Babyface Mal made a huge splash last year with “Sknoway”, an electrifying drill track that showcased his sharp bars, nimble flow and cold-hearted wit as he passed the mic back and forth with the enigmatic Lil Sknow. Mal, signed to Melbourne’s rising 66 Records label, then followed it up with the cool-headed but cutthroat tape Time Out. Today he drops off ‘SuperHero’, another drill banger that dials up the energy to a new extreme.
For Mal, heroism is in the eye of the beholder, and he subverts the idea of a superhero in his many bars about street guys like his bro who “is dressed in black like Batman and got tools in all of his clothes”. He runs with the concept, charging over the beat’s haunted piano keys and enlisting Brisbane titan Nerve to be the Robin to his Batman. Nerve comes through with a typically effortless, energetic and punchline-laden verse and the video sees them gassing each other up and sharing a bottle of Henny in an abandoned building.
Speaking about the inspiration behind the song, Babyface Mal says “Sometimes you can’t tell who’s who (good/bad). Good people might do bad things and bad people might do good things, does that define them? At the end of the day, people who do different things end up at the same club doing the same thing as one other on the weekends. On top of that, it incorporates the idea that everyone is really just a child in a bigger body than they once had. It can be comforting thinking of the bad things you might do in a comical way (e.g. violent criminal=super villain). We are the real-life superheroes and supervillains.”