A Butterfly in Disguise: Billyracxx Will Melt Your Face
Hello! How are you?
Pretty good, pretty good, nice to meet you.
So, where are you right now?
I’m in Houston.
How has your quarantine been going?
It’s been good, I mean, I’ve been using it more as inspiration. It feels like it’s lifted a little bit, but this whole time I’ve been using it as inspiration. I haven’t let it slow me down creatively.
How did you find music? What brought you here today?
I actually put this out there in documentaries, like I just put a documentary up, a collaboration with Tiny Door, they did a profile on me... They asked me that same question, and I was basically just saying, I hadn’t done music all my life. I don’t have any people in my family who do music. Most people’s story is like, I been around music my whole life. I started music 5 years ago. I was in college, and I would go and smoke a blunt every now and then with the homies. They were rapping. I’ve been a fan of hip hop, a fan of music, period, but just on a fan level. I had no interest in being an artist. I went home one day and wrote something, came back and just rapped a verse. It wasn’t like I was the best at that time, but I loved how my voice sounded on it. I’m very passionate about certain things, and I tend to go crazy on something when I’m passionate about it. It was just luck of timing. Mixed with how I am and finding music, it was just the right time and it just caught me. I just started going crazy and before I knew it, it spiraled out of control. Before I knew it, I was deep into it, just off of that one day.
What are some early influences for your music, musical or otherwise?
I’m really subconsciously influenced by a lot of stuff. My first idea has always been being a caricature of myself or who I am. I’m a millennial, so growing up, we see artists differently than maybe generation X may see artists. When we see an artist, they really embody an artist; they’re their own person. I came into music, like, I’m gonna be something whole, that’s just me, that’s just Billyracxx. So I think I’m just subconsciously influenced because I was a fan for so long before I even thought about doing music. So we’re talkin’ bout Busta Rhymes, Lil Wayne, Ms. Lauren Hill, Missy Elliot, Andre 3000, Cee Lo, Snoop Dogg… It’s certain people in the R&B and hip hop culture or that type of black culture type box. Those are kinda the ones that influenced me. But then there’s other types of stuff like scary movies and rock videos, all types of different stuff…
So tell me about the butterfly motif born in your two-part EP, “Butterflies Pt. 1” and “Butterflies Pt. 2”… What do the wings of the monarch butterfly mean to you?
The butterfly thing came all the way to fruition when I was getting ready to go to London. When I got there, I just started seeing the word butterfly, because I felt like, when I shot the video there, in every scene I was just like a butterfly. I’m not from there, but everyone I met, all the artists I linked up with there, they kind of see me on that grand scale that I see myself. So I was like, Damn, I feel like a butterfly out here. Then it kind of turned into: Nobody knows what a butterfly sounds like, but you notice it when it comes around. Like, really, everytime a butterfly comes around, you see it, you notice it. It’s a good sign of luck; it’s a beautiful thing, but we don’t know what they sound like. So that’s kinda like me, in music. My influence has gone so organically without any cosign or without anything. Anytime I come around, any type of music or job or artist in the rap culture but just on another spot than me, they still recognize, even fans, it’s kinda like I stand out. But the sound is different, you’re still getting used to it. You’re still trying to understand it, but it’s beautiful. So I created this sound project off that idea.
What does being the creative director for all of your projects entail?
It’s the whole picture being painted to the fans on all levels: branding, merch, videos, music, the whole vibe, how it all relates together, all of that. You have a lot of artists who have someone painting that picture for them, but for me, it comes all the way, everything from me. I think it makes your story more true. It makes it more transparent.I’ve been doing this since I started. I never was going to have no part of my business solely in someone else's hands. It’s natural for me at this point. Creative direction is coming up with everything that involves your branding… being able to see it.
So it’s all coming from you, and that feels more genuine.
Yeah, it’s more true. Some people call it weird. A lot of people call me a lot of different things, but at the end of the day it’s me.
What is your writing and creative process like?
I’m really fluid both ways. I got this song called “Wonderland” that’s probably one of my most timeless records. The reason I know that is ‘cause I dropped that in 2016, and it still makes its way to being super relevant to my fans. Every other day, they’re posting something about “Wonderland.” So, that song was actually written. But then I got a lot of crazy songs that are just vibe oriented. I go into the studio, and I start breaking the record down, just doing it. They’re both forms of writing, but one- you’re at your house or you’re just on your own time, or you’re maybe writing to the beat inside the studio, and the other way is to just be at the mic and be in the moment. To be literally in the moment, you don’t write anything to the beat. I embrace both of those ways because they both relate to my life. I’m not in the studio everyday. Sometimes I’m on a plane, shooting a video, or maybe just kickin it, but then when I’m in the studio it’s like Game Time.
