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'To Pimp A Butterfly': Kendrick Lamar shares history

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58th GRAMMY nominees Lamar, Terrace Martin, Thundercat, Rapsody, and other key players reveal the inside story of the Album Of The Year-nominated To Pimp A Butterfly
Andreas Hale
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly album cover
'To Pimp A Butterfly': Kendrick Lamar shares history

In between Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and To Pimp A Butterfly, a 2014 trip to South Africa changed Kendrick Lamar. As he toured the country — visiting historic sites such as Nelson Mandela's jail cell on Robben Island — his worldview broadened, and so did his music.

The trip led Lamar to scrap "two or three albums worth of material," according to engineer/mixer Derek "MixedByAli" Ali. Lamar wanted to make music that reflected the sounds of his upbringing in Compton, Calif. He began to listen to the likes of Sly Stone, Donald Byrd and Miles Davis. Eventually To Pimp A Butterfly took form, incorporating elements of jazz, funk, soul, spoken word, and hip-hop.

"I wanted to do a record like this on my debut album but I wasn't confident enough," says Lamar.

Lamar garnered 11 GRAMMY nominations, including Best Rap Album and Album Of The Year. Following, Lamar and key collaborators tell the story of To Pimp A Butterfly.

Kendrick Lamar (artist): The title grasped the entire concept of the record. [I wanted to] break down the idea of being pimped in the industry, in the community and out of all the knowledge that you thought you had known, then discovering new life and wanting to share it.

Sounwave (co-producer): I remember he took a trip to Africa and something in his mind just clicked. For me, that's when this album really started.

Lamar: I felt like I belonged in Africa. I saw all the things that I wasn't taught. Probably one of the hardest things to do is put [together] a concept on how beautiful a place can be, and tell a person this while they're still in the ghettos of Compton. I wanted to put that experience in the music.

Derek "MixedByAli" Ali (co-engineer/mixer): [Lamar is] a sponge. He incorporated everything that was going on [in Africa] and in his life to complete a million-piece puzzle.

Lamar: I was on tour with Kanye [West] and I had Flying Lotus with me because I wanted to work on the bus studio. He would make beats and it was one particular beat that he forgot to play. He skipped it but I heard about three seconds of it and I asked him, "What is that?" He said, "You don't know nothing about that. That's real funk. … You're not going to rap on that." It was like a dare.

Thundercat (co-producer): ["Wesley's Theory"] started with Flying Lotus and I sitting on the couch in front of the computer analyzing George Clinton. He became the fuel for creating. I was really blown away that Kendrick was so into that song.

Sounwave: That song is the album cover.

Lamar: I had to find George Clinton in the woods, man. He was somewhere in the South and I had to fly out to him. We got in the studio and just clicked. Rocking with him took my craft to another level and that pushed me to make more records like that for the album.

Sounwave: When we first did "King Kunta," the beat was the jazziest thing ever with pretty flutes. Kendrick said he liked it but to "make it nasty." He referenced a DJ Quik record with Mausberg ["Get Nekkid"] and he told me what to do with it. I added different drums to it, simplified it, got Thundercat on the bass, and it was a wrap.

Thundercat: That strong-a** rhythm with banging drums and bass was created by me and Sounwave watching "Fist Of The North Star" while eating Yoshinoya. It's funny because a lot of this album was created eating Yoshinoya and watching cartoons. It was so funky and so black.

Terrace Martin (co-producer): If you dig deeper you hear the lineage of James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Mahalia Jackson, the sounds of Africa, and our people when they started over here. I hear something different every time. I heard Cuban elements in it the other day.

Kendrick Lamar - King Kunta

Martin: [For "Complexion"] we were listening to a lot of J Dilla, Jimi Hendrix and Lalah Hathaway, who's on that song too. Robert Glasper played piano over it. Me and Sounwave heard the piano but wanted another beat so we called Lalah Hathaway and got into the spirit of J Dilla. Then Rapsody got to it and murdered it.

Rapsody (featured artist): I was in New York the first time I got the call. [It was] the day after [Lamar's] "Control" verse dropped. Everybody was talking about the verse and Kendrick was in Africa. I went about a year before him so I knew what that trip does to you, especially as a black person.

Lamar: The idea was to make a record that reflected all complexions of black women. There's a separation between the light and the dark skin because it's just in our nature to do so, but we're all black. This concept came from South Africa and I saw all these different colors speaking a beautiful language.

MixedByAli: [Lamar] has an index in his head of everyone's voice and when he hears something that fits, he knows. He sees music as colors. Every song is like putting together a rainbow.

Lamar: Immediately when I heard the beat I heard [Rapsody's] voice and vocal tone. But what made her special was that I knew that she was going to bring the content from a woman's perspective about complexion, being insecure and at the same time having gratitude for your complexion.

Rapsody: He said he wanted to talk about the beauty of black people. I told him to say no more. What tripped me out is Kendrick originally said that he didn't want to do a verse on there. He wanted me to do two verses and Prince to do the hook.

Lamar: That's true. Prince heard the record, loved the record and the concept of the record got us to talking. We got to a point where we were just talking in the studio and the more time that passed we realized we weren't recording anything. We just ran out of time, it's as simple as that.

Thundercat: The album's theme was forming over time and a lot of the social issues he presents on the album were inevitable for him being a black man in America.

Sounwave: I didn't expect ["Alright"] to be the protest song but I did know it was going to do something because the time we're living in made it the perfect song.

Martin: One of the biggest moments was seeing kids marching to "Alright." We cried like babies because we were doing something. This is [our] vessel to get the message out. We had to use art for the message to help heal and help love.

Kendrick Lamar - Compton | Witness Greatness | GRAMMYs

MixedByAli: [The] session [for "U"] was very uncomfortable. [Lamar] wrote it in the booth. The mic was on and I could hear him walking back and forth and having these super angry vocals. Then he'd start recording with the lights off and it was super emotional. I never asked what got into him that day.

Lamar: It was real uncomfortable because I was dealing with my own issues. I was making a transition from the lifestyle that I lived before to the one I have now. When you're onstage rapping and all these people are cheering for you, you actually feel like you're saving lives. But you aren't saving lives back home. It made me question if I am in the right place spreading my voice. "Should I be back home sending this message or be on the road?" It put me in this space where I was in a little bit of a dilemma.

I sat on the beat [for "The Blacker The Berry"] and then the Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown situations happened and I knew that this needed to be addressed.

Sounwave: That last line, "gangbanging make me kill a n***** blacker than me," was a slap in the face. He wants you to be uncomfortable.

