FEATURES ON THE PROJECT AND LIVE SHOWS
The project’s visual element is just as vital as the sound and as a trained designer and visual artist, Blackstate presents a complete sensory experience, combining haunting electronic textures with impactful imagery to create something closer to an art installation than a traditional performance. Each show becomes a dialogue between performer and audience, sound and image, self and society, with that interplay between mediums earning Blackstate widespread acclaim. Thematically, Blackstate lives in the spaces most people try to avoid, distilling a 21st-century malaise, the numbing of consumerism and distraction that’s eroded real connection.
His critique of modern disconnection isn’t about nostalgia for a better past, it’s about confronting the strange digital present we all share and in doing so, he embarks on a search for meaning in a world addicted to illusion while delivering an enjoyable musical moment along the way.
🇬🇧 Plastic Mag, London / UK
20th of January 2026
“Blackstate: an evolving project thriving in sonic exploration”
🇩🇪 Gigmit, Berlin / Germany
19. Nov 2021
FEATURES ON “#FOLLOWME”
This is the soundtrack for every moment you open your phone and instantly regret it, but still keep scrolling like a hostage. “#FollowMe” is for anyone who feels suffocated by the digital circus but still cannot look away. Blackstate weaponizes EDM to call out the absurdity of the era, and the result is loud, clever, and absolutely unforgettable.
Blackstate Turns the Internet Into a Fever Dream on “#FollowMe”
🇺🇸 Buzz Music, LA / USA
17th of December 2025
Blackstate’s “#FollowMe” is a Biting Soundtrack to Digital Life. With ‘#FollowMe,’ Blackstate turns the selfie-obsessed chaos of social media into a clever, adrenaline-fueled musical satire.
“#FollowMe” is absurd, sharp, and wildly fun – a perfect distillation of Blackstate’s experimental ethos and Tasevski-Fitz’s uncanny ability to blend social critique with infectious, high-energy melodies.
🇬🇧🇺🇸 Rotate Magazine, UK / USA
21st of January 2026
A Sharp Mirror Held To Modern Identity. What makes Blackstate compelling is its refusal to moralize. The track speaks to a generation increasingly disconnected from physical reality, not out of malice, but out of habit. It reflects a culture chasing visibility while slowly dissolving its inner life.
The video for “#FollowMe” captures Blackstate at its most pointed and self-aware. Rather than offering a subtle critique of social media culture, the project leans directly into parody, exaggeration, and discomfort. The song and its visuals examine a reality most people recognize but rarely want to confront: a world where validation is measured in clicks, identity is filtered through screens, and presence is replaced by performance. Tasevski-Fitz does not position himself above the spectacle. Instead, he steps fully inside it, embodying the influencer archetype with unsettling precision.
🇬🇭 MusIcEarShot, Ghana
11th of January 2026
“#FollowMe” fits like a glove in Blackstate’s canon – a biting, delightful parody wrapped up in the refrain of a generation pixelated and digitized into oblivion.
Though the subject matter is equal parts cringe-inducing and spine-chilling, Tasevski-Fitz’s buoyant melody feels like stepping into a high-intensity video game, that split second when the enemies are just around the corner and adrenaline completely takes over.
https://nxtnowmusic.com/musicfeatures/blackstate-unleashes-his-followme-clip
NXTNOWMUSIC
9th of January 2026
An unapologetic stab. Fitz reveals just how much of an absurd circus it’s all become.
With a buoyant melody that almost as if we are stepping inside a high energy video game, ‘#FollowMe’ sees Tasevski-Fitz get straight into the headspace of those “losing it and losing out”. It’s a delightfully biting parody, all wrapped up in a package of a generation that’s been pixelated and digitised beyond all recognition.
🇬🇧 Essentially Pop, London / UK
8th of January 2026
Playful and quirky, the single is both kinetically rewarding and lyrically observant, a compelling counterpoint to an otherwise boring and uniform musical landscape
Certainly one of the best and most unique offerings we have heard in the past few months, the record feels kinetic and lighthearted, a bright nugget of dry electronica with a hidden melancholic counterpoint. You see, Blackstate utilises a seemingly inoffensive piece to then embark on a compelling critique of the current social media landscape, a space where people often lose themselves in a fictitious reality, seeking approval from others with no real reason for doing so.
🇬🇧 Mesmerized, London / UK
14th of January 2026
Punk roots dressed in dancing grooves!
Fitz holds up a brutal mirror to our screen-addicted reality, turning influencer culture into a buoyant, high-intensity electronic punk anthem that feels like stepping into a video game right before all hell breaks loose. It’s biting, it’s playful, and it hits way too close to home – capturing those clout-chasers more concerned with the perfect selfie than actual human connection.
