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DJ JP Lost Pop Smoke, Entered A Pandemic & Is Surviving Both Through Reinvention

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The official DJ of late rapper Pop Smoke talks representing his legacy and adapting creatively in the COVID-19 era: "The pandemic gave me a push to do certain things”
Keith Nelson Jr
GRAMMYs
Aug 13, 2020 - 3:19 pm

Prescience is a luxury; acceptance is a necessity; progress is the goal. Stunned disbelief was the immediate aftershock of the Feb. 19 news of Brooklyn shooting star Pop Smoke’s untimely passing. Next, the sting of him turning into a memory may have weighed down people’s tear ducts into bursting. Then, the realizations: His woo growl will never escape the digital realm; the last time you saw him live was the last time you’d see him live

For those closest to him, the mourning is compounded by the knowledge of the future the supernova rapper envisioned.

“He kept saying, ‘Bro, we’re stars. I’m about to be a superstar.' He kept saying it. The last three shows we did, he kept saying It. He said it to me personally and then he said it out loud a couple of times. He kept saying, ‘This is it for us. I’m telling you, this is it,’” DJ JP, Pop Smoke’s official DJ, told GRAMMY.com.

If you ever saw Pop Smoke in the flesh, Jeffrey “DJ JP” Archer had his back. When Pop Smoke emerged from the ethers of online virality with his 2019 banger “Welcome to the Party” record for his first-ever show in his home of New York City back in June 2019, JP brought him to the stage and deejayed for the rookie MC. When the newly 20-year-old Pop Smoke, born and raised in the impoverished Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn as Bashar Barakah Jackson, went overseas for the first time in his life as part of Skepta’s Ignorance Is Bliss Tour, a month after his first-ever performance, JP was a brotherly figure helping him navigate the road and giving him a reminder of home. And when Pop Smoke passed, a week before his first headlining tour – Meet The Woo Tour – JP knew just how close the young star came to reaching the launchpad for the next level.

“We had rehearsals [scheduled] from 12 in the morning until 4 A.M. That was about to be rehearsal week and at the end of the week rehearsal the tour would’ve started.”

JP and the rest of the world hardly had a month to mourn the fallen star before they had to mourn the world they once knew when the COVID-19 pandemic crushed the old normal with a lethal grip. In a matter of weeks, JP was a DJ without the artist he made his living with in a world that now deems his living non-essential and a threat to the public safety. DJ JP spoke with GRAMMY.com about his last conversation with Pop Smoke, how he’s adapted during a pandemic and what the future holds for a man forced to reinvent.

“Last year, I thought we’d be on tour, or at a crazy show, or a crazy concert by now. Now, there’s COVID and all these things going on.”

This time last year, Pop Smoke’s 2020 ubiquity was a safer bet than a Tesla stock. Pop went from not doing a single show for the vast majority of 2019 to JP recalling three-show performance nights being a regular by the end of the year. That sort of increase in demand changes everyone’s life around the star.  In a May interview on Instagram Live show Candid COVID Convos, JP admitted his financial situation changed considerably due to deejaying for Pop, explaining how the money he got from three Pop Smoke shows alone could pay his car note, rent, and still leave him with extra money to go shopping.

Pop’s passing took JP off the tour, but for a while, COVID-19 took JP off everything. Stay-At-Home orders swept across the nation blanketing the nightlife scene in a proverbial Do Not Enter tarp. JP estimates to GRAMMY.com that he had 150 events postponed due to COVID-19 from late March until July resulting in over $80,000 of deferred potential revenue. “When this pandemic started, I was thinking, ‘Alright, now you really have to do this. Now, you have to get this done because that just cut off one stream of income.’”

To financially survive the pandemic, JP pivoted from being behind the artist to being behind the music. He put together and opened his own recording studio in Canarsie, Brooklyn in July where artists, mixers, and engineers can rent it out if they don’t have access to a recording studio, which the pandemic has limited. The facility also doubles as a DJ lab, leveraging the pandemic-inspired rise in live-streamed DJ sets by giving DJs a place to host their streams and/or practice their craft. As millions have been thrust into unemployment during the pandemic, JP is using cataclysm as a catalyst.

“This pandemic gave me a boost and put me back in check. I got to a certain place where I got comfortable. When this pandemic started I was like, ‘Alright, I got to get the studio going. I have to get this going. I really have to make this happen. The pandemic gave me a push to do certain things.”

Helping provide his community with studio access falls directly in line with JP’s history of altruism. He held his men’s sneaker giveaway “Just Kicking It” at the Armory Men’s Shelter in, Brooklyn, NY. Before he made a single dollar from deejaying during the pandemic, JP was helping give away more than 300 pairs of sneakers to kids who have had their summer stolen by COVID-19. “I want to put on for my community. I want to keep it going. I want people to know where Canarsie is and what Canarsie is. I want to show them that we’re young Black kids from Brooklyn, NY, putting on for the community the right way musically and giving back.”

COVID-19 stole the summer but didn’t stop the parties for long. JP has been deejaying at private and corporate events sporadically throughout New York since July, which is no surprise to him. “A lot of promoters were hitting me up months before saying, ‘Be ready for this date.’” Quarantining from the pandemic hasn’t fully been lifted, with police shutting down the same type of parties JP has been deejaying. Luckily, no event JP has deejayed at has been shut down and it could be due to a shift in how these shows operate.

“Most of the promoters are doing outdoor events. As people walk in, they’re sanitizing them and taking temperatures. So, they’re making sure the event is safe and people are safe. There is more caution now than before.”

Before the pandemic, JP was already dealing with another external force precluding live shows: the New York Police Department. Rolling Loud organizers removed Pop Smoke and four other rappers from its New York City festival’s lineup on the same day (Oct. 12) Pop was set to perform due to the NYPD informing organizers that those performances would be risks of violence. Four months later, Pop alleged on Instagram that his Feb. 16 headlining performance at Kings Theatre, mere miles from where he grew up, was also blocked by the NYPD. Pop died without ever truly having his coronation on stage as the new king of New York.

For many, the Kings Theatre show will forever be remembered as the last time they had a chance to see the young legend. For JP, he remembers it as the last time he had a conversation with the man who changed his life. The show was a day before Pop would take the fateful trip to L.A. where he was murdered. JP showed up to the show to represent the team. It was there he’d have a conversation he may never forget as long as he lives.

“Polo G comes up to me and says, ‘I want to do a song with Pop.’ I texted Pop, ‘I’m at the concert, Polo here. He said he wants to do a song with you,” JP recollects. “He said, ‘Tell Polo to come to the studio right now.’ He went to the city and they recorded a song. That was really our last convo.”

