"Although I didn't write this song, it spoke to me in a way that made me feel as if it was my own story,” Brandon said. “I found myself playing it over and over again in my bedroom, remembering situations that I've been through.”
Check out the video for yourself below.
For Joji, this contrast has proven to be at the crux of what makes his presence so relatable and special. After 2018 mega-hit "Slow Dancing in the Dark" jolted him to the top of the Billboard R&B charts, fans everywhere naturally wondered what his next move would be. Is he this internet jokester? Or is he a meticulous and focused artist whose cultural sensibilities know no bounds?
Luckily, Joji doesn't have to choose between the two. His sophomore album, Nectar, out this Friday, is a sprawling body of work that cements him as a one-of-a-kind artist who is here to stay. At 18 tracks, and with features from heavyweights such as Diplo, Lil Yachty, Omar Apollo, Yves Tumor, and BENEE, the album rejects any preconceived notions of the "sophomore slump." Nectar feels like Joji's big debut as a bonafied star, and somehow, he still makes it all seem so effortless.
Joji stars in our September digital cover below.
I’ve read your production is influenced by FX artists. How do you incorporate that approach to sound in your music? What FX designs have been influential for you?
To be honest, I was into the FX stuff a few years ago, but it’s not in my field of interest at the moment. I still very much appreciate it but I don’t put much of it into my music. I might go full on FX when I’m older though and just do that kind of stuff.
The sophomore album has the potential to be the make or break moment in a musician’s career. Coming off the success of Ballads 1, how did you approach recording Nectar?
I can’t think about it like that. Each album is its own distinctive project. I finish one then I move on to the next and try to make it bigger and better. And when that’s done, I move on to the next.
Did you feel the need to go in a different direction? It’s a little early to tell, but from the singles, it sounds like you might be putting the Joji spin on more hi-fi, glossed up R&B/pop.
With the Joji music I usually just follow the demand and my own personal taste and see if there's a workable balance in there. If there is, I apply it. I wouldn't say that I start a song looking for a certain genre, I just focus on creating in a way that feels right to me and look for things that people will enjoy from these Joji projects.
What would you say Nectar is about? What does the title mean?
Long story short, there were some ants that formed a powerful assembly line from my electrical socket to my freezer. I assume they were trying to get ice cream. When they finally made their way in, I’m guessing they couldn’t get out or they froze to death before they had the chance to get out, because one day the assembly line was gone and I opened the freezer and the whole colony had frozen to death in there. I remember picking up a handful and thinking they looked like coffee grounds. It just fucked me up for a day or so, but the next day I showed a bunch of people and we started saying “Nectar... what are you willing to do for it?” in a deep voice over and over again. So what started as a joke then became a, “What will you do for your nectar?” idea. It was so funny at the time and it just grew from that kind of a dark concept.
In a handful of your music videos, space appears as a reoccurring setting or destination. For example, in “Run,” you stumble through a never-ending limo, hurdling manifestations of the glitz and glam of fame, until you eventually break out, only to wake up—alone—on a space ship. Can you speak a bit about this video and what it means to you?
I thought space was just a cool idea to explore. No different from the other themes. I think the video in “Run” was just a nightmare about the world in general, or “earth”. This character is actually named Dr. Wallace. In the “Gimme Love” video, he’s holding a certificate in a very quick shot. The quality is poor, but it says Dr. Wallace. I’m assuming he bounced from earth and fucked everyone over to get away. Maybe he knew something, maybe he was just psycho, maybe he caused it, maybe he knew the solution, we don’t know.
In “Run,” this same guy is just running through an endless limousine and it seems like a nightmare. The people and surroundings look weird and it just won’t end. I think it was meant to comment on the silly materialistic lifestyles that a lot of people strive for as everything else we know goes downhill. A lot of people also might look at some of this stuff and say, “I want to leave this planet.” I think we see this in the endlessness of the limo as he gets more concerned about never getting out. Luckily, it was just a horrible nightmare from the past, and the character wakes up on his empty ship far, far away from earth. He walks over to where his “earth bag” is and pulls out a photo of what seems to be his car and favorite view. He then throws the photo and the car keys across the flight deck after considering returning home in a moment of weakness.
