Rebecca Black has stood by her choice to continue to perform her 2011 viral hit ‘Friday’ after a clip of her recent Boiler Room set went viral.
Last Saturday (September 14), Black DJ’ed at a Boiler Room event in Washington D.C when she played a mash-up of her career-defining track with a standout song from Charli XCX‘s huge 2024 album ‘Brat‘, ‘360’.
Black re-shared a video shared by a Charli XCX fan page with the caption: “I will stop playing ‘Friday’ when my therapy bills are recouped.”
i will stop playing friday when my therapy bills are recouped https://t.co/UM4E4H5jmD
— Rebecca Black (@MsRebeccaBlack) September 19, 2024
There was a mixed reaction to the clip. One person tweeted that Black’s “remix is terrible,” and another questioned, “Are those real… fans?” Musician John Summit retweeted the video and insinuated that Black’s set was the death of Boiler Room.
Others came to Black’s defence and praised her for the set. In a direct response to Summit, a fan wrote: “30 year old straight man with auto caps turned off…. you could’ve called out boiler room for any other set but Rebecca black was the thing that crossed the line….”
Another person said, “Boiler Room being lame actually has nothing to do with Rebecca Black.” Dance artist Piri also stuck up for Black, tweeting, “If I see one more male artist speak on Rebecca Black having a bit of fun at her Boiler Room…”
Black has been open about the toll the success of ‘Friday’ took on her mental health. While celebrating the ninth anniversary of the song in 2020, she wrote on X/Twitter that the backlash she received made her “afraid of the world” at just 13-years-old.
“I’m trying to remind myself more and more that every day is a new opportunity to shift your reality and lift your spirit. ‘You are not defined by any one choice or thing,” she explained in the message. “Time heals and nothing is finite. It’s a process that’s never too late to begin. And so, here we go! This might be a weird thing to post but the honesty feels good if nothing else.”
While speaking to NPR, she said: “Everything passes through it – there is no filter that you have built within yourself to able to say, like, ‘I don’t know if I agree with that’. If somebody says ‘you don’t belong here, you’re bad at this, you’re a disgrace for even trying to do something like this,’ those words have such a different intensity when you’re a child because you just believe them.”
The last music Black released was last year’s ‘Let Her Burn’. NME gave the record four stars, writing: “Admiring her transparency in her tainted love stories, which could both refer to her tumultuous relationship with music or a lover, and her bolshy exploration of bemusing eclectic pop music, ‘Let Her Burn’ is worth the wait.”