On July 7, Pop’s memory lived on through the 18 new tracks that formed his posthumously crafted debut album Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon. Two weeks later, the world got 15 more songs. The songs are both timestamps of superstar’s rise and a map for its trajectory. “The album dropped and the deluxe dropped, yet we still have literally hundreds of songs that are coming. Off of this album and the deluxe, they see what he was getting into,” JP says excitedly. “They see how versatile he was. So, those songs I want to drop, they’re REALLLLY going to see, ‘Wow, he really had stuff up his sleeve.’”

JP doesn’t speak of Pop Smoke as a former employer whose death is painful more for the way it complicated life than for the person lost. He doesn’t even speak of Pop Smoke as if his life was his concern only when music was involved. He speaks of the slain 20-year-old word-wielder as a brother. When asked how he feels whenever he hears Pop Smoke’s music now, JP pauses, and his booming voices deflates a bit when he repeats the question.

“It makes me want to turn up more now. The way I get when Pop Smoke come on is like I’m Pop now. I have to represent. I turn into him and I get his energy.”

Pop Smoke Forever.

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Read More: Baby Rose On Making Music Amid Protests

GRAMMYs

Evan LaRay Brunson

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Engineer Evan LaRay Brunson Goes Inside Cardi B’s Pandemic Recording Routine, The "WAP" Backstory & More

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The GRAMMY-winning rapper's longtime studio collaborator reveals his go-to audio gear, and how "WAP" might not have happened if it weren't for the pandemic
Keith Nelson Jr
GRAMMYs
Aug 18, 2020 - 3:53 pm

“If anything comes out of this quarantine, we’re going to have an album. We’re going to have a hit. Something is going to come out of it,” Evan LaRay Brunson, Cardi B’s longtime engineer, told GRAMMY.com.

Four years ago, Cardi B was a long way from being taken seriously by the music world, and her engineer Evan LaRay Brunson helped turned those scoffs into cheers. By the time Cardi’s music video for her song “Wash Poppin” came out in March 2016, the name “Cardi B” elicited thoughts of "Love & Hip Hop" antics and Instagram virality before the brain ever registered it as the name of an artist, if it did at all. 

Brunson engineered that song and nearly every piece of music Cardi B has breathed on during her unprecedented four-year run that has included a Best Rap Album GRAMMY Award, $28 million of revenue in 2019 alone, and the most No. 1 records on the Billboard Hot 100 by a rapper who is a woman in history.

“She treats music sort of like a work shift. She’ll be like, ‘Alright, I’m waking up, coming to the studio at this time, and I’m going to make sure I’m going to get a song or idea done so I can go home and see my kid,'” Brunson remembers. “Quarantine actually helped her with that. Since there’s no shows or anything, all she’s been doing is spending time with her family.”

So, it’s no surprise that for the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cardi physically saw a mic more than she physically saw her own daughter. For the first three months of the pandemic, up until mid-June, Cardi B, Brunson, and members of her team rented out a house at an undisclosed location in California, outfitted it with the studio equipment that has helped make Cardi a star, and went to work. Brunson remembers Cardi’s daughter Kulture being in New York City with her grandparents during the beginning of the pandemic as “Cardi was afraid to even see her because she wasn’t risking flying.” Outside of going home to see her husband Offset, Brunson doesn’t remember Cardi being outside of the studio house much over the three-month recording period.

“We were in the studio every day. Even if we weren’t recording, we were just in the studio. We weren’t risking traveling back and forth and getting corona. We were like, ‘Yo, we’re going to buckle down. Get all the food, snacks, and clothes, bring it over to the house.’ We’ve been locking in there,” he said.

Brunson spoke with GRAMMY.com about the sacrifices he and Cardi made to record during the pandemic, how Cardi and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” came about, and how personal Cardi is getting on her next album.

To record as Cardi did over the pandemic, all you’d need would be Neumann U87 and Sony C800 microphones, Vintage Neve 1073 preamp, Tube-Tech CL1B compressor, Apollo X6 interface, and a MacBook Pro. Antares Auto-tune, Universal Audio plugins, Fab Filter plugins, and Waves plug-in, which Brunson calls “essential tools to use an engineer,” are also in the mix. But, to really do what Cardi has done during this pandemic, you’d also need an engineer like Brunson who is able to technologically adapt to unprecedented times.

“As far as the recording process, it’s sort of the same," Brunson said. "The only thing different is the artists weren’t in the studio together. But, now, people send verses over. We’ll be on FaceTime coming up with ideas. We can do Zoom recording. That’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve been at the house recording.”

Each piece of equipment has a purpose that helps build the star that is Cardi. Brunson uses the Sony C800 mic is for when Cardi gets into pop and needs that “high-end crispiness.” The Antares Autotune gives her that pitch perfect sound when she needs to cut through a beat. Even still, the equipment is secondary, the ears are the core of the music-making because if you’ve spent just 30 seconds watching a video for Cardi B, you know she can spout off song-ready phrases at a lightning-fast speed. Creating music with Cardi is like trying to capture lightning in a booth.

“I’ll just pick her brain about her emotions; what mood she’s in. She’s always in drama, so I try to write things down whenever she says some crazy, spontaneous thing. Then, I’ll go through beats and go, ‘This fit that and fits that.’ Then I’ll start it, send the pack over to her and she’ll immediately listen to the ones I started and go through the whole pack.”

Before “WAP” satiated a summer thirsting for an anthem, it was an afterthought. Brunson remembers Cardi recording the first verse to “WAP” a year ago and moving onto the next idea as was common inside of Cardi’s hit factory. If there wasn’t a pandemic, there would be no “WAP” “We had that song since last year. Since COVID-19 happened, we were going over songs, and she was like, ‘I like this.’ She caught the vibe again and laid the second verse down.”

Evan first heard Megan thee Stallion would be on the track around late April/mid-May after Cardi B’s stylist suggested putting Megan on the track and connected the Bronx chart-topper with the Houston hottie through Megan’s own stylist. Revisiting a year-old song, deciding to add another artist to it, and taking months to plan it, all without the intention of creating the defining single for Cardi’s as-of-yet-untitled sophomore album, would have never happened if she was recording the song for her debut album Invasion of Privacy two years ago.

The album that would solidify Cardi’s superstardom was recorded on a strict deadline to be finished before Cardi gave birth to Kulture. Brunson feels they had to rush to complete the album, previously noting Invasion of Privacy was mostly recorded in the two months after he learned she was pregnant in January 2018. As an artist, you are supposed to spend your whole life writing your debut album, as your introduction to the music world is often predicated on your life before music. Cardi had two months and, outside of the tearful “Be Careful,” Invasion of Privacy doesn’t dig deeper than the surface of Belcalis Marlenis Almánzarv we’ve all spent summers dancing on. 

