In early 2018, Carnage was gearing up for the release of his sophomore album, Battered Bruised & Bloody, which featured a star-studded cast of hip-hop collaborators including Migos, Mac Miller, Lil Pump, and more. Surrounding the release, Carnage planned a string of five free shows across the US (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Brooklyn, and Chicago), called the Renegade Series, to act as a victory lap celebrating the album release.
In the months leading up to the release, Fame House and Carnage’s team looked to implement marketing tactics that matched the level of intensity of the album. The album’s third single, ‘Plur Genocide’, featuring Steve Aoki and Lockdown, was teased over several weeks, with video snippets previewing compelling moments from the music video. These teasers were accompanied by a Spotify pre-save, which was leveraged to both build excitement among fans as well as capture fan data for retargeting throughout the album campaign.
The album itself represented an evolution in Carnage’s music toward a heavier hip-hop focus. To highlight this shift, Carnage shared a handwritten tracklist sheet in the week before release that bolded each of thealbum’s illustrious collaborators, along with a heartfelt note revealing his motivation behind the project:
“My name is Diamante Anthony Blackman. My blood Runs Nicaraguan but I was raised in Guatemala. I am a minority in my field and I am flourishing. I never had anything easy. I had to fight for everything I have and I wouldn’t want it any other way. #BBB is my Sophomore Album. I Put my soul in to Everything I touch. This is For You.”
Next, the excitement around the release was brought into the physical world via a “Carnage Unlocked” scavenger hunt utilising the geographic content app Lndmark. Fans were encouraged to travel to specific locations around the US to unlock exclusive content around the album, including merchandise discounts and behind-the-scenes videos.
Between the rawness of the album rollout, the Carnage Unlocked scavenger hunt via Lndmark, and the Renegade Series, Battered Bruised & Bloody was ultimately delivered to fans with the impact and intensity that the music deserved.
The songs from Battered Bruised & Bloody have collectively been streamed over 69m times on Spotify to date.