Maybe he knows he will have nobody to enjoy it with, maybe he knows people won’t understand, maybe earth is just gone, maybe he’s a psychopath and hates everyone, maybe he was trying to find a cure. One thing we know for certain is that he is reassured (especially after that nightmare) that he has no need to ever go back or care. He’s made his bed.
In other videos, you seemed to have repurposed your knack for the dark, but comically absurd. You’ve presented yourself as a Satyr in a tux, you’ve driven through the desert on a moped while wearing a wedding dress, and you’ve chained yourself to the bottom of an empty swimming pool dressed like a giant Muppet. How do you come up with these ideas?
I wish I had a cool answer to that. I just write the stuff down as I think of it and then try to execute it with the intent of making it into a great product. Honestly it sucks that I have to be in these videos because I'd rather be the director watching some poor sap do it all instead! One day, one day...
What music did you grow up listening to?
A lot of nu metal from age 7-12, mostly rap music from 12-16, and then a silly (but important) hipster phase at 16-18 where I rediscovered older music and searched for “weirder” sounding stuff.
What was the most recent song you listened to? Is there music you’re consistently going to at the moment?
There’s no one song or type of music that I’ve been listening to. I’ve just been bumping other people’s playlists. I don’t even know what I want to listen to a lot of the time. I’m quite spontaneous in that sense, and I like to mix it up. I don’t even know what I want to hear right now!
A lot of your music’s energy seems to be created by the tension of its own conflicting elements: In “No Fun,” for example, the aesthetics are light, polished, and bubbly, but the lyrics (like “I run, I run, I run, and I don’t have no more dreams... feel dead, but I feel my bones”) say something darker. What do you think this conflict achieves?
At the time (2018) I think the youth of the day really enjoyed the edgy “Haha kidding but not really kidding” concept. I think that song was just catering to people who felt that way. I personally feel great and my bones are fine too, thanks very much.
You’ve mentioned that you have philanthropic goals—how does your music support those efforts? And can you talk a little bit about what those goals are?
Well, personally, I'm not entirely comfortable speaking publicly about it because I don't want to seem disingenuous. I feel like it’s just great for people to help whenever and wherever they can.
How do you plan on celebrating your new album?
Get a full night’s SLEEEEEEEEEP.
Who are your favorite producers?
I have a lot of favorite producers but I'm looking to refresh that list. The soundscape is changing, it’s time to see who adapts the best!
Was there a moment in your musical career that told you, “Yeah, I can do this?”
I don’t like to think about it from such a personal angle, because I don’t want to get my own hopes up. I tend to see it more as just "Do your job.” I’m very lucky to be here and I do not take it for granted.
After the release of Nectar are you going to take a breather and enjoy the finished project? Or are you one to immediately jump into the next thing?
I have to jump into the next thing, but I’ll definitely try and do some nature shit if there’s some time in between hehe.
Today, Dana Dentata announces her signing with Roadrunner Records, becoming the first female solo artist signed to the label. Her upcoming album, Pantychrist, is set for release in 2021. Next week on October 8th, she will release a single, "Do U Like Me Now?"
The LA based artist’s ascension has only just begun. Read our conversation below.
Where are you from?
I’m from Toronto, Canada.
What led you to do music? And what led you to performing/stripping?
Music? I always wanted to do music, like, wanted to be Britney Spears when I was little. But there was a really good music scene in Toronto, like, there were a lot of really good bands at the time. I don’t know how it is now, but there were sick bands and good musicians. Everyone was such a good musician, and I wanted to be in a band so bad, and all these dudes were such sick musicians… It kinda made me… it sharpened my teeth because I wanted to be as good as these guys were. So, I had a band. Do you know about my band, Dentata?
Yeah, I do.
So that’s how it started for me, I was doing that band. I was dating a guy in a band and he had a bass player, a girl, and she was sick, and I stole her. And started my band.
What about performing? How did that come to be?