But, this time, they have more time to explore. Cardi has already hinted at her album having “my Lemonade moments” referencing Beyoncé’s confessional album. “We have two personal ones right now. One is a real R&B one and one is a little more uptempo,” Brunson revealed. “Both the songs are really her experience as far as motherhood, being on the shows, wanting to come back, marriage, media pressure on her family, she makes it really personal.”

During those three months, Brunson estimates Cardi has cut 15 complete songs including one undeniable smash hit that was done before W.A.P came out. “She was like, ‘We’re going to save that until we feel we’re ready for the album to come out.’” Ever since the middle of June, Cardi’s been out of the studio home and spending more time with her family, including flying Kulture, her aunties, and everyone to her place in L.A. Cardi might be insulated in wealth that affords her the ability to turn a house into a studio for three months and then fly her family out to her multi-million-dollar palatial estate, but she never fortified her heart from the world.

“[The protests] affected us a lot because, throughout the whole George Floyd situation, she was sad. She wanted to protest,” Brunson remembered. “She was like, ‘I don’t want to promote happy, club music and everyone is feeling down, going through it, losing jobs and family members.'” 

As for Brunson, he couldn’t spend time with his family in South Carolina for his 29th birthday last month due to being cautious with their health as he’s spent extensive time in a state that reported a record number of COVID-19 deaths in a day just weeks ago. Still, he’s seen how the music industry has been decimated by the pandemic and devastated artists’ incomes and can find gratitude in a country still searching for a way forward. 

“I’m happy I’m out here working. I’m happy recording didn’t stop and it’s not a nine to five, and I thank God for that.” 

Grammys Newsletter

DJ JP Lost Pop Smoke, Entered A Pandemic & Is Surviving Both Through Reinvention

GRAMMYs

24kGoldn

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24kGoldn's 2020 Midas Touch

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The SF native on going golden with a third mega-hit, “Mood,” more genre-busting features, an XXL freshman selection, and a more “Vulnerable” upcoming debut album, 'El Dorado'
John Norris
GRAMMYs
Sep 13, 2020 - 9:33 am

No Tour? No Problem.

Granted, it wasn’t ideal when, back in March, one of Gen Z hip-hop’s brightest rising stars had to slam the brakes on a year that was supposed to include his debut headline tour and first trip to Europe. But Golden Landis Von Jones, known to the world as 24kGoldn, the affable rapper and singer who blew up in 2019 with the melodic-trap TikTok-fueled mega-hit, “Valentino,” is nothing if not optimistic and persistent, and quickly found a way to make coronavirus lemons into lemonade. Although 2020 may be the most challenging era of our collective lifetime, for Golden, through a mix of determination and happy surprises, it’s turning out to be even bigger than his breakout year.

“In a weird way, the pandemic has kind of been the best thing for my career,” Golden says via Zoom, from the back porch of his L.A. home. “I think just because, I’ve been really consistent with my work. And not everyone has taken the same approach, you know? A lot of people have just taken this time to chill. But for me, I felt like, ‘Now is the time to go even harder.’ Because it’s less…cluttered? There’s less distractions? If I can capture people’s attention, I might be the thing they really focus on right now.”

When COVID struck, Golden was already flying high with “City of Angels,” the explosive, infectious alt-pop-rock bop that became, after “Valentino”, his second monster single, racking up nine-figure streams, a flurry of remixes, and prompting a re-think of just what Golden was capable of, musically. He had just come off a US tour supporting YBN Cordae and was halfway through a planned two-week album camp when it became apparent 2020 would not be proceeding as normal. His first move was to return to his native San Francisco, already under a “shelter in place” order, to see his parents and sister.

“I went back for like three weeks, just to be with them and make sure we were all okay,” he explains. “Because this has never happened in the history of our country. I didn’t know if there was gonna be riots or looting, stuff like that, and thankfully, everything was fine with quarantine. But when I got back to L.A. I was like, 'I can’t just be stuck in the house playing video games all day. This isn’t gonna take me to where I want to be in life. I need to work, I need to make music, I need to be inspired.'” So Golden and his right-hand man, musician and producer Omer Fedi, got an Airbnb and set about making new songs.

One track, cooked up in an afternoon at their friend and fellow muti-hypnenate hip-hop-pop-emo-rap charmer iann dior’s house, would prove to be yet another game-changer. “It was me, iann, Omer, KBeaZy [producer Keegan Bach] and the engineer Ryan [Cantu],” he recalls. “And me and iann were playing Call of Duty, actually. And Omer and KBeaZy were cooking up a beat. We didn’t even go into that day with the intention of making music. I wasn’t trying to make music! I was trying to win in this video game, and I was just struck by inspiration and pure feeling and that made me sing that hook.”

“Why you always in a mood?” he sang. “F**kin’ around, acting brand new.” In an instant, he says, Omer knew Golden was onto something. “He said, ‘Holy s**t, you need to stop everything right now, and lay that down, cause that’s hot!’ And then iann laid his verse, and here we are today.” Here we are, with “Mood”, Golden and iann’s breezy, made-for-summertime smash that, as of this writing, is firmly wedged between Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” and BTS’ “Dynamite” in the stratosphere of Spotify’s Today’s Top Hits. It’s topped Billboard’s Hot Rock and Alternative Songs chart, and the video, in which the boys make frustrating girls seem actually fun, has done 11 million views in a month.

“Mood” is not far away from matching “Valentino” and “City of Angels”’ numbers, but unlike those two hits, Golden didn’t necessarily see this one coming.

“I knew it was gonna be a big one, but I would be lying I said I knew it was gonna happen like this,” he says. “Because with ‘Valentino’ and ‘City of Angels,’ it was a gradual build-up into becoming a beast. But with this song, we really hit the ground running, and I think it was just a lot of support from both me and iann’s fans that pushed this so strong, from the beginning.” And it might never have happened if not for a lockdown. 

“I think I can see the silver lining in this,” he continues. “Whereas, because I didn’t go on tour, because I didn’t go to Europe, well now I have so much more time to concentrate on making new music, just making the best songs ever. If this pandemic didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have ‘Mood’, because I might not have been with iann on that day, you know?”