Lamar: If you speak on this kind of subject matter you're labeled a conscious rapper. I don't even know [if] that word conscious can only exist in one field of music. Everybody is conscious. That's a gift from God to put it in my heart to continue to talk about this because that's how I'm feeling at the moment. The message is bigger than the artist.

When Tupac was here and I saw him as a 9-year-old, I think that was the birth of what I'm doing today. From the moment that he passed I knew the things he was saying would eventually be carried on through someone else. But I was too young to know that I would be the one doing it.

With over a decade of experience as a journalist and editor, Andreas Hale has been called the "Swiss Army Knife of Journalism" by his peers. His work has been featured on Billboard, MTV, Complex, Jay Z's Life+Times, XXL, and The Source, among others. He is also the co-host of combat sports podcast "The Corner" on the Loud Speakers Network.

Tune in to the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS. 

Kendrick Lamar AOTY Oral History
Feature

Kendrick Lamar, Pluss, Terrace Martin & More On Making 'DAMN.' | Album Of The Year

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Go behind the scenes for the making of Kendrick Lamar's Album Of The Year GRAMMY-nominated LP with the creative team who was there in the studio supporting him
Andreas Hale
GRAMMYs
Jan 25, 2018 - 2:02 pm

After releasing good kid, m.A.A.d City and To Pimp A Butterfly to critical acclaim and multiple GRAMMY nominations, Kendrick Lamar made it a point with his next album to create something markedly different from his previous two efforts. With GK:MC being about the challenges a young man faced growing up in Compton, Calif., and the latter encompassing the sounds of black power and pride, the artist formerly known as K-Dot decided to explore the complexities of spirituality with DAMN.

Kendrick Lamar wins Best Rap Album GRAMMY

What initially sounds like his most accessible album to date turns out to be far more complex upon multiple listens. From the rambunctious "DNA" to the jaw-dropping true story of "DUCKWORTH.," DAMN. is layered with deft lyricism, stellar production and multiple meanings that are made all the more significant once the listener realizes that the album was also designed to be played in reverse.

The acclaim swiftly piled up on social media as both fans and critics hailed DAMN. as the third consecutive instant classic in the 30-year-old's catalog. To get a better insight into the mind of an artist who has mastered the art of secrecy surrounding his projects, a few of the individuals who were behind the shaping of DAMN. paint an intriguing picture of how Lamar's spiritual journey was captured in musical form.

Terrace Martin (producer/songwriter): He initially shared the idea about DAMN. to me during the To Pimp A Butterfly sessions but it was really vague. But I knew that whatever we did next couldn't sound anything like what we just did. We needed to do the opposite of what our opposite thoughts were.

*Sounwave (producer): Literally as soon as [To Pimp A Butterfly] was done we started [working on DAMN.]. He goes into these phases where basically his mind is this big storyboard and he's picking ideas: "What if we did this? What if we did that?"

**Lamar: The initial goal was to make a hybrid of my first two commercial albums. That was our total focus, how to do that sonically, lyrically, through melody – and it came out exactly how I heard it in my head. … It's all pieces of me.

"Kendrick is the type to not let anybody know what he’s doing. It'll come out of nowhere." — Pluss

*Sounwave: Once he got his whole brainstorming thing down and we knew the direction we were going, we locked down the studio for months. [I] never left — [we] literally [had] sleeping bags in the studio.

**Lamar: I wanted it to feel like just the raw elements of hip-hop, whether I'm using 808s or boom-bap drums, the idea of Kid Capri. …The initial thought was having [Kid Capri] on some real trap 808 s***. Something I've never heard from him. I got in the studio and had him do a thousand takes. He's the greatest to ever even do it.

Kid Capri (narrator/vocals): The first time I met Kendrick was when we worked together [on DAMN.]. He called to ask me if I'd work with him. ... He told me the direction of the album being God and spirituality, but he already knew what he had in his head and he came up with a lot of what I needed to say.

Pluss (producer): "HUMBLE." started when I was at the studio with Mike WiLL Made-It and we started throwing ideas together. Mike said that this song needed to be "ignorant." He started with that piano. It was simple. And then he started throwing in bass and drum ideas. I did the arrangement. It was missing one little side and I started playing with a sound effect and threw another effect on top of it. That's how that siren sound came out and it put the beat on another level. We knocked it out in 30 minutes. I didn't know what was going to happen to it.

***Lamar: Mike Will sent the beat over. All I could think of was [Marley Marl's] "The Symphony" and the earliest moments of hip-hop, where it's complex simplicity, but it's also somebody making moves. That beat feels like my generation, right now. The first thing that came to my head was, "Be humble."

Pluss: I didn't even know "HUMBLE." was happening until I heard it. I was riding in the car a few months after we did the beat and I got a phone call from my friend at Live Mixtapes and he said, "I know you have something to do with Kendrick's new record!" I didn't know what he was talking about. "HUMBLE." was a surprise for me and it was all over the radio. I listened to it like "This is the beat that we made!"

Terrace Martin: I got the call to work on "LOYALTY." while I was working with 9th Wonder and Rapsody on Laila’s Wisdom. I heard something with Bruno Mars' "24K Magic." The original talk-box player on that record is a genius by the name of Mr. Talkbox. He had a sound that I loved. I just wanted to reverse it, tweak it and give it a new edge. I got with DJ Dahi and Sounwave to put it together.  I thought this would be dope for my album. But then I thought that nah, this would be for Kendrick and I called him and told him "I got some s***." He had mentioned the idea that very day that he wanted Rihanna on it.

**Lamar: I've always wanted to work with Rihanna. I love everything about her, her artistry, how she represents women to not only be themselves but to express themselves the way she expresses herself through music and how she carries herself. I love everything about her, so I always wanted to work with her. I did the record and immediately, her name popped up. Reached out, we locked in a studio, and made it happen.

9th Wonder (producer/mixer): I was in Los Angeles in December of 2015 and I went to see Kendrick. We were at the beginning stages of Rapsody's album, so I had a bunch of beats on me. I played him 20 beats and he said, "Let me get those." I didn't find out that there were at least two beats on one song ["DUCKWORTH."] until he sent me a video snippet of him playing an MP3 off his computer. It was a 9-second clip that played right when the beat changed. After it was over, I hit him back saying, "Yo man, what the hell?" and he put "LOL" and that was it. I gave him the beats in December of 2015 and he sent that video in June of 2016. I hadn't talked to him in six months and that came out of the blue. I noticed on the MP3 that the name of the song was "Life Is Like A Box Of Chicken." I didn't hear anything else until it was time to clear samples.

