Alt-rap is a niche Genre that attracts plenty of diverse listeners. That's one of the best things music can do. “The music is a vehicle for the lyrics,” says Doc Backer, a cross-genre artist whose most recent album is alt-rap, but who has also recorded folk and rock albums. He's not interested in traditional music boundaries, and his current album, “BABBEL ON!” spends a lot of time experimenting. It does great service to the alt-rap genre, bringing in new narratives and sounds that evolve the niche in interesting ways.
Doc Backer has a diverse background and an impressive catalog. He just recently hit number one on the iTunes dance chart by collaborating with R3HAB on a remix of “Tequila” in September. “BABBEL ON!” has been earning its name on streaming platforms, breaking into featured editorial playlists on Spotify and Apple Music. Rolling Stone even picked up the story of the album.
With his past albums featuring alt-rock and folk, Doc Backer’s exploration of the rap space (not to mention the EDM-heavy “Tequila” remix) might have caught some listeners off-guard. He takes his experimentation and lyricism seriously (or with unapologetic humor, depending on the track), and long-time listeners are used to connecting with his work on multiple levels.
“BABBEL ON!” And the “Tequila” Age
2024 has seen a hard turn into new territory for Doc Backer. His albums from 2023 were largely acoustic, built on solid rhythms and instrumentation with highly stylized lyrics and vocal performances. With a careful, close listen, you can hear the lyrical style that will eventually become Doc Backer’s, but it’s going to take a reinvention of energy and musicality to truly jump genres. Doc Backer makes the leap well.
In his performances, Doc Backer could be described as inhabiting the characters of the singers, even if often that character is just himself. “BABBEL ON!” keeps at least this much of his style, even if it’s otherwise a completely new sound compared to where Doc Backer was just last year. The album’s leading track, “Don’t Wake Up,” takes his character-inflected lyrical performance and matches it to deeper production, with the layers of careful sound and hard back-beats that characterize the alt-rap genre.
Other tracks bring in differently characterized vocal performances, making the album almost feel like a compilation of collabs with different artists; it’s just that all those different artists are Doc Backer being alternate versions of himself. What this creates is an album where every track is truly distinct. Add in the single “Tequila,” which is more of a dance track, and its bass-dropping R3HAB Remix that sounds like a rave-ready club mix sampling rap, and you get the feeling that Doc Backer has broken through into a completely new phase.
What will his music be like in 2025? 2026? Beyond? It’s impossible to say. There’s enough variety and style in Doc Backer’s “Tequila” age to explore for a decade, but he could reset to acoustic rock or invent something completely new without warning.
Connect and Find Out What’s Next
If you like alt-rap with an underground edge, this could be the album that gets you to discover Doc Backer and follow him to whatever he does next (a collab with Gonjasufi and an eclectic indie/rock/folk album, but what will THAT sound like?). If you’re interested in music that erases genre lines and creates something new, then that’s another reason to take a look at Doc Backer’s Instagram or TikTok pages. Explore his discography and be there when his next brand-new sound drops.