His 2020 successes don’t end there. In April he scored with the soulful “Unbelievable” with Kaash Paige; he featured on pal Landon Cube’s rousing rocker “Eighties”; and he got his feet wet in the dance world with spots on “Tinted Eyes” by DVBBS featuring blackbear, and most recently, “Tick Tock” a Top 20 dance chart hit by the UK’s Clean Bandit and Mabel.

“That was really a surprise when I heard that they wanted to put me on the song,” he admits. “Cause I always underestimate how many people know who I am. And I was like, ‘Yo, Clean Bandit, y’all have huge songs, and you selected me to be on this soon-to-be huge song.’ I was very grateful. So, shout out Clean Bandit, shout out Mabel.”

If jumping on a club banger seems like an unlikely move for a young artist who not that many years ago was making straight raps over trap beats at his SF home – it shouldn’t. Like so many of his Zoomer peers, including Cube and dior, Golden is proudly genre-agnostic. If he is first and foremost a hip-hop artist, he’s proving himself adept at a wide swath of sounds.

“I feel like the whole concept of ‘genre’ is a thing of the past,” he asserts. "Music is more democratic now than it’s ever been before. If you like an artist, if you like a song, you just go on Spotify and listen to it. Versus like, 20, 30 years ago, artists had to create songs for the radio, you know to fit in a certain slot, a certain type of station. For me, it’s like, if I think it’s a dope song, whether it’s hip-hop, pop, rock, dance, jazz even? You know? I’ll get on a jazz song! [laughs] Miles Davis, something like that!”

He had to convince RECORDS/Columbia to give him that leeway when it came to "City of Angels." While it is arguably the most immediate song Golden has released to date, the sort of alt-rock gem that one could easily imagine hearing on TRL circa 2004, alongside Good Charlotte and Fall Out Boy, the label wasn’t initially convinced it was the right move for him. While it was included on his debut EP Dropped Outta College, released in November of last year, just after Golden’s 19th birthday, the label wanted the more reliably hip-hop title track (along with its hilarious, Nick Jandora-directed, hot-for-teacher video) to take the lead.

“Part of the agreement was, ‘Okay we’ll let you put “City of Angels” out, but you have to let 'Dropped Outta College' be the focus track,’” he recalls. “So I was like, ‘Alright, I’m gonna let y’all spend your money on 'Dropped Outta College,' but I’m gonna blow up this song 'City of Angels myself.'" So, I did!! With this music s**t, you have to keep proving yourself over and over and over again before someone even thinks about listening to what you have to say as an artist.”

Of all the happy surprises that 2020 has offered up to Golden, none has made him prouder than his selection last month to XXL’s Freshman Class of 2020, taking the fan-voted 10th spot, and joining a group that includes Polo G, NLE Choppa, Chika, Lil Tjay, Fivio Foreign and Jack Harlow. If, as Golden points out, social media has changed the landscape of new artist discovery since the inception of the Freshman issue as a tastemaker back in 2007, being included is still a huge achievement that has left him stunned.

“You have no idea how special that whole moment was to me,” he says. “This is something that I have wanted literally since I was like 15, 16. And I know that if 15, 16-year-old me was looking at me now, he’d be like, ‘Yo that guy is sick as f**k. He did it. I want to be like that guy!’ So – it’s a full circle thing. And I’m really grateful and honored that the fans chose me, that XXL chose me.”

Just last week, Golden offered up his XXL Freshman Freestyle, an all-sung reflection on the wild path his life has taken. Opening with “Let me introduce myself, nice guy turned into a player,” the track also casts him as a “good kid turned into a beast.” “But that’s not necessarily ‘beast’ in a negative connotation,” he explains. “That’s more like saying, ‘He’s a beast’ in sports. It’s more just how passionate I am for this music that I am making. And as far as being a ‘player,’ I wouldn’t consider myself a player, because that kind of insinuates purposely playing with people’s emotions, and shit like that. And I’m not, but I think it’s the best word to kind of describe the kind of ‘going with the wind’ lifestyle that I live.”

The song concludes with the croon, “So let’s go to El Dorado”, a reference to Golden’s in-the-works debut album El Dorado. Golden considers the freestyle the most “personal” music he’s released since last year’s “A Lot to Lose,” and a taste of what’s to come with the LP. “Something I’m really proud of with this album, El Dorado,” he says, “is that I feel like I am baring more of myself, with my audience and with the world, than I have before.” That’s something, because for all his Midas touch with irresistible melodies and hooks, a finesse with lyrics, one thing Golden is not particularly known for is baring his soul, preferring upbeat good times to overt vulnerability.

“Don’t worry! I’m gonna have the upbeat songs for the fans too!,” he is quick to add. “But my fans give me a lot. And I think it’s only right to give back and let them in on my life. To connect deeper, you know? That’s how you really form connections in music, and in life, is having a little bit of vulnerability and offering something where people can accept me for who I am. And if not? F**k em!”

"With this music s**t, you have to keep proving yourself over and over and over again before someone even thinks about listening to what you have to say as an artist."

From an early age, Golden says, performing came naturally to him. It was noticed by casting agents when as a young kid he acted in commercials for Honda and Blue Diamond Almonds, and his music videos regularly showcase his comedic acting skills. At the risk of sounding like a sleazy Hollywood agent, he has that “it” quality that you saw in a young Will Smith or Miley Cyrus – a charisma and confidence that can’t be taught. He started making music at 14, at the encouragement of his mentor, SF rapper and entrepreneur Paypa Boy, and developed a taste for business early on. He attended a high-achieving high school and says he was the type of kid to not study for a test but still know he was gonna ace it. Early on he even dreamed of becoming a hedge fund manager, though that’s a road he now says he’s quite happy not to have taken – “I probably would have hated working 80-hour weeks and having to crunch numbers every day.”

The pivotal moment for him, sonically, came with discovering the wonders of Auto-Tune on the 2018 track “Ballin’ Like Shareef” – title inspired by Shareef O’Neal, son of NBA legend Shaquille, and a friend of a friend. The song opened up a whole new world. “The studio I was at for probably the first six months to a year of making music, they didn’t have live Auto-Tune, so I couldn’t really experiment with it,” he explains. “But once I was given that tool? It was like you just gave a painter a paintbrush, and this painter had been painting with like sticks for years, you know?”

“Shareef” led to writing “Valentino,” and from there it was off to the races. Support from and collaboration with producer D.A. Doman (d.a. got that dope) led to his Columbia deal, signed only a few months into his first semester at USC. As his music was taking off, with “Valentino” catching fire, rather than drop all his courses, he cleverly kept enrolled in one through the spring of 2019, to maintain his room and board. Before he finally dropped out (he took a leave of absence and can return to the school within ten years if he chooses), he did leave the Trojan community a parting gift: the frat-ready, chant-along “Bitch I Go to USC”, a rowdy soundtrack to the admissions scandal unfolding at the time.