Pluss: Kendrick is the type to not let anybody know what he's doing. It'll come out of nowhere.

9th Wonder: The night before I was supposed to fly out for SXSW and Kendrick calls me and says, "I need for you to mix the beat part of this record." Khrysis and I are mixing the beat that night and I'm just listening to the beat. Khrysis is saying, "Are you listening to what he’s saying??" When I’m listening to music I'm listening for the flow pattern before I'm listening to your words. So I listened to the words and I had to sit down, man. ["DUCKWORTH."] is making so much more sense to me. I texted him immediately after I heard it and asked if it was a true story. He said, "Yep. And I left some stuff out."

**Lamar: It was just the right time [to tell that story]. Top Dawg himself didn't know I was going to do it or even execute it in that fashion, to be the last song or to be anywhere. Just making it made sense. I remember playing it for him, he flipped because further than the song, when you really can hear your life in words that is so true to you and that affected your life one hundred percent through one decision, it really makes you sit back and cherish the moment. I think that's something we all did playing that record. Like man, look where we at. We're recording music for the world to hear and we're taking care of our families. We're blessed. But listen to these words, like this is what happened. This is real life. It's amazing and since a kid I've always said to myself "anything is possible and it always comes around 10-fold, confirmation." And that story is confirmation.

* As told to GQ Magazine
** As told to Zane Lowe of Beats 1
*** As told to Rolling Stone

(Andreas Hale is a former editor at BET.com and HipHopDX.com. His work has been featured on MTV, Vibe, XXL, Jay Z's Life+Times, Black Enterprise, Ozy, and more.)

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Rap + R&B Focus: Kendrick Lamar Wins Big

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Rapper leads the 58th GRAMMYs with five wins; R&B music saluted on Music's Biggest Night
Andreas Hale
GRAMMYs
Feb 16, 2016 - 12:27 pm

Kendrick Lamar wins Best Rap Album GRAMMY

At the 58th GRAMMY Awards, Kendrick Lamar had a huge night. After garnering a leading five awards — including Best Rap Album — the rapper took to the GRAMMY stage to deliver a memorable GRAMMY Moment that will likely be talked about for years. 

Lamar’s set was a fearless declaration of black pride and celebration of his Compton, Calif., hometown, Africa and the musical influences that helped mold his Best Rap Album-winning To Pimp A Butterfly. Lamar marched onstage in a prison jumpsuit, while shackled to a group of men also dressed as inmates. As his band played inside a makeshift prison cell, Lamar delivered a passionate performance of “The Blacker The Berry” before transitioning to "Alright."

His performance managed to provide timely social commentary on the GRAMMY stage with a relentless fervor. He closed the performance with a previously unheard lyrical barrage punctuated by an illuminated image of Africa with the word "Compton" scrawled across the continent. The performance elicited a worthy ovation for Lamar, who also won Best Music Video for "Bad Blood" with Taylor Swift and swept the Rap Field, including Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for "Alright" (with Kawan Prather, Mark Anthony Spears and Pharrell Williams) and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "These Walls" (with Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat).

Many of those who helped bring the musicality of Lamar's acclaimed To Pimp A Butterfly to life, spoke on his behalf at the GRAMMY Premiere Ceremony. Bassist Thundercat, singers Bilal and Anna Wise, and producer Sounwave — all first-time GRAMMY winners — took to the stage to thank the rapper for recording the project.

"We come from nothing and people don't realize that," To Pimp A Butterfly co-engineer/mixer Derek "MixedByAli " Ali said. "If it wasn't for God, loyalty, trust, and teamwork we wouldn't be here."

Hip-hop legend and host of the evening LL Cool J kicked off the telecast reminding viewers that music is universal. "Our shared love of music unites us," he said.

Other hip-hop legends were in attendance, including Russell Simmons, Reverend Run of Recording Academy 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award recipients Run DMC and Ice Cube, who was joined onstage by his son O'Shea Jackson Jr. to present the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album. Ice Cube noted rap had come "a long way to change our world forever."

The father-son team fittingly presented Lamar his award for Best Rap Album in front of a standing audience. After thanking his parents, fiancée Whitney Alford and Top Dawg Entertainment family, Lamar declared, “This is for hip-hop. [This is for] Ice Cube. This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic. This is for Nas. We will live forever!"

The night also included big celebrations of R&B music. Tyrese Gibson, John Legend, Luke Bryan, Demi Lovato, and Meghan Trainor paid tribute to 2016 MusiCares Person of the Year Lionel Richie with a medley of the singer/songwriter’s hits. Legend breezily rolled through “Easy” while Demi Lovato’s rendition of “Hello” had the former Commodore shaking his head in amazement. Tyrese punctuated the set with a funky performance of “Brick House” before Richie took to the stage and brought the house down with “All Night Long.”

GRAMMY winners Stevie Wonder and a capella group Pentatonix paid homage to the late Maurice White — founder of 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award recipients Earth, Wind & Fire — with a beautiful rendition of “That’s The Way Of The World.”

Later, Earth, Wind & Fire would take the stage to present Album Of The Year. The GRAMMYs also paid tribute to the legacy of Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall by enlisting GRAMMY-winning R&B singer/songwriter Miguel to deliver an intimate performance of “She’s Out Of My Life.”

A satellite performance of the hip-hop Broadway musical "Hamilton" — which took home Best Musical Theater Album honors — easily made one of the toughest tickets to grab that much harder to get. "Hamilton" creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda rapped his acceptance speech, thanking a list of people including Lamar. Adele also shouted out the Compton rapper after her performance, yelling, "I love you, Kendrick. You're amazing."

Canadian singer/songwriter The Weeknd had a strong showing, earning his first career GRAMMYs with a pair of awards for Best R&B Performance for "Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Grey)" and Best Urban Contemporary Album for Beauty Behind The Madness. The singer celebrated his birthday a day early with the wins and a performance of “Can’t Feel My Face” and “In The Night” while freshly dipped in a black tuxedo. R&B newcomer Andra Day would take to the stage with Ellie Goulding for a collaborative set as the two rising talents filled the Staples Center with their powerful voices

Elsewhere, singer/songwriter D'Angelo won Best R&B Song for "Really Love" with Kendra Foster. D'Angelo And The Vanguard snared the Best R&B Album award for Black Messiah, D'Angelo's first album following a decade-plus hiatus from releasing music. At the Premiere a tearful Lalah Hathaway thanked her late father Donny Hathaway as she took home the award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for her remake of 1972's "Little Ghetto Boy." Choking back tears, Hathaway offered: "Thank you to my father for leaving this song to me to give to other people."