That’s all I wanted to do when I was in school. I actually just found this out because I have so much trauma, that I black out a lot of memories: I talked to this girl I was friends with in kindergarten to grade 4, before I moved, and I remembered that we would do bingo nights and at recess we would perform as Spice Girls or, like, S Club 7, and we would do choreography. I was like, “Yeah, ‘member we used to do that?” She was like, “Yeah, you made us all do that and taught us all the choreography, and we only did it because you liked it so much” I did not remember that at all, I thought we all wanted to do it, but I guess I was just like, “We’re gonna have a girl group.”
That’s funny. What are some of your earliest music memories?
Seeing Britney Spears live. My mom took me to see her twice. So I saw the Baby, One More Time! tour. I forget what the other tour was, but it was fucking crazy; the production was insane. She was doing all this shit with these mirrors and everything. Even in the Baby, One More Time! Tour, she had a whole, like, skit that played out before, which… I appreciate that sort of stuff. It was so sick to see because I felt so intense before she came on, and I always held onto that because that’s such an amazing feeling, you know?
Yeah, and then like, the albums I remember: I remember my mom buying my Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water album by Limp Bizkit at Costco, and then I remember there was a guy selling bootleg CD’s out of a van, and my mom bought me Get Rich or Die Tryin’ by 50 Cent.
Hell yeah.
And those were my favorites.
Is Dana Dentata an alter ego?
Yeah, it is, it’s funny you ask that, because I always knew it was and didn’t really understand it. I just figured I was an artist and became somebody else when I was on stage, and that girl’s not me, and it never was me. I think I created somebody because in my real life, the real me, was like going through a lot of trauma, and so I think I created her to be my sort of protector. To be something I wasn’t. Like, no one rapes the girl with a pussy with teeth.
Sort of escapist but also someone to be inspired by?
Totally, she became what I actually wanted to be. That’s what’s so crazy about where I’m at in my life right now, is that I’m actually becoming her, now. It makes me emotional ‘cause I didn’t know what that alter ego was, and then recently in the last six months, I’ve been in therapy pretty heavy the last year. Really staying on top of learning myself and everything, and I actually have Dissociative Identity Disorder, where you have multiple alter egos, and since I’ve been diagnosed with that and working with my therapist with that, now I’m understanding all the different ones, all their names, what they’re like, and how to nurture them and use them to my advantage.
Wow, that’s dope.
It’s been really powerful.
Is the demon that appears in your videos, is he another part of you, or he is more so representing “Man”?
I think it’s both. I think that I’ve experienced trauma in my life, but from men, I’ve experienced sexual abuse from men since the age of sixteen, and it’s been consistent, ‘cause you know once it happens, it’s all you know, and it’s all I ever knew. All I ever knew were demons, and that’s the men that are around me, and definitely every mother fucker in my life, except for the last four months ‘cause I’m good now… All those demons are all I know and it was a part of me.
I’ve seen shamans and all kinds of healers and stuff. This 80-year-old man shaman dude said that I invite the darkness in, and I fully agree with that. The demons—I was trying to show everyone what I was going through, but I wasn’t fully admitting to myself what it really was and what I was reenacting, like, I couldn’t even admit to myself. And once I knew, it taught me so much, because I’m like, Wow, I am inviting in all this darkness. Art imitated life. The demons, the music behind the demons is a fuckin’ nightmare, yo. The people that do that… crazy. It brought in all kinds of darkness in my life, and shitty people, and yeah, I’ve learned a lot about manifestation for sure.
I definitely feel like people’s energies are so powerful, and if you’re not in the best place, it’s harder to invite positivity in… So, how was Dana Dentata born, and when?
The thing was, I never was like, “I’m gonna be Dana Dentata,'" I just wanted my band to be called Dentata. ‘Cause I thought, like, Dentata sounds like Nirvana, plus it has the perfect meaning. We got together and started writing songs, and they were all just like bad boy and shitting on men, like every song, and then the band was Dentata. Then I guess ‘cause my name is Dana, people would just call me Dana Dentata. I was definitely her, but I was still kind of going by my real name. I was her when I was on stage, but I didn’t fully understand her. That was just trauma enactment and me wanting to do music so fucking bad, but being scared to sing and be vulnerable, so I had my hair in my face, and guitar, and I’m like BLEHHH! But I wanted to be there, but I don’t know, I wasn’t whole. I was a little baby, like 18, and 19, I look at videos of myself like that and I’m like, This little child, you know? Like, Go to bed, before 12.