What picture are you painting with your upcoming single, “Melt my Face”?
Going into genre bending and making my voice be heard on a louder and broader level. I got some songs that are that same vibe that are following up that record that are probably a little bit more conscious. This record, I wanted to start off in this lane, just giving them something to introduce them to the new vibes that I’m about to be hitting every now and then. With this record, it’s the genre bending rock/rap typa vibe. The energy is really like riot, like, high intensity energy. It has a lot of subliminal things that are very like in the meshes of the music, but speaking on certain things, my perspective, and I’ve been doing that throughout my music a lot. So I think it’s developing a cult typa vibe, a cult typa fan base, because my rhetoric or how I talk in my music is not as little. It’s very conscious, but in a way where most of the people can perceive it and take it how they wanna take it, instead of it just being delivered like a J. Cole type style and only certain people feel like they can relate to it. The story I’m telling right now is just like, rage, rage, rage through music. Music really helps me deal with a lot of the stuff that’s goin’ on right now.
What does it mean to you to bring punk and metal to hip hop? Breaking the mold is very important to you, and I’m curious what it means to you to be genre bending?
It’s the same reason the Grammy’s gotta be like Ooh, we're gonna make “urban” music contemporary. People try to confine us in a lot of different ways, even though we’ve broken out in all types of ways. There’s still those underlying ways they try to define us. It’s not really a big point I’m trying to make; I could care less about trying to make everything I’m doing artistically about that. I’m literally just doing me. It’s a blessing that I heard that beat and that I was able to get on it the way I got on it. At the same time, looking back at my evolution, it’s a blessing to know that I’m on that path to leave a legacy. Some Basquiat shit, but in the music culture, from a black dude.
You’re just expressing yourself. However it comes out, it comes out, period.
Yeah, period. I recognize that it’s a blessing to be genre bending. Now it’s on me to be more conscious that I could possibly become, like I said, on some Basquiat shit… People identify rap as black, black culture. I’m afraid people won’t give Lil Wayne his flowers- that when he dies people will only say, That was one of the greatest rappers alive.. No, that was one of the greatest artists to ever live. You hear his rock album, you hear the shit he did with dressing, culture, fashion, that’s the thing I’m afraid of for myself.
To be confined by one definition.
Yes.
First of all, I love Lil Wayne's rock album. But, I hadn’t ever really heard anything like your upcoming single, “Melt my Face”. I love punk, and I love rap, and the song meshing the two so seamlessly was very exciting to me.
Wayne’s one of my influences. I mean, I did a song, I only dropped it on soundcloud, but I did a remix of “Prom Queen”. I did that as a passion project, so when I meet him soon, I could be like, Bro, look what I dropped like 2 years ago. Cause nobody ever remixed Prom Queen. It’s called “CLOUDS & AMMO”. It’s probably the only Prom Queen remix that exists, and it’s really good.
Okay, I’m for sure looking that up after this. So, where in Florida are you originally from?
Eatonville, Florida. Right outside of Orlando. It’s the first African American town to ever be established in the United States. There’s a movie about it called “The Eyes are Watching God”. Halle Berry’s the main character in the movie.
I'm curious if growing up there shaped your musical inspirations and taste or if you feel like you developed that more so in Houston?
It’s definitely a mixture of both. Florida music has a certain style; they talk fast, I have a lot of that in me. I moved to Houston, so it’s kind of ironic that I moved from a place where people talk super fast to a place where people talk really slow. Both of them have such a strong culture, but obviously I grew up, had my adolescence, in Houston. I moved to Houston when I was 13 going on 14, so, you know, my first girl, all those sexual relations, first time I tried my first drugs, my first real fight, was in Houston. At the same, my blood is Florida. So, I think it’s a perfect mixture of both. You can hear it in my sound.
What does 2020 hold for you?
Turning that corner. I’ll be internationally known pretty soon. Still pushing the message, “Influence over clout.” Just influence, I’m just trying to put out the next art or the next piece and make it better than the one I did before. It ain’t been about nothing else. I’ve been in this lifestyle, but never embraced the flashy or the shit that makes people want what I got. I just try to embrace the art and make people want it that way. So, at the end of the day, it comes off more as influence, not clout. I’ll quote on quote “blow up” this year.