Ultimately, hip-hop and R&B had an incredibly strong showing at the 58th GRAMMY Awards, which celebrated some of the genre's finest talent. Many will likely remember this as the night that Lamar made another powerful mark on the industry and owned Music's Biggest Night with a performance for the ages.

With over a decade of experience as a journalist and editor, Andreas Hale has been called the "Swiss Army Knife of Journalism" by his peers. His work has been featured on Billboard, MTV, Complex, Jay Z's Life+Times, XXL, and The Source, among others. He is also the co-host of combat sports podcast "The Corner" on the Loud Speakers Network.

Flying Lotus in Pittsburgh 2019

Flying Lotus

Photo: Matthew Miramontes

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Flying Lotus On The "Eternal Flame" Of 'Flamagra,' Making Fire With David Lynch & Learning From Solange

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The multi-hyphenate artist shares the magic behind his latest album, an epic 27-song journey through the flames of the City of Angels
Ana Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Sep 19, 2019 - 10:31 am

L.A. native Steven Ellison is quite the creative polymath. The GRAMMY nominee is likely best known as his experimental electronic producer/DJ alias, Flying Lotus, but you may also be familiar with the indie films he's directed and/or scored and the record label he runs, Brainfeeder, home to other genre-defying artists including TOKiMONSTA, Daedelus and Thundercat. It's difficult to summarize exactly who he is or what kind of art he crafts, as he's constantly changing it up and wearing new hats, all rather seamlessly.

Most recently, Ellison released his sprawling 27-track sixth Flying Lotus album, Flamagra (he's also released hip-hop music under another alias, Captain Murphy). The LP, released on May 24, follows his GRAMMY-nominated 2015 project, You're Dead!, which some might recall earned a nod for Best Dance Recording at the 58th GRAMMY Awards for "Never Catch Me" featuring Kendrick Lamar. This time, the sonically rich Flamagra is themed around fire with, well, fire collabs from Anderson .Paak, George Clinton, Little Dragon, Tierra Whack, Denzel Curry, iconic experimental director David Lynch, Solange and others.



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FLAMAGRA art by @winstonhacking

A post shared by flyinglotus (@flyinglotus) on

Catching up with Ellison over the phone between shows on his visually stunning 3D Tour, the Recording Academy talks to the wunderkind about how Flamagara came together and how "Fire Is Coming," the spooky track he worked on with Lynch, was born. Ellison also takes us back to when he first met George Clinton and how his great aunt Alice Coltrane (yes, she was married to that Coltrane!) got him started on the trailblazing musical path he's on today.

You're currently on tour right now with your 3D show, which looks really epic and fun. What's been your favorite part so far about this tour?

Well, I think my favorite part so far has been seeing Brandon Coleman on stage. It has been really special for me just because he's the main reason why I even got involved in actually playing on the keyboard and stuff like that. He's the opener. I brought him with me because he's kind of been my piano teacher. You know?

Read: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: TOKiMONSTA On Authenticity & Why 'Lune Rouge' Is "A Celebration Of Life"

He's with you on the whole tour?

Yeah. For me, ever since I started taking it seriously, I was like, okay, in five, 10 years from now I'll be able to rock with Brandon on stage. And it has been a year and now we're already at it. It's also been fun riding my bike around small towns and stuff, been really enjoying that. I brought my bike with me. Riding it around really fast in Missoula, Montana made me very happy.

What has it felt like to share your new music with people in the format of this tour?

It's nice, it's fun. It's a trip because there's always, I think, there are certain people who are like, "We want to hear the old stuff." And there's always people like, "We want to hear new stuff." So having accommodate for all that and figure out a good flow is nice and to also, you know, see the result of the hard work and all the efforts. When people know the words and they got the vibes, it feels really nice.

Flying Lotus in Pittsburgh 2019

Flying Lotus plays Pittsburg | Photo: Matthew Miramontes

Flamagra came out a few months ago now and when I first listened to it, I right away felt the journey of the album. Not only does it have a lot of tracks compared to most album nowadays, but it really does feel like a journey through all these different sounds and textures.

Yeah. I'm glad. I was hoping that would come across. All the layering and all that stuff. It's the most fun part to me.

In terms of the fire theme, can you talk about where that came from and how you developed it?

I think that the idea just came from the fact that I just felt for so long that L.A. was on fire. Everything in L.A. was burning, everything. It seems like the various points when I was seriously on the music, it was just like some fire going on, whether it was outside or internal or something. I kept coming back to specific imagery in my mind of fire and a story that I had been kind of imagining about this town that had an eternal flame. And that was kind of my vibe for a while. I was like, all right, what if where I lived, there was an eternal flame and we couldn't do anything about it?

There would be a lot of people who loved it, a lot of people who hate it. A lot of people who wish it never happened and it would attract a lot of attention. I thought about all this stuff for some reason, I vibed with it. I was just like, "Man, what if there was this fire that we couldn't put out in L.A.?" I think that's the music, in a way, you know? No matter what, the music will always survive and it's something, thankfully. It's a thing we can leave behind. No matter if I'm here or gone, music will continue. They'll be putting sh*t out after I'm dead. I hope not. When I'm dead, I don't want them to drop nothing else. That's it.

We can print that on GRAMMY.com if you want.

I don't want no posthumous release. Don't do that sh*t. I don't like that. Whatever I do, whatever I'm doing, whatever I'm working on, that's it. That's the story. It would just kill me if people put out a bunch of half-finished stuff that I did. I would be so mad.

And I've been a witness to it, you know? I've seen a lot. I've seen how people scrambled when [J] Dilla died. What happened with that, it was a terrible. It happened when Mac Miller died. Everybody was like, "Oh, he would have wanted this. He would have wanted this." Everyone thinks they know. Do you know? In terms of my thing, I just feel like, I got it. I got it. If my homies don't got it, then it shouldn't come out.

I feel that. So, on "Fire is Coming" with David Lynch, I'm not gonna lie, it's just freaky. It's eerie.

It's his voice. It's funny because he isn't really saying anything too crazy. It's just when you hear David Lynch, it's instantly terrifying. Almost like when you hear Rod Serling introduce the Twilight Zone or something like that. It has the same kind of feel to it.

I read that you met Lynch at a party and that spawned asking him to record that story.