The song also fits naturally into what Blackstate has been building. This project has always thrived on contradictions. Catchy melodies wrapped around uncomfortable truths. Humor that curdles into unease. A punk ethos repackaged in electronic form. #FollowMe doesn’t feel like an experiment or a gimmick. It feels like the next logical step for someone who refuses to play it safe.
🇺🇸 Apricot Magazine, NY / USA
16th of January 2026
This song brings about the image of someone desperate for internet fandom (brought to life via the music video) and makes us reflect on social media’s role in modern society. Fitz nailed it with his BLACKSTATE project here, creating a catchy song reflecting the true nature of the digital age.
BLACKSTATE turns a mirror to society revealing the dangerous nature of “follow culture.”
🇺🇸 EachMeasure Magazine, USA
16th of January 2026
“#FollowMe” stands as a high-quality release that succeeds on technical, aesthetic, and conceptual fronts. as a statement, it offers a mirror to a generation increasingly pixelated and performative.
The video does not simply mock its subjects; it exposes the labor and absurdity behind the spectacle, pulling back the curtain on a media circus that many recognize but rarely question.
🇮🇹 Parkett Magazine, Italy
16th of January 2026
FEATURES ON “THE ARSONIST”
Utterly brilliant in its execution, Blackstate’s The Arsonist is one of the best singles that we have heard so far in 2024.
Neufutur Magazine
23rd of January, 2024
“Dancing trip to North Macedonia with Blackstate”
🇫🇷 Hajdee, France
10. Feb 2022
“Dance in 2 Yugoslav-era modernist buildings with North Macedonia’s Blackstate pop anthem”
🇬🇧 The Calvert Journal, London / UK
2nd of November 2021
FEATURES ON “WHILE THE WORLD’S ON FIRE” EP
“While the World’s on Fire” featured in Best Global Albums of 2020
🇵🇱 Beehy.pe – Best Music From Around the World, Poland
29th of December 2020
“…eclectically-inspired endearingly unforgettable debut EP”
“…cathartic instrumental experimentalism and grounding lyrics”
“…refreshingly distinctive songwriting approach”
“…perfect pinch of melancholy while exuding fragile optimism”
“…what it would sound like if Elliott Smith experimented with synths”
“…I can’t recommend Blackstate enough”
🇬🇧 A&R Factory, Voted 10 Music Blog in the UK
31st of January 2020
BIO
Blackstate is the dark & melancholic-moody alt-pop alter ego of Filip Tasevski – Fitz, and a completely open audio-visual concept. An under-radar musician, songwriter, performer and active player in the North Macedonia’s music scene for over 20 years. His expression and approach are based on hardcore/punk ethics. In addition to his musical abilities, he is also a visual designer and artist, and it is this combination of skills that gives Blackstate his unique and compelling sound and meaningful live audio-visual performance.
With influences raging from experimental electronica to synth pop, alt pop and hardcore punk, Blackstate creates a sound that is both haunting and exhilarating, combining “cathartic instrumental experimentalism to which he adds lyrics that explore the emotional complexity of the 21st century and the absurdity of superficiality over substance” (A&R Factory, UK). This approach encourages a deeper level of engagement by allowing the audience to form their own connections and find their own truth in the project’s visual and sonic landscapes.
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Although the project officially debuted in 2019, the concept behind Blackstate has spanned more than 15 years, with the first EP released in 2020.
Since its debut, Blackstate has received widespread critical acclaim, with reviewers praising the project’s “refreshingly distinctive songwriting approach, perfect pinch of melancholy, and fragile optimism”. Some have even compared Blackstate’s sound to “what it would sound like if Elliott Smith experimented with synths”, a comparison that speaks to the project’s originality.
With his “evolving sonic exploration” (Gigmit, DE) and captivating live performances, Blackstate is quickly becoming a hot new project on the alt-pop scene. Blackstate has been featured in influential magazines and publications including The Calvert Journal, Vents Magazine, A&R Factory and also in Beehy.pe’s Best Global Albums of 2020 lists. Whether you’re a longtime fan of Fitz’s work or just discovering Blackstate for the first time, his work should definitely leave a lasting impression on you.
RECENT INTERVIEWS
Blackstate opens up about his new single “The Arsonist”
Vents Mag
30th of January, 2024
Blackstate Turns the Internet Into a Fever Dream on “#FollowMe”
🇺🇸 Buzz Music, LA / USA
17th of December 2025
Blackstate Talks New Single “#FollowMe”
