Rising to stardom on TikTok, Bella Poarch burst the music world with her web-smashing debut single ‘Build a B*tch’. Her music video got more than 41 million views on YouTube in just 3 days.
Referencing bullying and promoting self-love, the video featured cameos by celebrated internet celebrities such as Valkyrae, Bretman Rock, and Lebanon’s very own Mia Khalifa, who is touted as one of the most outspoken advocates for Lebanon in its crises.
Bella Poarch had a rough childhood, the reason why she has so many tattoos to cover up the scars from abuse, as she once revealed. It does explain her passion for this particular song.
Behind the scenes, the song came to life with the help of Lebanese-American music producer Elie Rizk who was one of the songwriters and producers for Poarch’s hit song.
From Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, Rizk told The961 that he has produced for a wide variety of artists “but none of them had as much influence in terms of social media following as Bella.”
Rizk worked on the production with his friend Daniel Virgil Maisonneuve, aka the rising American artist Sub Urban. Born in New York and raised in New Jersey, Maisonneuve is the son of a French Canadian father and a Taiwanese mother.
“We both worked really hard trying to give the song a creepy but upbeat sound, which meant combining really child-like, whimsical instrumentation with dark bass-heavy production,” Rizk said.
Being in Hawaii to produce the song was exciting, Rizk told us, but more exciting was getting the chance to make music with Poarch. “She’s so much fun to work with and has such a unique tone to her voice, which made the process really easy.”
Talking about Mia Khalifa also being in the video, Rizk said, “She’s so cool. Always great to have another Lebanese involved. I heard she’s the nicest.”
Having been streamed by millions, Poarch’s new song is easily one of Rizk’s biggest career milestones yet – that and the record label he recently started, Good Boy Records.
“It’s still super young,” he said about Good Boy Records, “but I’ve been making so much sick music with my artists and I’m really excited for everyone to hear.”
Rizk currently has a couple of projects coming out with the artists under his new label and he’s excited to get more of their singles released this year.