Houston rapper
OMB Bloodbath makes tracks that balance controlled production with complex storytelling lyricism. She began as a staunchly independent artist, self-releasing and distributing her own mixtapes before her popularity caught up with her and led to her signing with Interscope offshoot Love Renaissance for the release of her 2021 EP
Blood Sample.
OMB Bloodbath was born Alexandra Nicks in 1993, and was writing her own songs as early as age nine. Inspired early on by
Lauryn Hill and Cal Wayne, she was working on music while still in high school, and came into her own around 2016. That year, she contributed an entry to an online video challenge where R&B vocalist
Monica asked aspiring rappers to perform their own rhymes over her song "So Gone."
Bloodbath's entry was one of the more celebrated of the competition, and it gained significant attention around the same time that her debut single, "Shootston," was also making waves. In 2017 she launched a series of mixtapes stylized in a similar way to
Lil Wayne's
No Ceilings releases, with the rapper freestyling new verses over familiar instrumentals. These mixtapes kicked off with 2017's Nothing but the Moon, and continued with Nothing but the Moon 2 in 2018 and two tapes in 2019, Nothing but the Moon 3 and A Few Forevers.
In 2020,
OMB Bloodbath teamed with the Love Renaissance label for the release of the
Maxo Kream-assisted single "Dropout." The song was one of the rapper's most well-received tracks up to that point, and she followed it quickly with the 2021 single "Don't Do It" and five-song EP
Blood Sample. The EP included the standout track "Not Gang," which featured a guest appearance from
EST Gee. ~ Fred Thomas