The story is almost right. We met a couple times before, then I saw him at a party. He was kind of kicking off the party with that story, that same thing. I was already knee deep in fire thoughts already and then this cat did that thing. I was like, "You got to be f**king sh*tting me right now." I've been trying to get David Lynch for like 11, 12 years to do something with me, asking a friend of a friend. "Oh, yeah, he told me he loves you but he's really busy. He's on Twin Peaks, he's doing a billion things."

As soon as Twin Peaks [The Return] was over, I was like, "I'm getting on it." It was just one of those things. I made it a mission to make it happen. And he was still like, "Oh, well he's so busy." And then I heard that thing. I was like, "Look, he's got that done already. Let's just record that, that bit right there. I need that." "Okay, well we can make that happen."  I mean, it was kind of trippy to hear him do that at a party.

That's crazy.

[Lynch said] "Fire is coming." I'm like, "Oh, sh*t." It did right after that. Remember when the 405 was almost on fire and it looked like a volcano by the Getty Museum?

Oh man, yeah. That was right before I moved here, I was in San Francisco. It was on fire on both ends of California.

See? Yeah, that was one of the main catalysts right there. I had people hitting me up I didn't even talk to often, like, "Yo, you good?" "Yeah, I'm fine. Someone else's sh*t is burned down though." It was weird, after I made the album all these weird fire things started happening. The day before my f**king album came out, my grandma's house almost burned down. It's crazy. My sister was like, "Yo, can you make an album about butterflies next? Please? Something peaceful."

Since it was a theme that you'd been thinking about, were you making songs here and there? What was your creative process once you decided to make it into a cohesive album?

Well, I go through several stages of it. Kind of shooting in the dark for a little while and then I feel like, "Oh, I know where I'm going." And then it's like, life happens and then it actually shows you what the story is, you know? I try to steer it too much. It never works out. I always have to kind of step away and be like, "Okay, what are you really saying now?" Every album is like that for me. I almost predict it.

I don't even like to say what I'm working on because I know it's going to change and get manipulated until the day it comes out, or until I deliver it at least. Flamagra, in a lot of ways, was very easy to put together, but at the same time became very difficult, especially working with all the guests and stuff. That was a huge freaking headache, just on legal and getting clearances.

I finished most of the album last November and I ended up having to make changes for the guests. Put a song here, almost have to take a song off there or whatever. It ended up being a little frustrating. Now, I'm in the situation where I think—here we go with predictions. Right? But I feel like the next thing I do would be without guests. That was a lot. Plus I'm getting tired of this whole co-sign thing. I don't want to have to have all these co-signs for anyone to care about my project. I feel like that's a thing, "Who's going to be on it?" I'm on it. It's my thing. So the next one, who knows? Might just be one guest. Might be purely instrumental. I don't know.

Did all of your collaborations happen organically?

Always. Except the Lynch one because some people you got to push a little harder. But pretty much everyone else. There was always someone like, "Oh, we got to do a song together. We got to work together." I'm calling you on it right now. Is this the moment? Are we doing this? Are we going there? Especially Toro [y Moi]. He is the cat I would run into every Saturday. We'd be at the same hotel and get picked up at the same time to go to the same stage. And we'd always be like, "Oh man, we should totally do something together." For years. And I was like, "You know what? Call this man." So, I would say it's natural, organic.

That's real. When you run into someone you haven't seen in a while and they go, "We should hang out." And you're like, "Okay, but when are we hanging out?" I can only imagine with artists' schedules, there's many factors preventing you from getting in the same room together.

That's why artists like Coachella because everyone puts a face to a name. I was like, "Oh, I'm a fan of you." "I'm a fan of you too. We should totally." And then things happen.

Do you always work with people in the studio or do you ever do remote collabs?

A little bit of both actually. It all depends on who I'm dealing with. A lot of times I'll assess if they're the type of person that would be better to work with them or if they're better if they're left to their own devices. There's certain artists who you can tell just need to be in whatever your comfort zone is to make the best track possible. But then there's some people who you need to kind of inspire a little bit. For example, George Clinton, brilliant. Super together, he's an older cat, but he's still got his sh*t, knows everything. I'm like, "Man, how do you remember all these things from your history?" I don't even remember what happened yesterday.

George is super sharp but he's the kind of person who would love that bounce back vibe. When we did "Burning Down The House," I wrote that with him as a freestyle. We're sitting together, he's holding the microphone, he's saying something, I'm calling response with him and then eventually the song came to be what it became. But it was the result of us being in the same space, shouting at each other freely without thinking about if it's sh*tty or not, you know?

When did you and George Clinton first work together? It was on the Kendrick [Lamar] track, "Wesley's Theory," right?

That's how it all started.

Did you know him before that?

How that came to be was, I was vibing on Parliament for a while. On the You're Dead Tour [in 2014], I was like super on it. As soon as I came back from that tour, I was making a lot of Parliament funky-type stuff after that.

The funk was in you.

I went super deep in that. And then Kendrick hit me up to help him build a show for his tour with, on [Kanye West's] Yeezus Tour. He hit me up, I never designed a show before but I stepped into the role and helped him. And it was right before To Pimp A Butterfly began and he was still kind of getting ideas for it and whatnot, trying to figure out what it was going to be.

I started planning some of that funky sh*t and the next day he was like, "I got it." And it really was. It was one of the sparks that that made that record and he asked me after he recorded that song, he was like, "Who do you imagine on this sh*t?" I'm like, "George, of course George, that'd be amazing." And then suddenly George was in the mix and hanging out with Kendrick and stuff and I was like, that's f**king dope. And then eventually George was hanging out at the crib, telling stories about Quentin Tarantino. F**k, that's cool.

What do you think is the biggest thing you've learned from working with George Clinton?

Sh*t. So much, I don't even know. After that whole thing happened, the first thing I did, we didn't even work on music together. The first thing I had him do was be in my movie, Kuso. That was the first time me and George really worked together and he was like, "Okay, I'll do this, but I really want to make some music with you, man." I was like, "Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that." On the first day of shooting, after he got on set, he comes up to me, he's like, "Hey man, you got the script?" I was like, "Yeah, there's a copy over here." He was like, "Oh, cool. Because I don't know any of the dialogue yet." I was like, "Are you f**king kidding me? We're about to shoot this sh*t right now. You don't know the words? You don't know what the hell is happening?"

He's like, "I'm a doctor, right?" I'm like, "Yeah, you're a doctor." He's like, "Can I just be myself?" "Yeah, of course. That's what I thought you'd do." And we pretty much worked it out in the doing, but he had to figure out every line as he did it and do it a million times but his performance of that sh*t is so George. It's so great. I don't know what the moral of the story is. But he's that kind of a person. His personality just shines through. He can make anything happen. The sound of his voice and the vibe. He was so open-minded too.