If the City of Angels, to quote the song, is where he has his “fun”, and where he’s living out musical dreams, it’s the high-priced City by the Bay where he was raised. The past 20 years – Golden’s life, in effect – have seen tech turn San Francisco from merely expensive to obscenely so, a gilded city of super-haves and a handful of remaining have-nots. Golden’s family was not wealthy, something he discusses bluntly.

“In San Francisco, the poverty line is a hundred thousand dollars,” he says. “And we definitely were not making even close to a hundred thousand dollars. The only reason I was able to grow up in San Francisco was because we had lived there so long that we had rent control. I think my parents pay like 1,300 dollars a month, for a house. But if we were to just move into it now? It would be like 10,000 a month! I was just really fortunate to have parents who worked really hard, and kept me busy, so that I didn’t even know I grew up in the hood ‘til I was 10, 11, 12 years old.”

But in Golden’s view, the greatest gift of being a child of California’s most cosmopolitan metropolis is something you can hardly put a price on. “I think the best thing about growing up in San Francisco is experiencing such a diverse range of cultures,” he says. “Like, I ate every food under the rainbow, I saw every race of people, every sexuality, and I just think it made me very open-minded, and very tolerant. And I’m very thankful for that now.”

The kid from the Golden State with the Golden name who has a gold record on his wall for “City of Angels” (in addition to a platinum one for “Valentino”) was long ago given a particular nickname by Spanish-speaking co-workers of his mom, a name that will soon serve as the title of his debut full-length. “They would call me ‘El Dorado’ which means ‘the golden one’, or the golden city, in [Spanish conquistador] mythology,” he explains. “So, for me this is something that has held meaning in my life before, but it also ties into where I grew up, the City by the Bay, with the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s very much the golden city. So I’m trying to combine this idealistic world in my head with elements of my past, and just to create something that’s really aesthetically pleasing and dope, but I also want it to have meaning.” It’s a theme rich with possibilities for a live show: Gold coins? A vintage gold Cadillac El Dorado? Maybe, I suggest, dancers in gold body paint? “No, you’re on it! Are you reading my mind or something?” he laughs. “Yeah, I would love to have some dancers in gold body paint, some jungle-type thing, a little Indiana Jones vibes maybe coming in there too!”

Golden figures the LP is about two songs away from finished, and should be out in early 2021, “when the fans are thirsty for it,” after two or three more singles. Other than that, and a more confessional bent, he will only say to expect the unexpected. “Yo, I’ve shown I can make a rock song, I can make a pop song, I can make a hip-hop song, I can make an emo rap song,” he asserts. “But now it’s like, how can I take the best elements of all those different sounds, and put them together to have something cohesive? And that’s really what I feel like El Dorado is for me. It’s me pushing my own new genre into the world, and just creating good music. I mean, the fact that there’s n**gas in the hood bumping “City of Angels”? To me, that’s incredible! That’s like pushing the culture, and opening people’s minds to stuff they’ve never heard.”

G Herbo & Chance The Rapper Perform "PTSD" For Press Play

 

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Hit-Boy attends the 2020 GRAMMY Awards

Hit-Boy attends the 2020 GRAMMY Awards

Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

 
News

Hit-Boy On Producing Big Sean's 'Detroit 2' And Nas' 'King's Disease,' Carving His Own Path As An Artist

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The two-time GRAMMY-winning superproducer tells GRAMMY.com about his creative process behind some of the biggest hip-hop albums of 2020 and how he's paving a path as a rapper in his own right
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Sep 5, 2020 - 5:19 pm

Hit-Boy might be music's busiest person in 2020. Across a four-month timespan, the two-time GRAMMY-winning superproducer quarterbacked four of the biggest projects in rap this year. In May, he dropped the fourth and final installment of his The Chauncey Hollis Project solo series, followed by Also Known As Courtesy Of Half-A-Mil, his collaborative album with Dom Kennedy, in July. He followed up with King's Disease, the 13th album from rap icon Nas, in August, and Big Sean's fresh-out-the-oven Detroit 2, released Friday (Sept. 4)—both of which he executive-produced. 

But for Hit-Boy, it's just another day in the office.

"It's too many artists trying to tap in for me to just work on one thing at a time, but I still am able to give my focus," he tells GRAMMY.com on the eve of the release of Detroit 2. "It's like quantity and quality. I don't know how to explain it right now."

With his mind on his music and his music on his mind, Hit-Boy is used to juggling a packed calendar in the studio. He's kept a 24/7-schedule since first breaking into the industry in the late 2000s. He's since become one of the go-to producers in the game, creating hits for everyone from Kanye West to Beyoncé to Mariah Carey. The versatile creative sees genre-hopping as a learning experience.

"I just get to learn more about different ways people make music," he says of his broad production style. "People in the pop world are totally different from people who make beats for Big Sean and JAY-Z … I honestly just like to learn, no matter what type of music it is."

Hit-Boy, who started off rapping before transitioning to making beats, is also busy carving his own lane as an artist. His new solo album, The Chauncey Hollis Project, and his team-up with Dom Kennedy, Also Known As, see him switching from behind the board as a producer to in front of the mic as a rapper. It's the latest progression in Hit-Boy's ever-evolving creative journey.

"I'm gonna just keep developing, just keep working, man," he says of his next steps. "It's a never-ending process for me."

GRAMMY.com caught up with Hit-Boy to talk about his creative process behind Big Sean's Detroit 2 and Nas' King's Disease, how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted his artistic approach and how he's paving a path as a rapper in his own right.

You've worked with just about everyone in music, from Kanye West to Jennifer Lopez to Beyoncé. Do you ever get nervous or anxious when you work with a huge superstar?

Earlier in my career, yeah. I definitely used to get a little nervous, but I always just believed I had something, even if all of it wasn't great. I know I have something in the batch that was going to catch people's attention. That's the same method I take on now, but I've just advanced so much at just being a musician and locking in on making beats ... Now that I got that science figured out, I'm just on damn near autopilot right now. I'm just getting placement after placement.

It sounds like you're in high demand. How do you juggle it all? Are you working on multiple projects at once? Or do you stay exclusively focused on one album or one project from beginning to end?

It's too many artists trying to tap in for me to just work on one thing at a time, but I still am able to give my focus. Like with Nas' album, King's Disease, we made time for our sessions, made sure there wasn't too many people around and locked in. My relationship with [Big] Sean—I've got a bunch of stuff on Detroit 2. I was able to still be in the zone, working on his sh*t, then also do a Nas album in the middle of that, and then work on Polo G's album and work on all this other sh*t I got going.

