Melbourne alt-pop shapeshifter Rich Delinquent isn’t chasing a scene, he’s building his own world.
With the release of his new mixtape Heartbreak Afterparty, he closes a year long chapter that’s blurred electronic production, hip hop weight and late night confession into something that feels wired for 2am.
For Rich Delinquent, the project started as self discipline, “So the mixtape was more of a strategy for myself to really dive into the sound of rich delinquent.” He’d found pieces of his voice and production across earlier releases, but this time he wanted to “hone in” on what he calls an “electronic, dark pop slash Hip Hop sort of sound.”
Lyrically, it’s not theatre. “A lot of it is experience,” he says. “I really write from like, the darker parts of of what I’ve been through.” That includes substance use, but only what’s real. “You’ll never hear me, you know, singing about smoking, because it’s not my thing.” Nothing fabricated., no borrowed trauma.
Music is the pressure valve. “It’s the only way like, I can express myself,” he explains. “I can be kind of stoic… this really, just like, enables me to really stay level throughout life.”
Working with Tyla Yaweh
The title track ‘Heartbreak Afterparty’ links him with Tyla Yaweh, an artist he says carries something “rough and punk about him.” The collaboration shifted the song slightly. “Definitely changed, but not too drastically.” The tweak made it fit Tyla more naturally without losing the original vision.
RD produces his own material, but treats collaboration as texture. “Sometimes I feel like, oh, this needs another voice.” That openness runs through the entire tape, which features a broader cast across its rollout and now lands as a complete body of work.
Genre wise, he resists neat boxes. “I find it so hard to find my my spot in the scene.” His influences stretch from Skrillex and Flume in production to Justin Bieber’s Purpose, Usher and Justin Timberlake vocally, with Bring Me The Horizon shaping his lyrical intent. “This is literally a melting pot of all my influences coming out.”
Visually, he pulls from film over music. “Anything Blade Runner,” he says, citing its colour and cyberpunk atmosphere.
Live, the show flows like a DJ set. “The set flows from start to finish with big moments in between.” SXSW in Texas, a potential LA showcase and a Japan pop-up are locked in, with an Australian run in the works.
At its core, Heartbreak Afterparty is less about image and more about connection. “It’s more of like, a crew of like minded people that like the same stuff,” he says of his fanbase, the Delinquents. If someone finds the mixtape at 2am, he hopes it brings “some sort of, like reassurance that, like, there other people have been on this path as well.”
The chapter closes here, but the next one is already written.
Heartbreak Afterparty is streaming now
Heartbreak Afterparty Tracklist:
- Never Said I’m God
- Black LaFerrari (feat. FRVRFRIDAY, Starr Adara)
- Adore It (feat. RMR)
- Heartless (Interlude)
- Betray Me
- Healing Factor (feat. phem)
- Heartbreak Afterparty (feat. Tyla Yaweh)
Stream here.
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