But now I feel… 2018 I got out of this three year super abusive relationship. He made me into this robot stepford wife person, I was unrecognizable. I’d always wanted a mullet, and he would be like, You’d look so fucking ugly with a mullet, I’d leave you. So I was like, I’m not gonna do dat. When it was over between us, I needed to do that for myself. Get a mullet. I was modeling since I was 14 and they made me cut all my hair off, shaved head like a boy, basically, and I would wear a hood all through high school. My hair is a thing for me, I think. Then, I grew it SUPER long. And it’s been emotional. So I cut my hair in a mullet. I got home, and it was the weirdest experience. I thought that the hairdresser hated me and wanted me to look ugly, and actually gave me the ugliest haircut in the world, and I was the ugliest human being in the fucking world. And I was like crying. I was staying with this couple, these two women who have been in my life since I was 19—I call them my earth mothers, because they’re my moms on earth… I was crying to them, She hates me! Crying, crying, crying. At one point I looked in the mirror and I snapped, and then I realized that I had been looking at myself through that man’s eyes and not looking at myself as me. All of a sudden it shifted back and I saw myself as me for the first time in years. And I was like, damn, I look sick, this is tight. And then I was like, oh shit, wait, I’m cool, that guy’s a loser.
I resonate with that.
You got a haircut?
When you’re in something abusive, when it’s over, you have to take yourself back in these small ways—doing what you want with your hair, body hair, whatever. It takes a while to stop seeing yourself through their eyes.
So you know what I mean!! All you see is hatred for yourself, basically.
And that shit lasts. The processing of it all takes years.
Yeah, I thought I was all good, but it comes back.
Especially since quarantine, you’re forced to really think about shit and deal with it, when it was much easier to distract oneself before.
The last couple months, you’ve really had to look at your own shit.
So you’re releasing a conceptual performance piece this fall: The Resurrection of Dana Dentata. Will you discuss this a bit?
Yeah, it’s… oh my god… It’s what we were talking about before, like, I had this intention to do this because… May 4th, I had a spiritual awakening. May 6th, I was supposed to shoot that resurrection. It was all set to go, everyone’s ready, the whole team, it’s all booked, everything. Sometimes before I do a show, like with the demon, the last time I did it, I didn’t sleep for five days before. I’m not on drugs, I’m not tired, I’m just so fuckin’ on, I’m so manic, I just wanna listen to music and get stoked on everything and talk to someone all night. I thought that was just me on my Kanye genius shit. So that happened, I stayed up for 5 days and then I did an amazing show that I was proud of. Anyway, I started to feel it happening again when I was getting ready to do this resurrection. The resurrection… I really wanted to have the final sacrifice of the demon and murder him and end this narrative in my art. I understand how much darkness it’s brought in. The last two years I’ve lived in LA have been full of demons and absolutely horrible for me—the real me. Dana Dentata’s great, but the real me… she has had a very hard time out here with people being shitty and deceptive. Yeah, so I wanted to kill the demons. Demons, demons, demons, I’m so done with that, I’ve shown my point, I want the darkness out of my life. I don’t want any more shitty people, shitty guys. Maybe if I start manifesting better things and get rid of the darkness, then better things will start to happen.
This whole performance is set up... There’s the two angels that come and save me, because the last time I did it he destroyed my wings as rape simulation, and I died, so this time I wanted him to fucking die. So I can come back to life. Two days before it’s set to go, I didn’t eat or sleep or drink water for seven days. The manic thing was happening again. I was telling my therapist, something’s happening again… I couldn’t even get her on the phone because I was so crazy I couldn’t even work my phone. I thought I was on my genius artist shit, but that’s really sick and unhealthy and I was really sad and lost and confused. Didn’t understand what was happening to me.