I feel like my method is like: Get to the studio before people show up, make as many tight beats as I can, all type of styles. Then whoever comes through that day, I'm going to have at least one or two that's going to catch your ear ...

It comes from me having my label deal and more so trying to focus on, I feel like, what was too many things at one time, which was trying to be an artist myself, signing a bunch of artists, trying to be a hot producer, trying to produce for everybody at once. That was too much, but now ... I work with whoever comes in my realm and respects what I do ... It's like quantity and quality. I don't know how to explain it right now.

Read: Lil Mosey On The Staying Power of "Blueberry Faygo," Life As A Teen Rap Sensation And Getting The Co-Sign From President Barack Obama 

You recently executive-produced Nas' latest album, King's Disease. Can you talk about the creative and production process behind that album?

I mean, obviously he's Nas. You know what I'm saying? Certain people know me—I'm Hit-Boy. But it's like, let's remove that and let's just try to make songs, let's just try to make records ... You could still pop your sh*t and talk about what you want to, but at the same time, let's just make this as enjoyable as possible. When we was going in, we just was letting the room lead the way and the energy was taking us to every next piece of the puzzle.

I just knew that it was a high standard with this project. People was going to really click play on this, and if it was whack, they was gonna let me know. So for so many people I respect, like younger producers like Metro [Boomin], like Pi'erre [Bourne], Tay Keith, and then I got people like Timbaland, Swizz [Beatz] and all these OGs also reaching out [and] just showing respect—that just shows me [that] this hit the core of music lovers. People who really listening, they understanding this is really quality sh*t.

You also executive-produced the new Big Sean album, Detroit 2. What sort of vibe or sound did you try to create on that album?

I just wanted everything to sound modern, even like some of the soulful [songs]. The song we dropped with [Nipsey Hussle], rest in peace, "Deep Reverence"—it's like a real throwback, Roc-A-Fella-ish sample vibe, but then the drums sound modern; they sound new. So I kinda kept that through the whole project. It's just remnants of music we enjoyed, but it's placed in a modern way, so definitely just trying to make sure it was just a fresh sound.

You mentioned a bunch of artists coming into your studio. Are you currently producing with artists in-person? Or are you working mostly virtually and remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic?

We started the Nas album before the pandemic hit. That's what's crazy: We named it King's Disease before we even knew about the corona. Giving us that time during the pandemic when it was super shut down, we got to really sit and just really produce the record like how we wanted to. That was a good thing.

I'm kinda doing it both ways. People been hitting me [up] crazy. I've been emailing stuff out, but we always get the better connection when it's in-person. Me and [Big] Sean, we worked on all our stuff just face-to-face. I'm cooking beats from scratch. We really just building it from the ground up, so it's always good to do it that way. But if you do have to email, there's nothing wrong with that either.

Read: DaBaby Talks 'BLAME IT ON BABY (DELUXE),' Black Lives Matter Remix Of "ROCKSTAR" And Rap's Obsession With Deluxe Albums

What do you lose and what do you gain from producing virtually and working remotely compared to working with someone in-person?

You just get more of a connection when you work in-person. You're able to get that instant feedback ... It just makes it easier to navigate. When you [send it], you're just kind of shooting blind and just hoping that the person connects with the beat you sent. It's just two different things. They both worked out for me, personally, I have to say. I feel like my best beats come when I'm just dolo, just vibing out, zoning out and just letting whatever come to me. But I also been tapping into just making a lot more beats with people, too. It's just all music at the end of the day.

Behind The Board: Hit-Boy 

Speaking of the pandemic, we've been in quarantine for a long time now. You're in and out of it in your studio. How has this pandemic and quarantine era impacted your creativity?

I honestly feel like I'm more creative than ever ... My son was born right when we went into quarantine, within a day or two. It's just been good for me to have his energy and be able to spend more time with him and not have to fly out [to] no places and doing even more than I'm already doing. I feel like it's just been a blessing for me, for real. It's just looking good, so I'm trying to keep the energy up.

In addition to your production work, you're also an artist. You're able to switch from behind the board as a producer to in front of the mic as a rapper. What kind of challenges come with that creative duality?

Man, it's kind of all just music to me ... Like sometimes, I might not even rap on my own beat; I get beats from other people. I'm able to just separate it that way. I'm not looking at it like, "Oh, I'm Hit-Boy. I'm about to make a song." I'm just like, "I'm about to say what needs to be said on [this beat]." Then when I make the beat, it kinda make me even more tapped in because I can get into the Hit-Boy bag and then just still give it that honest perspective.

What are you developing to carve a lane for yourself as Hit-Boy, the artist?

I'm just recording ... I put out The Chauncey Hollis Project. I did that in installments. I put out three songs at a time until it equaled 12 songs. That was just a moment for me, just being honest, just talking about my life, where I've been, where I'm going, what I'm on now. Just more of that, you know what I'm saying? More projects, more and more people featuring on my music now because I'm working with so many artists. They be hearing my sh*t. They like, "OK, I want to hop on this." I'm gonna just keep developing, just keep working, man. It's a never-ending process for me.

As a producer, you're switching from producing harder rappers like Travis Scott and Clipse to pop stars like Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez. Creatively, what do you gain from jumping around genres like that?

I just get to learn more about different ways people make music. People in the pop world are totally different from people who make beats for Big Sean and JAY-Z and stuff like that, for the most part. There are some people that can hop in multiple lanes, but not everybody can do that. I honestly just like to learn, no matter what type of music it is.

What are some other genres that you are curious to explore that you haven't explored yet?

Like some hardcore rock 'n' roll sh*t. Who knows, man? Country, I haven't done no serious country records. I'm down to just try whatever, as long as it makes sense and I could still really feel the music.

We're almost at the end of the year, which is crazy to think about. What do you have left in the pipeline for 2020?

We've got, obviously tonight, that Big Sean, Detroit 2. Then I got an album with Benny The Butcher that's dropping; we got some dope features on that, some dope, soulful production. I feel like that was the thing with the Nas album. People saw I was producing that, they was like, "He known for club records and 'N****s in Paris.' But what can he give Nas?" 

And then once people heard it, it was like, "OK, we get it now." I feel like with the Benny project, it's going to be [an] even deeper thing. He's a new artist, so it's just a blank canvas to be able to paint something that could be something crazy.

Read: Aminé Talks New Album 'Limbo,' Portland Protests And Black Lives Matter

How do you compare working with newer artists like Benny The Butcher and superstars like Beyoncé and Kanye West?

