I Think I Might Be Happy
Marisa Kalil-Barrino — Tell me where you are right now in life and in your music career.
Robb Banks — I’m happy, you feel me? I feel like I’m happy–I’m trying to just find happiness within myself and within music…well not even within music, moreso happiness just within myself, within life, and my personal life.
MKB — What does that entail?
RB — A number of things, a variety of things…whatever I want to be honest with you. Whatever I wanna do I’ll just do it.
MKB — Tell me about your songwriting process and how you come up with the perfect combination of your lyrics and beats.
RB — It’s real weird to be honest with you. It’s all over the spectrum damn near. It’s crazy–it’s a lot going on. Sometimes I'll just jump in, say the first thing that comes to my head, and just go off that. Sometimes I'll write the whole song, sometimes I'll write the first four bars and then just go off the top of my head for the rest. It just varies on the day, I don’t want to say the beat, it’s not ever really the beat to be real with you. The beat could be fire as hell–the perfect beat for me–and I might not even get to it that day. I might wanna do another one just to warm up. I might just be freestyling all that day or it could be a beat I don’t really find that fire but it’s like, ‘Alright let me just knock it out.’ I’ll write the best song to it. It varies on my mood.
MKB — You’re widely-known for your dirty lyrics (which is one of my favorite things about your music). Does it come from experiences, fantasies, or both?
RB — Both. 100%.
MKB — What are some of your favorite collabs you’ve done and any that you have coming up?
RB — One of my favorite collabs is for sure with Sonny Digital just because I’ve looked up to Sonny music-wise for so long. I grew up hearing his tag on beats for some of my favorite artists and shit like that. Being able to work with him and having a friendship with him now is real cool…I’ve been working with Tony Shhnow–he’s real cool. When we’re in the studio we got good chemistry and that shit hard, like we make some good music. There’s many more people I’ve been working with a lot lately. I don’t wanna unwrap too much right now.”
MKB — There was a two-year gap between “Tha Leak 2” and “Falconia.” How is “Falconia” different from your previous projects and how do you plan to take every project to the next level?
RB — ‘Falconia’ is different just because it’s ‘Falconia.’ It’s the best body of work that I feel like I’ve put out ever. I feel like it exceeds all the other projects to be honest with you. How am I gonna be different in the future?: I couldn’t tell you to be honest. I’ve been in the studio but I haven’t really been focused on like, themes, and things like that. I’ve just been doing whatever I want to…I go to the studio when I want. It’s not a sense of urgency like it was with ‘Falconia.’ With ‘Falconia’ there was a sense of urgency that I had to give to y’all and I really wanted to prove something to everybody and I feel like I did it. Whether I got my point across or not, I got it across to myself–and that’s the only person I really gotta prove shit to these days. At this stage of my life, it’s just all for me. So, as far as right now for the future, expect the unexpected. I don’t know what’s gonna come.”
MKB — How was the tour? It looked really lit.
RB — The tour was great. I had a great time. It just felt good to see everybody again, especially since the pandemic. I had shows during the pandemic also, but, it just wasn’t the same; seeing everyone out with no masks and all of that shit. That shit felt good.”
MKB — On Instagram, there’s a girl holding your socks at your Atlanta show. What was happening there?
RB — She asked for them. I always take my socks off. I always go barefoot on stage. I need traction to jump. When I started doing that on the Revenge tour, I’m like, ‘That shit is better.’ You can move around more easily. I took them bitches off and she’s like, ‘Let me have ‘em, let me have ‘em!’
MKB — One of my favorite things you did recently was the “Flo Milli Shit Freestyle.” Why did you choose that song?
RB — My homeboy actually said I should do this, like, ‘You should freestyle over this song.’ I was like, ‘Alright, bet’ and I just did it that night. I know a lot of people think it’s deep, crazy thoughts that I put into shit–and it is when it’s projects and shit and overall life–but stuff that I realized that is liked by my consumers is usually the shit that just came out of nowhere with no thought. It was a no-brainer like, ‘Let me do this real quick.’
MKB — The Lil Uzi Vert collab; “Shootout.” How did that come about?
RB — It was spontaneous at first, but then it had to get planned out because Uzi is under a label–whereas I’m independent. You gotta go through labels to do certain things. By the time we had already got all this shit done with talking to everyone over at his team and shit like that, I was kinda over the song. I wanted to revamp it a little bit–make it a little newer. That's why it’s not the original version or the snippet people heard. A few people didn’t like that and wanted it to be the original. But, you know, fuck it. You feel me?
MKB — You kind of have a signature flow, but how are you also able to accomplish different sounds and flows?
RB — I couldn’t really tell you. I feel like I just strive to try to be different when I make music. I don’t wanna sound like nobody. I want people to know, ‘Oh, yeah…that’s Robb’ and not, ‘Who is this?’ I want them to know from the tone of my voice to the content I’m talking about in the lyrics to the flow. I want it to be distinctive–I want everything to be distinctive that I do. It’s either that or I don’t do anything. If I can’t find a way to be different, innovative, and influential, then I’m not gonna do anything.
MKB — I think it should be like that for all artists because then they’re just making meaningless shit.
RB — Yeah, but it’s not. You know what I’m sayin’? That’s the reason why I feel like I’ve bombarded y’all with a lot of music recently. I know I was saying I was gonna flood with music. But, I’m not stepping back from, but I’m kinda digressing from that a little bit because I feel like music is too oversaturated and I don't wanna become oversaturated. I don’t feel like I’m like them.
MKB — If you could collab with another rap artist, who would it be?
RB — Future; that’d be really cool…(Lil) Wayne; I’d love a song with Wayne.
MKB — If you could collab with one non-rap artist, who would it be?
RB — Sade, the answer is always Sade. She’s the GOAT, period.