One night, I had a very insane spiritual awakening. I have a connection to spirits, and my mom who passed away when I was 14, I have a very strong bond with her, spiritually, and her presence is around me. And other presences come around me, too. But I wasn’t in that headspace to even think about anything like that, ‘cause I was like, I’m fucking spiraling, I’m gonna do a show, and then some crazy shit happened. I saw things and felt things… I left my body, and two angels came and took me up into the universe and showed me the earth and the world. I could zoom like Google Maps onto my house where all the bad things happened to me as a kid.
I got to watch all the things that even after seven months in therapy, going to the police about somebody, details that I left out because I blacked it out so hard my whole life… Even when I’d go to the police I’d leave out parts because that’s part of the dissociation disorder. It’s buried so deep that I didn’t know a lot of things, there were a lot of dots I couldn’t connect. Things I didn’t understand about why I wasn’t getting better, even though I was doing a lot in therapy. I saw it all, and I got shown all this information. Afterwards, ever since, I’ve been able to diagnose myself and get insane treatment. I did a four hour sexual trauma healing with a body healer woman two weeks ago. I have a vocal trauma empowerment coach because you store trauma in your vocal chords and it fucks up your chakras and your breathing. I’ve been understanding the weight of what I went through now that I know.
I could put a demon on a mattress for everyone to see, but I couldn’t understand what I was actually reenacting. My art made my trauma come out in a way where I’ve been able to completely change my life in every aspect. I’ve focused on… And thank god for Corona for me, with the timing, because I’ve never had time to focus on therapy and healing, and calming my central nervous system, all these things that we don’t think about because we’re on the go ‘cause we’re all just trying to survive.
Wow. The arc of Dana Dentata really does mirror your own arc then; she’s about to be reborn, and you’ve had a kind of rebirth as of late. How does your upcoming album, Pantychrist, differ from your past work?
Just to say, Pantychrist is not anti-Christ. It's being the Christ of your womb, it's actually pro Christ. But, well, every song I’ve ever made has been grasping at straws to get music out ‘cause I’ve just been like, I need it now, I’m late, no one gets me, blah blah blah, all the stems are always mixing… My shit’s a mess. I perform with fucking mp3’s because everyone’s always lost my shit. It’s mishandled, people make music with me, not with the intention of making music with me, but the intention of having a form of control with me after. That’s happened a lot. With Pantychrist, I’ve had this title for over a year now because I didn’t really know what it meant, but I knew I wanted to manifest that the album would be me being the complete, fulfilled, whole, invincible, superhero version of myself. And that’s what Pantychrist would be. This indestructible person that you can’t kill because you’ve already killed me and I came back. I said that out loud, wanted it and everything. But now, it’s like, I’m well into it now. I’ve been working on it for a while. Ever since I’ve been able to have that shift of consciousness for myself, ever since I asked to have angels around me, everyone in my life right now is a fucking angel. Like angels are just coming in. I’m working on my album with this artist named King Woman, her name is Kris, and my engineer, and it’s like, I don’t know, they are helping me… She was like, let’s get a really nice place and focus on it and record and treat it like it’s important. I’ve never had anything like that, I’ve never had support around me, I’ve never had anyone I could trust ever, I’m always just like a lone wolf, going from studio to studio hoping I don’t get sexually assaulted. Pretty much… that’s been like the last ten years of making music for me. Like, Maybe I’ll get a song, and maybe they won’t use it to manipulate me after! With Pantychrist, I also just feel like I created my own safe space within Pantychrist. I have a safe space home now; I didn’t have a safe space to live before this year. Now I do, now I’m healing. I only let people in that care whether I live or die. That’s the only people I want in my life.
I feel like I created that safe space to let a lot of things come out. It’s the first time I’m writing music not dissociated. I would write songs on acoustic guitar as a teenage girl and not realize that that’s how I would talk about my trauma. And I didn’t know. Now that I’ve flipped out of it since May, I can look back at my “discography” that no one’s heard except me, it’s like the most morbid shit where I’m like, Woah, I didn’t even notice this, I had no idea what I was doing, and now I know absolutely what I’m doing, and I’m doing everything with intent as my fully healed self, as the real me, and I’m manifesting things, in the songs, for this album, not for just me but for all of us who are wounded and want redemption. I want that for all of us, and I feel like I’m doing a good job so far.