They both hungry for this sh*t. Beyoncé, she work like a new artist, too. But Benny, he got some crazy, hungry—just really coming from the streets and coming from his background. For him, coming to the studio, he be like, "Man, this sh*t fly that we in the studio together." I feel the same way. He really taking advantage of the moment. When we in there, when I'm playing some sh*t, he understands what's going on. He just attacking everything with the highest intensity.

So we should keep an eye on Benny The Butcher is what you're saying.

One-thousand percent.

You released the fourth and final installment of your The Chauncey Hollis Project solo series in May, followed by Also Known As Courtesy Of Half-A-Mil, your collab album with Dom Kennedy, in July. What do those two albums offer as separate entities?

The music I make with Dom has just got its own specific feeling. And I went for just soulful, just giving people an honest me on my project. That's what I always try to do on every song. But with [Also Known As], we always just kind of create a vibe, something that females can mess with, and then you can just ride to it ... We always just creating music. We always just recording ...

Those two albums put you directly in the artist seat. Where can we expect those two artist projects to go next?

Honestly, I can't even call it, bro, because I was just moving off instinct. When I decided to drop the first installment [of The Chauncey Hollis Project], the first three songs, it was the night before. I just had recorded the songs, started mixing them, and I was like, "Man, I want to drop this sh*t." I made the decision [to drop it] Wednesday, [then] dropped it Thursday ... 

I still got people hitting me, people DMing me daily, listening to The Chauncey Hollis Project, listening to [Also Known As], people in they ride playing it. It's like, "OK, we headed in the right direction." So I can't even call it, man. You never know how this thing is going to go. But I'm just going to continue to make the music that I feel, and hopefully people connect with it.

Go with the flow.

Yup. We one song, one project at a time.

Are you always thinking about music, 24/7?

I am, man. That goes back to when I said I had my artist [deal] and I was working with Kanye and I was working with Beyoncé and JAY-Z. I had a point where I was like, "Man, I'm definitely not even taking no sessions if it's not Kanye, JAY-Z or Beyoncé." That's a crazy thing to be able to say within your lifetime. I'm not going to say it hurt me, but I feel like I should have been spreading my sound out a little bit more, especially with not having a tag and not having my brand all the way up where I needed it to be.

Now I feel like I've been playing catch-up. That's why I was able to do a bunch of songs on [Big] Sean's sh*t, do a bunch of sh*t on [Nas'] King's Disease, because I'm seeing the field different now. Once I catch that connection with an artist, it's over—we just tapping in. It's something about the type of grooves and the type of beats I'm making right now that makes people want to make songs, so [I'm] really trying to take this sh*t to a different level.

Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: "Suge" Producer Jetsonmade On Working With DaBaby & Hyping Up The Carolinas

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Lil Mosey

Lil Mosey

Photo: Jeremy Deputat

News

Lil Mosey On The Staying Power of "Blueberry Faygo," Life As A Teen Rap Sensation And Getting The Co-Sign From President Barack Obama

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The breakout rapper tells GRAMMY.com about the life lessons he's learned since dropping out of high school to chase his hip-hop dreams
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Sep 3, 2020 - 10:30 am

Lil Mosey lives the type of high life most 18-year-olds can only daydream about. At the tender age of 15, the Seattle-bred rapper garnered worldwide internet acclaim with his 2017 debut single, "Pull Up." The track, which has since accumulated more than 33 million YouTube views for its official music video, went gold this past May. Not bad for a teenager.

But in Lil Mosey's eyes, living life in the fast lane at such a young age wasn't a choice—it was his only reality. 

"I feel like growing up, struggling and surviving at a young age, I realized, 'Well, I don't have it like other people do, so I got to figure it out. I got to do something so my mom, my family don't got to worry about nothing," he tells GRAMMY.com. "So at a young age, I started realizing some stuff that other people don't realize … My mind's a lot older than 18.

Propelled by the success of "Pull Up," Lil Mosey dropped out of high school while in the 10th grade and relocated to Los Angeles to chase his music dreams. Things started to move quickly: He was handling "real-life business things" at 15 and taking major label meetings on his 16th birthday. 

Fast-forward to 2018: Lil Mosey's debut album, Northsbest, officially introduced the then-16-year-old sensation to the world. The gold-certified album spawned the platinum single "Noticed." Lil Mosey had arrived.

The fast-rising rapper, who just hit legal age of majority in January, returns in 2020 with Certified Hitmaker (AVA Leak), an expanded version of his 2019 sophomore album, Certified Hitmaker. Released last month, AVA Leak is fueled by breakout single and song-of-the-summer contender "Blueberry Faygo," a platinum-selling Top 10 U.S. hit; "Top Gone" with Lunay; and "Back At It" featuring Lil Baby, the latter of which earned an official shout-out from former President Barack Obama on his 2020 summer playlist. 

"I'm just a little-ass kid, and a grown-ass president know about me. That's crazy," Lil Mosey exclaimed. 

GRAMMY.com checked in with Lil Mosey to talk about the staying power of "Blueberry Faygo," his experience as a teenage rap sensation and the life lessons he's learned along the way. 

What's it like growing up so fast and blowing up so big at such a young age?

I feel like growing up, struggling and surviving at a young age, I realized, "Well, I don't have it like other people do, so I got to figure it out. I got to do something so my mom, my family don't got to worry about nothing."

So at a young age, I started realizing some stuff that other people don't realize. And then sh*t happened when I was like 15. I moved out to L.A. by myself and I started dealing with ... real-life business things that grown-ups did at 15. My mind's a lot older than 18.

Do you ever feel like you're missing out on "normal teenager stuff"? Like prom, bullsh*tting with your high school homies, getting in trouble in school?

No, I ain't even going to lie. I stopped going to school and stuff. I never even went to the school dance or nothing like that. I ain't even miss it.

You're not in school?

No. I'm tired of going to school. I plan on going back to school ... Once my music career started blowing when I was 15 years old, I said, "F**k it, I'm going to L.A." I dropped out, but I was doing online school for a little. I started touring, I started losing focus on that sh*t, but I'm definitely gonna go back and get my diploma.

When did you realize you wanted to be a rapper?

Probably when I was like 13.

How did you get to that decision?

When I got into music, I just started watching how [people] were really living. I started falling in love with that high life, what the lifestyle could be like. It's legal, so I was like, "This is a good way for me to live my dreams." So I was like, "If they could do it, I could do it, too."

