“Painting Pictures” by Superstar Pride
Very little information on Superstar Pride is readily available as of this writing. By the looks of things “Painting Pictures”, which was released on 22 October 2022, is his breakthrough track. For instance, unlike his other songs, it has had a notable showing on a number of music-based platforms, most notably Shazam.
“Painting Pictures”, which was written by Superstar Pride and produced by an artist known as GlobalKnockz, is from the former’s debut EP, “5Lbs of Pressure” (2022). And to note Superstar Pride is akin to a celebrity TikToker, in that he currently has over 130,000 followers.
WHAT’S GOING ON IN “PAINTING PICTURES”?
This song can be most generally defined as a social-commentary piece. In other words, what we’re dealing with here is another life-in-the-‘hood song, though directly based on the vocalist’s deeply-personal experiences and analyses thereof.
And as for Superstar Pride, though it can be gleaned that he’s along the lines of a quintessential street-based rapper, he also appears to be more introspective than the norm. For example, it’s not every day you hear a hip-hop artist make a statement like if “you live by the gun, you going to die by the gun”. So accordingly, even though he was “raised a gangster”, he doesn’t particularly appear to be the trigger-happy type.
NARRATOR’S UPBRINGING
And concerning Superstar’s upbringing, that’s one of the main subthemes of this song. For instance, he notes how his mother “played both roles”, i.e. acting as his father also, since apparently his dad was of the absentee variety.
But that’s not to say that he did not have any impact on the vocalist’s life, as Superstar’s dad did impart upon him some valuable life lessons. There is also some former romantic interest whom the vocalist proceeds to diss due to, as relayed, accusing Pride of being the father of her child, even though he wasn’t.
None of the above is really anything new as far as these types of songs go. But there are a couple unconventional lines present, in which the narrator puts forth “uncle killed me when I was young” and that “mama blessed the boy with coc**ne”.
The latter, logically interpreted, would imply that his mother was or is into the illicit drug trade and likewise put Superstar onto the game. But the former statement is pretty out there and reads like maybe something Pride wanted to get off his chest without being too specific as to what he actually means by being “killed” by presumably his own uncle. This is a declaration which of course, as far as the ‘killing’ part is concerned, would be figurative.
A SUPERSTAR IN THE MAKING?
This is the first we’ve heard of Superstar Pride, and he doesn’t appear to be currently affiliated with any major label, so it remains to be seen if the TikTok star will manage to drop additional noteworthy hits.
As a young artist, there’s only so far he’s expected to deviate from the established norm. But based on this particular outing, it does seem as if he possesses a level of frankness that most other, better-known hip-hop artists, as self-revealing as they may be, do not.