That’s great to hear. If your narrative with the demon is coming to an end, do you know what direction you’re moving towards with Dana Dentata?
I don’t know, I feel like it’s happening, the transformation is happening. My life is really changing in a lot of ways right now, there’s a lot going on, and things are happening that I never thought would happen in my life. I’m kind of enjoying every day that I’m feeling safe, ‘cause I’ve never felt safe. I think it’s gonna come out whatever it is, but whatever it is, is going to be looking toward and reaching toward the light always. And angel energy… because I have played with darkness for a very long time, and I don’t wanna do that anymore. I’m done.
The next year, Brown took ZelooperZ on tour with him, along with Lucki. “I was on some really turnt up high shit, and Lucki was on some low shit. We're opposites, but we're cool as fuck,” ZelooperZ explains. Their careers have had similar paths, too: they both emerged in the early 2010s, received moderate acclaim at first, stayed true for the next few years, and finally blew up when the world came around. This trek makes ZelooperZ a bit of an OG, but also an up-and-comer, because his largest rise is happening right now.
ZelooperZ’s latest project, Moszel Offline, is a nine-track mixtape packed tight with breakneck tread-style bangers, executively produced by F1LTHY from the red-hot Philly collective Working On Dying. ZelooperZ paints now too, and he sells custom pieces to fans via Twitter. Right now, he’s finishing up a series of works for 1XRUN, a local gallery in Detroit.
office spoke to ZelooperZ to gather insight into his upcoming album, turbulent career, and recipe for Moszel Offline.
What’s up, man?
I just got done shipping some vinyls and some paintings. Now I'm trying to get my brain ready to paint some more shit, and I'm finalizing some mixes for my next project, which will probably drop in the wintertime.
What! You just dropped Moszel Offline, and two videos, last week!
I'm always on the next shit. It just don't stop.
How did Moszel Offline come about?
I always wanted to do some shit outside of my group that was fast, and me and F1LTHY made that project fast as hell. I wanted to tap in with a different side of people. The music is raunchy, but it's technical too. The name, Moszel Offline, is about shutting off, while you listen to it, but at the same time, you're being turned on to some other shit. You’re turning over the engine. I'm shutting off the shit that you [typically] hear for this next shit. But only you know that.
That's sick. What did “Moszel” come from?
That's my middle name. My best friend Matrax’s name on instagram is @matraxoffline, so I just stole his shit. He always say I steal his swag, so I wanted to steal some more shit from him.
What did “ZelooperZ” come from?
It came from the art classroom. My friends made it up. It was just “Zeloop” at first, then I added the second part. We were in a group in class, and then I ended up getting suspended for drawing some shit I shouldn't have drawn, about a teacher, and the name stuck from there. I don't know where I got the extra “erz,” but I just ran with it.
That makes so much sense for you. You had a raw moment and you ran with it.
Yeah, that's the whole thing. You got to do that. It's fun and it's scary. It's treacherous, but at the same time, if your life is already treacherous, you don't think about the shit you run with. When I ran with that, I didn't really think about it. I'm just a runner, I'mma run it up.
What’s your writing and recording process like?
Most of the time I sit and write the song while the beat is being made. And then I'll go in and freestyle the first thing that comes to mind, and then finish it off with the written, or vice versa. It doesn't really have a process, it's just to get it out. If I think too hard, it’s not going to be the right message. Most of the time I'm done writing before the beat is even done. And every day there's a new vibe. I be talking about cornbread, and then the next ten songs over, I'm talking about looking at Hawaii's motherfucking skyline at night, the stars. I'm getting everything out because there’ll be a day when I'm like, “Oh yeah, I got that cornbread song,” and it's gon’ be funny to me, it's gon’ make me smile. It ain't always for everybody.
What's your biggest goal with your music or art?
