Big Daddy Karsten and Ferdinand discuss ‘Cancelled’ — a socially distant Pride bop

17th June 2020 Kyle Jackson

Queer music’s newest dynamic duo, consisting of friends and collaborators Big Daddy Karsten and Ferdinand, is back with another club bop!

After the success of their first collaboration on “Best Friend (remix)” earlier this year, Big Daddy Karsten and Ferdinand decided to record “Cancelled” — a bop for the queers to help get us through this very tough socially distant Pride month. It’s also meant to let the homophobes who took joy in the fact that Pride appeared to be cancelled this month know that, even though Pride is cancelled, the queers are much too fabulous to let that stop us!

I had a chance to speak with both of them about the song and their individual plans going forward!

Kyle Jackson: You two just recently worked together on “Best Friend (remix)”. Did the success of that track inspire you to do another song together?

Big Daddy Karsten/Ferdinand: YAAASSSS!!!

BDK: Very much, indeed! We found out through that project that we were a combo that works really well.

F: We both have strengths in different areas of what we do that makes us stronger working together. We fulfill each other. (wink)

KJ: What inspired you guys to get together to make “Cancelled”? Can you give us some background about the track?

BDK: I found out that Oslo pride had a Pride song competition for 2020 where you could earn the title of official Pride song. So I started a group chat with Ferdinand and our favourite producer Are Næsset.

F: I was so excited when Karsten took initiative to do this pride track, and immediately started doing research. A few days later we were in the studio and put the track together in only a matter of hours. It was important for me to make it a club bop, but still have room for Karsten to spit some fire.

BDK: And I feel we managed that pretty awesomely by combining politics with humor. We were getting the message out that, even if we can’t march this year, we can celebrate and still be socially distancing!

KJ: How would you guys describe your music, both together and separately?

BDK: My music is often bar-heavy, wordplay-oriented Bear bops infused into different sub-genres of rap. I rap a lot about sex in all shapes and forms with people in all shapes and forms. (laughs) It’s supposed to be sexy, fun and done professionally.

F: I’m a dance-pop artist. I’m like the love child of Lady Gaga and David Bowie, and I’m really into hard electronic music that will make you shake what your daddy gave you! I’m pretty theatrical and not afraid of making music that is considered to be a guilty pleasure!

BDK: Together we make music that combines these two styles and births something special — Ferdinand’s shamelessness and my technical rap perspective. Humor is key.

F: We just want to make everyone smile.

KJ: Will we be seeing more Big Daddy Karsten and Ferdinand collaborations? What’s next for you guys?

F: We might see more collaborations in the future, maybe. (wink) But I have some current projects that I need to focus on.

BDK: I will never work with that little twink hoe again! (laughs) Just kidding. It will happen if it’s organic and makes sense. I also have a lot of cool stuff I’m working on. While you wait for more official BDK stuff, you can check out my Bearmixxx freestyles that I release quite frequently.