And then when you guys were working on "Burning Down The House," how long did it take to go from freestyle to recording it?

Oh, the freestyle is the recording. We used a sh*tty microphone. Solange taught me this thing. She told me about using the SM58 or 57 to record. It's pretty much like the microphone everyone uses live on stage, the SM57. The reason why it's a good mic for shows is because you can have all the monitoring on stage and all the loudness and it doesn't feedback. So, Solange was the one to tell me, "Yo, I like to figure out a song with that because you can have the beat playing in the room. You don't need headphones. You can just listen to it loud. Record some sketches and let that be the thing." But for Solange, she was like, "The sketch ends up the song because the freestyle has this energy to it." And that was something that I've taken and it will last me the rest of my life.

Because when it comes to that vibe, by not having headphones on and sketching ideas out freely, it's so different and you don't feel inhibited because the beat is loud in the room and things are vibrating and the ideas are flowing from one to another. I'm hearing George figure things out. I'm spitting ideas back and he's looking at me. So you're getting this different type of energy that if he just had headphones on, on his own, it wouldn't be the same. There's something about it and it has a raw edge to it. There's something about doing it that way. I'll never go back to using nice microphones and headphones, just sh*tty microphones. That's all I do now. When Solange told me about it, I looked at her like, "Are you crazy? Why would you do this?" It made no goddamn sense. She was like, "Just trust me." She was right.

I love the song "Land Of Honey" on the album with her too. Here I am talking about all the collabs after you said you're over them. It's obviously a different dynamic, bringing on someone for your project and figuring out how to align your creative approaches, right? Does that sometimes pose a challenge, getting on the same page with the other person?

It has presented itself once or twice. I feel like all that being said about collaborations, I think I actually really learned how to be a producer by doing this album because I had to deal with all types of different personalities. I had to deal with different egos and stuff and how to get the best thing out of somebody, especially someone you might not know that well. It's like, I'm meeting you for the first time and I'm trying to make a dope track with you. It's not easy. How much time are you going to spend getting to know each other before you start playing music? How much back and forth are you going to get to go before you stumble on the right thing.

There's an artistry in bringing the best things out of people. That's why people love Quincy Jones and all the great producers because they're able to tap into what makes a person great and pull that out of them. Dr. Dre is the same way, being around him. It's the exact same thing. He'll take way more time though and he don't give a sh*t about if you've got things to do. You'll stay with Dre, you'll be there a little while.

Watch: Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' | For The Record

What do you think was the biggest thing you learned in that context of producing and getting the juicy bits from working with someone else?

Well, I don't know. I think everyone's different and that's a thing in itself. Just don't feel like the same shit is going to work on everybody, like everything else. Right? It's like a relationship. You can't take a vegan to the steak house. You got to think of a different place to go on that date. It's similar to dating, I guess, in a weird way. You want to make a good first impression, make them comfortable, all that stuff.

I feel that. Reading the vibe.

"Oh, you don't like this? Okay. Let me change this." Find out what works, what sticks and sometimes it doesn't work. Collaborating don't always go well. I feel like more often than not the idea of the collaboration was better than the result. It happens from time to time.

Let's go back a little bit. You grew up with a musical family; Alice Coltrane was your great aunt, right?

Yeah. It gets crazier as I get older and as I pursue my instrument more. I feel like every three years I have a light bulb, a lightning strike thing happen to me with my family's music and all that stuff. It makes more sense to me and makes me trip out even harder. Like "Whoa, what the f**k? They were? What am I doing?" And the fact that there's new John Coltrane music coming out soon is crazy.

Speaking of posthumous music.

Yeah, exactly. See? That's a tricky one but I ain't mad. 

How do you feel like your childhood or your family connections influenced your love of music or your relationship with it?

Oh, so much. Even though they didn't get the sh*t when it first came out. It's not like when my sh*t dropped they were like all about it or fully understood it. It was still like, "What the f**k is this? What are you doing? This sounds like you're hitting garbage cans over and over again." It's the classic thing you're supposed to hear as a young musician trying to find your way, even from this family of avant-garde thinkers. Eventually they came around.

But I will say, the thing that was most inspiring was seeing that it was real. That it could happen. I think that's the difference for a lot of artists, is that they don't have anyone near them in their vicinity that is a success in that field. My mom wasn't mad that I was pursuing music because she was like, "Well, we know people who it worked out for." But I'm sure it's not the same for everyone. I'm very grateful for that especially.

Where it's encouraged versus the, "Oh, you want to be a musician?" kind of attitude parents can give.

Exactly. I had a little bit of support early on and that made a huge difference, I'm sure. My aunt, she supported me 130% in anything I wanted to do. There were moments where I was like, "I want to program video games, auntie." She was like, "Okay, well here's the computer, Steve." "Really?" Then I was like, "Hey, auntie, I want to be a filmmaker." "Okay, well here's the camera." My aunt was beyond believing in me, it was crazy. She knew there was something. I was going to do something. She treated me like that at least.

When did you first start making music? What was your first instrument?

I started playing saxophone when I was 14. That's how it started. My aunt gave me the saxophone. It was like, "I have to go to middle school now and I have to take and elective." "Oh, you should be in the band and play the sax." Little bit of pressure, but no problem. I played for a while and I didn't feel like that was me, but I did enjoy it while I was doing it. I think if I was playing cooler music in middle school, high school, I would have really stuck with it. But the music was not so inspiring.

And when you were a kid, did you think you would go into music professionally? What was your dream future self when you were younger?

I never really imagined it to be like that. I never imagined I'd be on stage, that's for sure. I did imagine being Dr. Dre-ish, being the guy behind the scenes making beats and stuff. I did see that for myself when I was like 14, 15. I loved that Dre was the cool guy in the background who was making those ill melodies and dark beats and stuff. I was like, "Ooh, that's totally me." He was the first kind of, "I want to do that." And then it's a trip to be in the same room with that cat sometimes. I'm like, what?

