Blaketheman1000 is Chaperoning the Goofy Renaissance
New York City rapper, pop-artist, and pop-punk poet, Blaketheman1000 has carved out his own sonic niche, creating a kaleidoscope of earnest storytelling, swagged-out auto-fictition, and humorous quips, all whilst remaining authentically goofy and earnest.
With a penchant for rapping and knack for sickly sweet beats, Blake continuously redefines what it means to be a performer transgressing genre boundaries, all whilst preserving the element of pure fun. Surrounded by a group of like-minded artists inhabiting the downtown world, Blaketheman1000 leads the way for a goofy renaissance making music for his friends and fans all whilst having fun along the way.
Blake Ortiz-Goldberg’s discography is both sincere and irreverent, with lyrics that inject both quirked-up humour and painfully-honest, acerbic yearning into his work. “I love funny music, and I love earnest music. For me, my best music confuses all the genres and themes of my own personality. I like ‘I’m On A Boat’ as much as Sufjan Stevens,” Blake says, “I’m just trying to be honest as to how I really am, which is goofy and earnest.”
After moving to NYC in 2018, Blake has established himself as an artist, playing iconic music meccas like Baby’s All Right, and creating his own legacies hosting explosive sets at niche destinations, like the beloved Ming’s Cafe on Canal. With his latest single "Magician" and a feature on Frost Children's new album "SPEED RUN" (and a recent shoutout from TheNeedleDrop), the Downtown Dime’s Square Diamond’s popularity has skyrocketed. His talent and mass appeal lies in his ironic sense of storytelling. It speaks to what he loves, what his friends love, and explores the fault-line between post-cringe irony and the mystique of New York.
Whatever of the tone, Blake’s lyrics always make the song entirely his own, uniquely unifying across the genres. There’s pitched up nightcore on “Where’s My Hug”, a strangely devastating outro on “Blake 2,” unbridled confidence on “Dean Kissick,” and earnest yearning on “Pixies” layered over off-kilter and sparkly beats. Most recently on "Magician," Blake redefines the pop-punk ethos, combining a Machine Gun Kelly-like genre duality of alternative rock and hip-hop with a tropical-house "Scar Tissue" YouTube remix.
Regardless, there’s a lighthearted element of silliness; Always zany, always fun, always in pursuit of cultivating the ultimate vibe.
Blake’s work, at its core a love letter to his friends, feels strangely personal, albeit still humorous. At the heart of it all is self-actualization - a place for the theatrics of the city to play out as autofiction for his circle. Through the 1000 discography, a process of self-mythologization occurs where lore, canons, and meta-narratives can form. The process of this self-mythologization incorporates an unpretentious charm. 0.5 Shots with the sad eye emoji layered on, live photos of him and his friends at shows - it ultimately seeks to take a more playful, less serious tone, almost reminiscent of the sillyspace of the 2000s (think Crank Dat dances, LMFAO’s neon eyewear, deeply saturated ‘fried’ edits for Instagram). It’s all a signifier of the aforementioned ‘goofy renaissance,’ a rejection of depressive, millennial nihilism and an embrace of something more lighthearted, even if it’s still in response to dark affairs around the world.
Live shows have been especially poignant to Blake’s success. "It's really rare to have someone's undivided attention for an extended period of time. For me, playing a live show is so important because even if 1,000 people hear 1 song in a playlist, it's more impactful for 100 people to hear 30 minutes of music where they definitely know who I am and I have their attention. It's really a rare and precious opportunity as an artist where I can communicate the whole vision of my project to potential audiences," Blake tells us. He elaborates that New Yorkers have an innate sense of FOMO, and this drives some of the creative direction behind his shows. They started as a way to bring his friends together, curating enigmatic performances, something done mainly for the fun of it rather than the success. This sense of intimacy and community has never really left, with his shows still being sweaty, emotive proclamations of joy.
The downtown scene that Blake performs in feels simultaneously unexplored and meticulously chronicled. The notorious cluster of blocks in between Chinatown and the LES, where skaters, intellectuals, and the art world intersect, has been met with mouth-watering fascination of onlookers, both for good and for worse. It can feel unfamiliar, perhaps self-constructed, but at least in Blake’s scene, it’s a space to entertain his friends whilst pursuing his passion. There’s nothing else I can contribute to the Dime’s Square discourse that’s not already been written across newspapers and Substacks alike, but in this narrative at least it’s important to view it as the stage to Blake’s creative world. Consider it an unexplored space for the theatrics of New York, and Blake’s raucous yet community-oriented performances and discography reflect the wider mass psychology of the area.
While the scene sometimes gets categorised as overblown hyper-intellectuals, there’s a deeper feeling of whole-hearted, unpretentious fun and goofiness emanating.
“When things were reopening after the pandemic, I had this mentality about wanting to play things my friends like and I’d invite my friends to. I approached things like: there are so many independent social scenes in New York, and if I can play as many shows as I can that don’t actually just cater to a music scene, but different culture scenes I can effectively always be on tour in NYC, but instead of different cities it’s different scenes,” Blake responds. “I think that was good for me as a New York artist, since it is such a big city with so many people, it has helped me build an audience.”
Blake’s sense of humour and ease never fades throughout the interview. Sometimes, artists from that kind of scene can seem mysterious from afar, but Blake couldn’t be any further from that. It makes sense that friendship and collaboration is at the pulse of his output - no matter how good he gets, his music is still rooted in an intimate sense of connecting with others. And when you listen, you really feel a part of it. You’re always in on the joke, always enveloped into Blake’s technicolour, fascinating world. From discussing MILF Manor, to deep diving some of his Notes App gems, to talking about when he ever might play in the UK (TBD, keep your fingers crossed), there’s a sense of being equally as earnest as he is funny and polite. As he tells you about his 14-hour shift once a week sound mixing for Church Sermons, it hardly feels shocking, just part of Blake’s world and amiable disposition.
Blake’s rise in the downtown scene shows no sense of letting up soon. Embarking on an East Coast tour, with hopeful plans to go further afar, it’s clear that his satirical online and niche humor lyrical style taps into the current zeitgeist. As he tells us, "I just want to make music people can relate to, and my reference for what people relate to are the people that I know personally know best, so my music is a bit goofy and earnest,” we’re left with a sense of both intrigue and joy, craving a way to go further into the 1000 world. Fuelled by a sense of humour, a handful of the lyrics referencing the city's culture and a desire to entertain, Blake offers his audience an opportunity to be in on a joke with him, while laughing and moshing to Blake 2 outros along the way.
Photography by Sarah Ritter