I'm going to own a gallery one day. Probably one in Detroit, and one somewhere hot, probably Miami. Maybe one overseas too, if we could get that shit back open that would be dope. I just want it to have different artists from around the world. I also want to own a gallery just to have my name on that shit, so when I die, that bitch still there.
What role would you say Detroit plays in modern rap?
We're the best, and I'm not just saying that because I'm from there. Everywhere I go, they're playing our shit. We good, we charismatic, we funny, gritty, hard. Everybody wants to look like us. Everybody wears Cartier glasses, to a point where I don't wear Cartier glasses no more. I switched to Chrome Hearts, and now watch everybody else switch. In Detroit, we set trends, that's just what we do. But I feel like everybody is coming together and using each other's juice to come up, which is cool as hell because nobody's trying to be too hard, or too goofy, everybody's just finding their balance. It's cool seeing everybody doing their thing.
Definitely. I feel like Detroit's always been super versatile too, and like you're definitely a great example of that, between your music and your art. How do you decide what medium to express yourself in?
I can get inspired by a song, a joke, a phrase, and it'll make me run upstairs and record. But what makes me paint is good ideas, good money, and good people. You gotta be a good person for me to hop up and paint, and you gotta pay good money. And most of the time, it’s good person before good money. Just come with a dog ass idea, and it’ll be dope. I love experimenting, and commissions always invite new people into my world who teach me about shit. I don't watch all that anime shit, but I do like the colors that they be asking me to paint. I'm self-taught, so most of the shit I learn, I learn from my people.
How would you say you’ve evolved since your initial breakout in 2012?
I wasn't playing the game. Now I've matured a lot just because I know how to handle situations better. At first I wasn't really into talking to people. I hated doing interviews, but today, I feel more smooth. Most of the time I'd be too nervous to talk. And where I'm from we don't speak on certain shit. So when somebody would interview me, I would always resort to something that wouldn't get me in trouble, so I ended up not speaking on a lot of shit going on in my life. It’s the same thing with my music. I'm kind of, like, opening up now, just really trying to get people to understand me.
That’s beautiful. It seems like people are finally starting to get it. You never switched up or sold out, the world just finally caught up.
I’ve been saying the same shit. I'm just re-rocking myself. Ain't no need to go do something else when I already created my own essence. Now that more people are getting put on, more people are getting used to being themselves. They’re just getting more comfortable with the shit I already been on.
I love that. And you’ve been going so hard since the beginning.
Yeah, because I died on that shit. When you give yourself to something that you love, you understand that. You don’t have nothing else. You don't even got nothing to eat; all you got is that song that you recorded. You're starving, but you can eat that song for the day. Little shit like that kept me going. Right now, during this corona shit, there’s a weird kind of smirk I get because everybody’s in this same kind of predicament, and my life's been like this. I done had recessions in my life, droughts, and hardships to where we couldn't even fend for ourselves. So this is not nothing new for me. But it’s fucked up because everybody has different tensions and tolerances and some people can’t take it. I'm blessed and humbled to be able to still work and have the same energy about shit.
Absolutely. And it’s wild to see how COVID has exposed everyone’s true colors, especially musicians—some are grinding harder, some are giving up.
Some people didn't need to do this shit in the beginning. If you doing this shit for monetary value, you shouldn't do it. If you're not doing this for the love of it, if you aint got no heart in it, you shouldn't do it.
Now, in 2020, you're like a glue between so many different worlds. Like for me, I got into F1LTHY and Working On Dying from early Black Kray songs, who I discovered at a Yung Lean show, and following Danny Brown led me to Bruiser Brigade, which led me to you. Now F1LTHY just produced your album, and you’ve been rapping with Earl Sweatshirt, who went to highschool with me. You're bringing so many different fan bases together just by being yourself.
Everybody was always tapped in with me in different ways, but I wasn't paying attention. I think I was too fried. But then I realized I gotta tap in with these people. They already show love to me, and it's fun as fuck when you can connect with people on a different basis than music. We talk about clothes. We talk about life. We talk about relationships and shit. I'd rather have that than the music anyway.