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SiR 2019

SiR

Photo: Christian San Jose

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SiR Is 'Chasing Summer' And, With A Little Help From Kendrick Lamar & Others, Making His Dreams Reality

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"It feels different, it feels evolved and it feels like a great direction. And I'm really proud of the work to say the least," the Inglewood singer/producer says of his vibey new album 
Ana Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Sep 24, 2019 - 3:08 pm

You may have already jammed out to SiR's big 2019 summer mood single, "Hair Down," featuring the one and only Kendrick Lamar. If so, you already have a good starting place for understanding who the smooth R&B singer/producer, born Sir Darryl Farris, from Inglewood is. The vibey track is driven by SiR's warm, rich vocals over a slow-bubbling trap beat, elevated even further into the golden summer sunset by Lamar's verse. It's confident but laid-back—two words which also describe the artist himself well—a true slow-burn of a fire track.

"Hair Down" is the first track and the lead single to SiR's third album, Chasing Summer, which he dropped during Labor Day Weekend, on Aug. 30. It is his second LP released since he was signed to heavy-hitting Los Angeles label Top Dawg Entertainment. As he explains, it sets the tone for the rest of the album and also marks a major point of growth in his musical career and self-confidence.

"This time I was more direct about what I wanted, and I think that's huge. Your intentions when you go into things have to be put in the forefront if it's important. So this time around when I went into sessions, I was very vocal about exactly what I wanted, and the sessions went a lot better when I did that," he recently told the Recording Academy over the phone.

You recently dropped Chasing Summer, which is just such a perfect mood as summer comes to an end. What has the experience of this release felt like for you?

Man, it's one of a kind. Being the type musician I am, I'm very involved with each release, and this one feels different than the last two. Everybody around me was locked in, not just me. All the musicians and all of my team, my management had the common goals set almost a year ago, and just were building on this idea. So, it feels different, it feels evolved and it feels like a great direction. And I'm really proud of the work to say the least.

That's amazing, and I'm sure that's a really just great feeling to sort of be marinating in right now.

Yeah. It's awesome. It's definitely new territory for me. I'm just trying to keep up with myself now, which is fun.

 "It's a very honest album, and I think that's a big reason why people gravitate towards it because I didn't really hold back this time around. I kind of made sure I was as honest as I could be and I think that's shining through for sure."

I love that. Can you speak to what your main vision for this album was?

The vision for the album is, it was all based off of my life on the road and all my experiences that I had accumulated over the last three or four years. With seeing my peers and just dealing with personal relationships, business relationships and trying to balance home and the road, and just my evolution as a human. I kind of put a lot of it into wax. It's a very honest album, and I think that's a big reason why people gravitate towards it because I didn't really hold back this time around. I kind of made sure I was as honest as I could be and I think that's shining through for sure.

I feel like it really does. I wanted to talk about the producers on the album. You worked with a handful of different people including Kal Banx and Sounwave from TDE as well as Boi-1da and a few others. How do you feel that working with these different creative minds helped challenge you and shape the trajectory of the album?

I'm going to answer this question, but I have a very specific thing about me that I really like. I work with people that want to work with me, so I don't chase beats; there's no rhyme or scheme. I didn't select certain people. I just put my head down and kept writing songs until we felt like we had a body of work. And then, what I do with most of my production is I'll get players to come in and add actual instrumentation to a good beat so that it has more life to it. I'm hands-on with all my mixes and masters. With all of the production, I was blessed to have really talented musicians around to help just elevate the sound, and I think that helps so much, man.

Working with cats like Boi-1da was an honor, of course, but I wouldn't hold him in higher regard than I would a Kal Banx, who damn near had six records on the album that he helped me produce and work on. So, I feel like everybody added their own sauce to it and it ended up being way bigger than I expected. But as far as like who produced what, I think that's not as important as the overall body of work, and we all knew that. With Kal, he wasn't worried when I told him I got a new base plate on the recipe. He didn't ask any questions, he just knew it was going to be saucy. You know what I mean?

I think, like I said, we all had a common goal. Once I laid out the plan and the vision for everybody, they were on board. So, we went into the every session with a specific goal in mind and we executed properly and I think it's going to pay off for all of us in the long run. I'm so excited for Kal. I'm excited to share this moment with him and see the response to his hard work, and it's all a blessing, really and truly.

It really seems like it was everything you would hope for in the studio, that everything is moving forward and flowing together, even with all the different people.

Yeah. I learned a lot from November and just how I kind of let a lot of people in the process in certain points where I didn't really necessarily mean to. This time I was more direct about what I wanted, and I think that's huge. Your intentions when you go into things have to be put in the forefront if it's important.

So this time around when I went into sessions, I was very vocal about exactly what I wanted, and the sessions went a lot better when I did that, and I think that helped give people an idea of what they should be doing when they come around. If you're a producer, I might not need you to make a whole beat, but I might need you to make these drums, or I might need you to play keys. Just be prepared to translate what I need, I'm not coming to you to get what you need. I produce myself, so I think this time around I was able to really fine-tune things the way I like, and it shows, man. This is my baby for sure. I feel like this is a very special project.

The album opens with "Hair Down," featuring Kendrick Lamar, which you also released as the lead single. Can you give a little bit of the backstory on that song and video and what it was like working with him?

That was probably the first song I wrote for the album that we were probably going use as a single. We usually don't try to shoot for singles, you know what I mean? When we're building a project, we'll make sure that the songs can all stand on their own two legs. As soon as I did that one, it just felt like what I wanted the album to look like, and to me it was the perfect starting point. It was the perfect launch point for what we were trying to accomplish, and I didn't get the [Lamar] verse until two months ago or something like that. I wrote that song probably a year ago while we were on the road at [TDE's 2018] Championship Tour.

That's not something you ask for. It was something that we talked about, but that's not something that you ask for. It's like the Jill Scott thing, I didn't really ask for that. You got to let them make that decision. I think with working with artists like Kendrick, Jill Scott and Lil Wayne, it's a blessing and I think I do everything I can to just make myself someone that people want to work with. I think I do a good job of standing on my own two feet, and that's something that I had to embrace over the last two years.

Just working with your idols is always awkward. It's weird. I met [Childish] Gambino at the BET awards. I wish I could take that back because it was so awkward, you know what I mean? And I still go through the everyday life stuff of I'm human and if I see somebody that I'm not used to seeing, it's going to be weird. This year, I had to really step outside of that and become SiR, and really accept that. I think it shined through when I sat and talked to people about the project, they were more open to it because I was more confident in myself, and that really helped a lot, just giving me that confidence. [Lamar's] conversations are more important to me than that verse ever will be. I'm appreciative of the verse for sure, but I can really say that's my mentor. This dude really takes care of his team and really cares about us, man. So, it's definitely a blessing to have him on deck.

And what would you say the biggest thing you learned from the collaborators on this project?

