Cruel Santino Is Kicking Off King Of The Bounce Era With New Two-Pack Release
Three years after his landmark sophomore album, Subaru Boy: FINAL HEAVEN, Nigerian singer, songwriter and filmmaker, Cruel Santino, is ringing in a new era with the release of a new two-pack housing two singles, “International Collector” and “Ozempic,” that are the clearest signal of the musician’s bold distinctive new sonic direction that will culminate in the release of his new album, King Of The Bounce.
The first song on the release, “International Collector,” finds Cruel Santino leaning into a mellow flow over a subterranean instrumental that’s spliced with liquid percussion. Thematically, he’s broaching the global scope of his appeal and sound. Speaking about the song, he said: “I started working on it in 2024 and finished the song this year. I was gradually working on it because that’s how I work on stuff. I’m always working on many things: I can work on a song, I can work on a video, and I can work on a film too. Sometimes, I can work on something and just come back to it.
“I met Anatole muster in 2025, i loved the tape he put out and and he played me some stuff on collector which led to my mind opening on more stuff to add on the song . So, I still thought the song could be more cinematic to fit the world I’m building and took one more year to work on it. I feel like it’s a good introduction to the world I’m building on King Of The Bounce.”
Ozempic to me is one of the origin of the bounces – its an original – stemmed in what inspired and made us chase this journey – produced by Vic reagan – a close friend of mine whom we share a collective together and features my good friend Jeriq – fans have been waiting for this for a while so i am happy its coming out honestly
Long expected by fans, its release is sure to excite fans of Cruel Santino who have long come to expect culture-shifting link-ups from the creative polymath. “ It’s a really good song,” Cruel Santino says about the song. “It just sounds like something that I felt needed to come out on the two-pack. I don’t really have any expectation for how people would take those two songs, but there’s a lot of really insane songs on my album. I feel like I’m not in a space where I’m thinking about stuff too much and I’m gonna just keep going.”
Taken together, “International Collector” and “Ozempic” are some clues into the world that Cruel Santino is piecing together for his long-anticipated third album, inviting listeners to reacquaint themselves with the genre-blurring approach that made him emerge as one of the most highly regarded creative minds of his generation.