Pop · DevelopingFP-015 · Side B
Brooklin Rich Takes the Long Way Round
Five singles in a year, most of them past the five-minute mark, all on his own imprint. The Las Vegas singer is building a catalog that refuses to hurry.
Disclosure: First Press operates independently but shares ownership ties with LUSIVEX, which works with Brooklin Rich.
Pop singles have been shrinking for a decade. The streaming-era rule says get to the hook fast and get out before the skip. Brooklin Rich has not been following it. His first single, "Open That Door", released in October 2025, runs past six minutes on Apple Music. "Resist" runs five and a half. Nothing he has put out so far comes in under four minutes forty.
That patience is the most interesting thing about a developing artist who is still only 20.
The run so far
Rich is a singer, songwriter and producer based in Las Vegas, according to his official site, and every release carries his own imprint, BORNRICH. The order, per Spotify:
- "Open That Door", October 25, 2025, with an official video
- "Alibi Lover", February 20, 2026, with a lyric video
- "Resist", May 22, 2026
- "Save Me", July 10, 2026
- "Fight Me", September 25, 2026, a three-track release that packages the new song with "Resist" and "Save Me", plus a lyric video
Apple files "Alibi Lover" under Dance and the rest under Pop, which says something about how hard the songs are to pin down. Melodic Magazine heard "Fight Me" as an "atmospheric, genre-blurring pop single" sitting between moody pop and dark R&B, a confrontation built on betrayal and divided loyalty.
A song that waited
The detail that explains the catalog is the history of "Fight Me" itself. In a Melodic Magazine interview published September 30, Rich said the song was made in early 2025, before his first single came out, and held for about a year until the right person mixed it. Most young artists release the song they finished last week. Rich sat on one of his strongest ideas and released four others first.
The working setup is small and close. In the same interview he said his father handles production while his own area is "the vocal aspect of things," and that the two have worked together since he was 10. He has lived in Nebraska and Chicago before Las Vegas, and he credits nature more than any city for the writing: "nature is a heavy, heavy thing for me."
The name
The surname carries weight. Rich's site identifies him as the great-grandson of Buddy Rich, the big-band drummer, and he told Melodic he played drums from "a few months old till about 10" and that "Buddy's passion carried into me." He did not grow into a drummer's act, though. By his own account the job he took on is the singing and the writing.
Why it is worth watching
Independence is a talking point for a lot of new acts. For Rich it shows up in the release data: one imprint, a father-and-son studio partnership, and song lengths that no playlist consultant would sign off on. "I feel like as an artist, I'm always going to want control over my art," he told Melodic, and the catalog backs that up.
He also told the magazine that an album is the eventual goal and singles are the plan for now. Five songs in, the outline is already there: long running times, moody pop that leans toward R&B, and songs built for listeners who stay to the end. The question for the next year is whether a release strategy this unhurried can find an audience in a market built for the opposite. On the evidence of "Fight Me", he is not planning to meet the market halfway.