Spread love. Because I feel like most of them, they didn't have to do what they did. Miss Jill, she's getting so much love on her acting career, as she should be. She really doesn't need to feature on anything. All of these artists, they got their own things. People are looking for them and checking for them.

When I get on, if I'm ever in a position to bless somebody, and I feel like they are working hard and they've got their thing together, I definitely would want to be what they are to me. I'd want to be a blessing and give back to the community. They see that I'm a part of the same community, I have the same common goal with music. It's not me trying to get on or be a flashy type. It's not that. I really care about the music. So, I think they saw that and they wanted to reciprocate the same kind of love I'm trying to get off it.

That's all it's really about, is spreading love and giving back to what you want to see thrive and flourish. And I think they really see something in what we got going, and I was just lucky. I really feel like it's the right place at the right time, but I don't want to make it that simple. But I feel like they really are just spreading love, man, and they blessed me. I'm still in shock. I can't really process it. It's all new territory for me. It's lovely though. I don't take it for granted.

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How would you describe the L.A. music community now? From that explanation, it sounds very supportive and nurturing, but I'm interested in your perspective, whether it's just like that with TDE or just in your experience with who you've worked with.

L.A. is a weird place. It's very divided, with the people that are actually from L.A. to the people that come out here and claim L.A. The music industry's a weird place in general. I'm from L.A., so I definitely abide by the L.A. rules before I abide by the music industry rules. But when it comes to the music scene, there's a small community. What I'm learning is the further along I go in my career, the community gets smaller and smaller, and that's a great thing. You find people that are like-minded, and you got to let some friends go sometimes.

But for the most part, the goal is to find common ground that you can really build on. And I feel like I've found my community of people, from Mind Design to Kiefer to D.K. the Punisher to Kal Banx to all of my musician friends, The Catalyst, my band. My brothers, and just all of the musicians that I've been working with for the last 10 years, I still work with the same cats. L.A. is small, it's big, but at the time it's small, and I really want to keep it that way. I'd appreciate it if it stayed that way.

What does that summer mood look and sound like to you?

Well, summer mood has that sunset tint to it. It's like, to me, this album is best listened to riding down Malibu about six o'clock sunset. That's the vibe. I'm a Cali kid through and through, and I hope it translates through with the music. I think we hit it on the ball. If you want a glimpse at what summer's supposed to be, just take a listen to the album, close your eyes, and it should do the trick.

Stepping back, who are your biggest influences?

Oh man, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway. These are people that my mother listened to when I was growing up. I grew up in the church, so I love Fred Hammond and Noel Jones. I don't know if you know who Noel Jones is, he's a preacher from L.A., his voice is so crazy. My mom sang background for Chaka Khan back in the day, and Michael Jackson. So, I grew up with an ear to R&B for sure, from the '60s, '70s, '80s. Of course I have hip-hop influences, but my spectrum is wide. We could have a 30 minute conversation about all the music I listen to, I promise you.

Lately, I've been listening to a lot of The Beatles. "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" has been on repeat for a couple of weeks, then Innervisions [Wonder's 1973 album]. I go back and forth between [Wonder's] Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. Then, my real guilty pleasure is John Mayer, I'm a huge fan.

I love it.

I think with music, and this is my advice to young people, it's like careers almost, you won't know what you want until you taste a few things. I think Gary Gee says that. You got to taste things to know what you want to be. I feel like music is like that too. You can't just listen to country music because you're from the South. You've got to listen to something else just to try it. You don't know, you might like classical music. If you never listen, you will never know.

I did a lot of that when I was younger and I found my vibes for sure. But I listened to some stuff that people probably wouldn't expect. But I think that helps to shape me as a musician in general. I definitely don't shy away from exploring and trying to find different vibes that I really like. One of the most fun parts about music to me, is exploring and finding new things that you never would expect you to enjoy, you know? So, yeah, my spectrum is wide, it's a rainbow for sure.

Growing up in a musical family, how do you feel like that impacted your journey to becoming an artist?

I can't really explain it because it's weird for me to be the artist in my family. I still wake up and kind of laugh because I never expected this. When I was younger, I didn't want to do music. When I was 14, my mom would make us sing in church every Sunday, and I got sick of it. That's when I kind of decided I didn't want to do music. I went on about my life, at about 19, 20 started working dumba** jobs and that turned into me wanting to find something that I was passionate about, and turns out it music was it all along. I had to step away to kind of find it for myself.

But I started really getting serious about music when I was 22, and then I ended up going to school, graduated in 2011 from film school, and just never looked back from there. I think that was what I needed was to really find it for myself, because my brothers' all sing or write songs, and my mother is still active in the industry, and they always said it was what we needed to be doing. I just had to see it for myself and I think that made me a better musician. My life experiences helped shape how I write songs. I appreciate my time away from music, but also I'm glad I found my way back because I don't know what I'd be if I wasn't a musician. I'd probably be—let's not even talk about that.

I'm blessed. My family is amazing. My brother is an amazing singer/songwriter. My older brother Daniel, he's an amazing rapper and he's the writer, and we're all supportive of each other. I know that I probably wouldn't be where I am today without the support of my family and them pushing me to be a better writer and a better musician.



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You come back to where you're supposed to be at some point. You touched on it a little when you talked about your influences, but what advice do you have for younger people that have a passion for music but aren't really sure where to start to pursue music professionally?

Don't be afraid to be wack. Don't be afraid to fall on your a**. You got to start somewhere. But it's just like anything else in life, and I could preach this to the ends of the earth. It doesn't matter what you decide to do or when you decide to do it, but it's about staying dedicated to it and really working at what you want. If you want something then put it in the universe. Write it on a piece of paper, say it every day when you wake up and just don't worry about when it's going to happen. Just keep working.

I think that's the best thing I ever did for myself. I put my head down, I shut the f*** up and I worked for five years on music, and didn't try to release anything, didn't try to do anything. I got to the point where I was so ready to go that I had three projects worth of music ready to go, and we started with Seven Sundays and from there worked our way into being with TDE and all that.

I really developed my craft first and made sure I was confident in what I wanted to hear. So, I think for anybody that wants it, just don't be afraid to fail, and keep working at it. It's not easy, none of this is. But I feel like if you want something, you can just really work at it and it'll come. You just got to be willing to f***ing eat dirt and mud for a little bit. Eventually, hard work pays off, no matter what you do. If you want to sell ice cream, sell ice cream every day. Get up, get your cones right, make sure your freezer's at the right temperature, make sure your music's playing and hit the block and get on that ice cream.

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