So I just did it. Started getting better. Everything you do, you got to put 100 percent into it. If you don't put 100 percent into it, it's not going to work out like you want it to. I did that every day at home ... Woke up, went to school late, left school early and just went home, started working. If I wasn't working, then I wasn't making money.

Was your family supportive of your decision to follow that path? What did your mom think when you told her you were going to quit school and follow your rap career?

She didn't want me to. It took me a minute to convince her. I was telling her, "Trust me, it's going to work out." I started to convince her. Really, I just had to just tell her, "I know you don't want me to go, but I'mma just go, because I got you. I'mma let you know, it's going to work out. I know it's going to work out."

And then she let me go, and I just left ... She started to come around with me, taking label meetings. She's like "Yeah, you did it."

What does she think of your career choice now?

She just wants me to be the best person I can be. If I'm happy, she's gonna be happy.

Read: Aminé Talks New Album 'Limbo,' Portland Protests And Black Lives Matter

Your career took off in 2018 when you were around 16.

Yeah, it really took off right when I was like 15, just 'bout to turn 16. I was in New York taking label meetings on my birthday ... It was like a good-ass birthday present for me.

So you're 15 going on 16 when things started popping off for you. When was the moment when you realized you had "made it"?

I mean, there's been times where I've said, "I made it." But at the end of the day, I know I'm not where I want to be. I know I can do better. I can be bigger than this. I can make more money than this. So once I'm to the point where I'm really, like, I'm doing this for fun, it's not even because I'm worried about, "I need to get here." It's just more fun, because I'm already where I want to be. That's when I'mma be like, "Alright, I'm where I wanna be."

What does success look like to you? Is it money? Streams? Touring?

I already realized money don't buy happiness. If people say that, then they lost; they don't know what they're talking about. Money can help you and your family, which will make you happy. But at the end of the day, there's always something that can actually make you real happy inside ... Yeah it feels good, but with money, there comes a lot of problems that make you unhappy, so you got to find other things that make you happy.

Music, that's probably the biggest thing that makes me happy. Once I found music, I got addicted to music, like it was a drug or something. Music—that's all I do. If I'm not recording, I'm making beats. If I'm not making beats, then I'm probably worried about some money situation, like, "How can I get my money?"

In between when things started to pop off for you in 2018 to now in 2020, what have been some of the life lessons you've learned in those two years?

Stack your money and flip your money. It's always been, like, flip your money back. Once I got my first check, I was like, "Damn, I'm up right now." But then I realized, you can't really have too much stuff, but you can. It gets to a point where it's like, if you don't wear that jacket, what's the point of having that jacket? So if I know I'm not going to even wear that sh*t more than a couple of times, then I'm not even going to buy that. I just started moving smarter ... with my money. I started thinking, "This n***a got a billion dollars. He's moving like this? Alright, well I need to start moving a little different."

I'm a rapper, it's sort of different because I gotta be an influence to everybody ... At the end of the day, if you got money and you're going to keep growing and get more money, that's not a good thing to worry about. The clothes, that sh*t's cool. But a billion dollars, that sounds a lot better. What are you going to do with a billion dollars? Make more money, and you got money to just buy whatever the hell you want to get, until you get to the point where you're like, "I'll buy whatever I feel like and it won't even pain me." 'Cause money goes fast. You start spending and it goes fast.

People are calling your track, "Blueberry Faygo," one of the unofficial songs of the summer, which is hitting a little different this year since we're in a pandemic. Do you think we're going to get an official song of the summer this year?

Fo' sho', 'cause people still care about summer. Regardless, people still going to be sharing with their friends, even if they inside. Summer's almost over, though. You right, actually; you speaking some facts right now. I don't even know if there is a song of the summer ...

Do you think "Blueberry Faygo" will take the song of the summer throne?

Sh*t, hopefully. That's for the people to decide. Definitely it hit ... At the end of the summer, it might get that title.

You released "Blueberry Faygo" in February. It hit top 10 in the U.S., and it keeps sneaking back up in the charts a few months after its release. What is it about "Blueberry Faygo" that resonates so much with rap fans?

I honestly think it's just a feel-good song. It's something fresh, some sh*t nobody heard before ...

I feel like that's what people need right now.

Yeah, in these times, that's what I be trying to spread a lot. I've got some songs that I haven't put out yet that I'm speaking on how my life has been. I like having fun with my music, so if it's not talking about having fun … then it's going to be about something real.

The 2020 XXL Freshman Class dropped last month. You were featured in the 2019 XXL Freshman Class. What do you think about this year's group of artists?

There's a lot of artists on the list. I f**k with Fivio [Foreign]. Polo G, he's hard as f**k, too. I really didn't pay attention too much. I only seen a couple of freestyles and stuff, but I seen a few of them, definitely. Polo G, he definitely going to be a big-ass artist soon; he already a big artist. There's a bunch of artists on there I actually don't know. They picked a pretty good list.

When you were growing up, did you look up to the XXL Freshman Class?

I watched YG on XXL when he was coming up, and now he's who he is now. Mac Miller, he was on XXL ... Being on XXL is ... it's crazy. Seeing me, DaBaby, Megan Thee Stallion—we all went up. There was a lot of people on that list that went up. It goes to show.

Read: G Herbo Talks 'PTSD' And The Importance Of Mental Health: "People Need To Treat Mental Health More Seriously"

You've worked with a lot of other big artists like Lil Baby, Gunna, Trippie Redd. What's the first thing you look for when you're picking your collaborators?

Do I genuinely like the music? If I don't really genuinely like the music, then I wouldn't even probably work with the person. It's really just about the music for me—if I like the song, I like the person's music. After that, do I like them as a person? Are they cool? They can be the biggest person in the world, [but] if I don't fuck with who they are and I don't like they music, then I won't even want to make a song with them.

While we're on that topic, who are some of the next-wave rappers on your radar right now? Who are some other artists you want to work with in the future?

BandKidjay, he's definitely one of 'em, rising artist. Jae Lynx, he's from Rhode Island; he's fire ... I wanna work with Drake; that'd be crazy. We would make a hit together, I already know we would. And Ariana Grande; that'd be lit.

Did you see that former President Barack Obama plugged your song, "Back At It," on his 2020 summer playlist?

Yeah, that was crazy, man! Shout out Barack Obama, man!

First of all, who knew Barack Obama was up on the rap game like that, right? That is probably the biggest co-sign of all time. What did that moment mean to you?

Yeah, I'm just a little-ass kid, and a grown-ass president know about me. That's crazy.

What do you have on deck for the rest of 2020 and beyond?

I'm working on my next project … a mixtape. You'll probably be seeing some singles from me coming soon.

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