Premiere: Watch Superbad Solace's New Video for "Care Less"

Superbad Solace of Timeless Truth recently dropped his sophomore solo album Sol Controller 2. The tape is fully produced by frequent Timeless Truth collaborator Mono En Stereo (f.k.a. RTNC) who's produced for the likes of Your Old Droog and Westside Gunn as well. The album's lead single and first video "Cool De La" features "Krazy Eyez Killa" from arguably the best episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The project was creative directed by Reggieknow, the marketing mastermind behind Sprite's iconic "Obey Your Thirst" campaign in the 90s, and who also worked on Virgil Abloh's latest SS21 campaign for Louis Vuitton. Each song was rolled out with a Japanese zine aesthetic and they released a limited edition "Longbill" black hat with the Dominican and Japanese flags featured prominently as a play of the classic Polo Ralph Lauren hats of the '90s. If you know anything about Timeless Truth, you know that they're big 'Lo heads and were even featured in our Polo documentary Horse Power a couple years back.

Today, Solace drops off his second single and video "Care Less" shot by his cousin A1 Vision. We talked to Solace about the song, video, and his creative rollout, and he had a bunch of things to say. Check it out below and peep the video above. The beat is incredible and Solace floats effortlessly over it. You can grab Sol Controller 2here.

About the song:

"'Care Less' is pretty self explanatory. It's about reaching a level of enlightenment by knowing who you truly are. When that moment happens, you can literally care less about what anybody has to think or say about you. You know who you are, and you're comfortable in your own skin. The concept came to me from my producer Mono En Stereo who named the original beat 'Caring More About Caring Less.' He always be naming his beats something bugged out, but when I read that one it instantly clicked as an actual song idea, so there it went."

About the video:

"The idea for the video came from my man Reggieknow, who tapped in as creative director for the full project. He showed me a one-page mood board that said everything. Lawn chairs, landmarks, and lampin'. That's the exact story we caught visually. I peeped the weather for the shoot day and noticed mad rain, which would usually cause us to reschedule. Instead, I decided to double down on the concept and shoot the whole thing in the rain. The North Face Gore-Tex drip served as the perfect beam and repellant to the torrential conditions. It ended up becoming another layer to the 'Care Less' story. My cousin A1 Vision came through and shot it for us, and the rest was history."

About the album:

"I wrote the Sol Controller 2 album while I was outta work on paternity leave for the birth of my daughter, Karina. As a first time father, my mind was in a million places. So when she'd sleep, I'd use those pockets to sneak in some rhyme writing. Funny thing is, I never planned to do a sequel to Sol Controller and was actually working on a completely different project. When I told Mono En Stereo he only landed one beat on that project, he legit texted me like 300 more beats, and from there I picked the 10 that eventually became part two. We recorded the whole project in one session in his living room, because time is so limited these days... No label, no budgets, none of that. I put it out independently through UnitedMasters and here we are today."

About the hat:

"Aside from the actual music, I wanted to create a physical memento for the Sol Controller 2 release... Something people can touch that felt more like memorabilia than the traditional Gildan rap tee. I was inspired by a conversation I had with Nipsey a few years ago when he came to the Translation office in midtown. We spoke for nearly three hours and he put us on to his Proud 2 Pay model, which treated fans more like patrons of his art whenever they deeply identified with it. The gems from that day stuck with me ever since, so I linked up with Overlooking the Hudson to create a limited 'Longbill' 5-panel hat modeled after the Japanorak jacket. I flipped the cross-flags logo to feature the DR flag instead of the American flag, and sprinkled in some codes like my daughter's initials and a Timeless Truth logo. I priced them at $108 each (as a nod to my birthday, the street I grew up on in Corona, and a philosophy my producer lives by), and I sold over to 300 hats in 24 hours. I couldn't believe my eyes, but it was a testament that people really connected with the music and the message."

About the packaging:

"Pre-COVID, I was planning to drop the album in summer 2020 to line up with the Tokyo Olympics. I felt like my performance on this album was world-class and deserved to get the biggest stage possible... that's kinda how the Japanese-inspired visuals came to life and why I'm rocking the infamous Ralph Lauren 'Japanorak' on the cover. It's an homage to Japanese culture which I hold in extremely high regard. When I was sharing the themes of the album with Reggieknow, he suggested we reimagine the world of Japanese gear magazines like 2nd, which is how we landed on Sc2 and why we designed a series of digital zines with TTK to tease each song before the album drop. Outside of music, I work at an ad agency called Translation and it's my job to find creative ways to roll out marketing campaigns for some of the world's biggest brands. To be able to tap into that side of my brain and apply it to my own work felt like the ultimate cheat code."