These days, SoundCloud rap doesn’t always get taken seriously. For a lot of people, it’s more of a punchline than a genre, something friends do for fun, with songs that lean more toward inside jokes than actual substance.

But for Robinson High School student Freddie Rodrigues (’26), rapping is anything but a joke. Under the alias “Gileo,” he’s already dropped two full albums on Spotify.

His second album, Beyond the Lights, is a clear step forward. It’s more focused, more honest and way more personal.

“In my first album, I was just saying stuff, it was more for content,” Rodrigues said. “This album I tried to make the lyrics reflect more of my life, realizations I’ve had.”

Even the title reflects that shift. “That’s why I said Beyond the Lights,” he explained. “I’m going beyond the bling, which I was just saying in the first one.”

The decision to take things more seriously had been building for a while. After releasing his first project, 107.9, Rodrigues started to feel uneasy about the attention it got.

“When people would compliment me on some of my past songs, I really thought about it and there wasn’t really anything to them, and I didn’t like that,” he said. With Beyond the Lights, Rodrigues isn’t chasing trends, he’s chasing the truth. “At first I didn’t want to release real music because no one would want to listen to that, but then I realized I was straying away from what I started music for,” he said.

Inspiration doesn’t always hit right away, but when it does, Rodrigues knows how to make the most of it.

“The idea for the album took about four months to fully develop,” he said. “And then I got to work.”

While ideas can be fleeting, Rodrigues made sure to hang onto this one.

“Usually, inspiration catches me randomly—like a random bar in the shower or something. I’ll jump onto YouTube, try to find a beat that matches the vibe, and start writing.”

But writing isn’t the only part of the process. Producing and collaborations also play key roles in his music.

“I’ve had a couple of features. About three on my first album. One was with one of my oldest friends, and the other two came from this app called Bam Lab. It’s a public music platform where you can make songs from other people’s beats,” Rodrigues explained. “I met this random African guy on there who couldn’t even fully speak English, but I loved his beats and used them for my first album.”

Before meeting African men online, Rodrigues had other dreams. 

“In freshman year, I was really into magic,” he said. “But that phased out, and one day I just got into music. Everyone thought I’d quit in a month—including me—but I started to realize I actually liked it, and that’s the one thing that hasn’t gone away.”

With a demanding I.B. workload, many would assume rapping and school don’t mix. But Rodrigues finds a way to balance it.

“If anything, rapping takes my mind off the work and serves as a stress-relieving outlet,” he said. “If it ever gets to be too much, I just take a break. I always want it to be fun.”

Looking to the future, Rodrigues doesn’t have big expectations, just a desire to keep creating.

“I’ll keep doing it, and whatever comes out of it, comes out of it,” he said.