representation for those kids,” those kids, being the young Black kids who do not know their place in the world.
“I think for us we, we probably felt like a similar way.” Ty says as The Babe Gabe and Deiondre hum in unified agreement. “Like underrepresented, and so we just wanted to come in and represent ourselves and represent people who look like us. It was really important for us to do because we liked all of that same coming-of-age stuff too, but of course, felt the same way. So that coming in, that was always a huge and big goal, you know?”
Before our interview comes to an end and the band must enter the venue, I tell BLACKSTARKIDS that when I listen to their music and hear their lyrics. I think back to when I first listened to their song “TOO DEPRESSED 4 SEX” in the Spring of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, stuck in my teenage bedroom, sad and isolated. The song brought up both fun and angst for me—an overall feeling of catharsis, “it feels like an older sibling giving advice.” Trustworthy, raw, and hilariously genuine. So, I must ask them before they go:
“What advice would you give to us or your younger self or the Black kids in America?”
The Babe Gabe says, “Continue to be yourself. Shine fucking bright,” while Ty responds afterward, “That shit’s hard to be yourself sometimes. Especially being here in America, but you just have to because there are people younger than you. Like whatever you do, you’re leading the way for the people who are coming after you and you’re making that shit easier for the next person. We’re all just playing a role. We have to stay together as a community of people and make this shit easier for everybody around us, you know?”
BLACKSTARKIDS are not only doing it for themselves but for the culture and community. There is no stopping this young, Black, and talented trio. They are a force to be reckoned with and are changing the music industry for good.
Listen to BLACKSTARKIDS’ new album CYBERKISS* (2022), and catch them live when they come to San Francisco on November 29th with The 1975 at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Be sure to follow them on Instagram and Twitter for more updates!
Interview conducted by Zara Koroma