if I want to make the the best album for where I am in my life right now and then take your time doing it listen to everything that you make and just be honest with yourself since I have a lover is really just my everyday practice it's my routine it's
my reminder that okay like we found a motion we know what we can do we're also aware of what we want to do and now we just have to like stay on it and practice every day I'm down to continue to honor and remember that life is balanced this is legit bro wow oh [Music]
wow wow small word with big purpose wow is how far black has come since you shared his problems with millions of fans who could relate the challenge with being relatable though is it can root you in a time and place and that is not Black's style the last five years have
been spent doing considerable work on himself it's made his finest albums and suggested we go to the quietest place in LA to talk about it it was funny I think about this place obviously I know about Topanga if you live in Los Angeles or in California you
know about Topanga but it kind of has this um almost unaffair reputation I think of a place where people come to uh check out whereas I actually think it's where artists come and creative people a lot of creative people at least come to
find the space they need to create they were out here in maximum like three maybe like three months ago four months ago but we shot the album cover out here so it's kind of like uh jumping right back in that same space so like it was this day but it was colder Rainier
muddier uh but we made it look nice and like elegant I mean it's the odds are living out here that this would be sunny and dry underfoot I'm really happy it's not so this feels like the right place to have this conversation yeah I'm happy to be having it yeah good to see you man
me too it's been a minute I was talking and thinking about it the other day but you were probably the first person that I like officially talk to I'm glad you brought it up because I was nervous too I didn't want to start in the present by going
back no no I remember I remember and even though I was like in a somewhat like a good space my energy back then was a little bit more just like recluse and secluded and head still like kind of down a little bit hair over my face turn a little bit to the side no
like direct uh funny because I watched this back the other day because I wanted to be reminded of what it was like when we first met I looked terrible like I I was like carrying a little bit of weight stress weight I wasn't eating right I
was drinking too much I was just coping through stress and I can see it in my face that I'm just hanging in there and yeah you definitely were in a situation where you were feeling it out and I think also that we were in that era where mystery was a marketing tool
for some artists I think it took us all a minute to realize that it wasn't marketing for you was actually who you were at that time yeah you know but it did kind of work for your music in a weird way I mean you can trace it to that right absolutely yeah it helped me
get out like some of the things that I couldn't get out in regular conversations in my life and it was good for that moment and it helped me be creative in that moment but what I've learned over the past few years is that was just like one version of who I was
and maybe it got me to a certain point but I don't have to like be in that bag anymore it's just not who I am it's not who I want to be uh maybe it's who I was but this feels a lot better it's good that you can make that decision and ultimately Define your music and Define
yourself and and take those necessary steps because I think as fans and I'm putting myself in this equation when we fall in love with something that somebody's made we we kind of want that that fills that hole for us so just keep doing that to
some degree did you ever feel that um I I feel it from the outside of course um but I think that ultimately like even when people say that it's more of a feeling than anything if you want the album the album is there but the last thing you want is somebody to do the
same thing over and over again because then people will say oh he never changes he does the same thing over and over again I know what kind of music he makes I know what kind of vibe I'm getting from him and some of my favorite artists
have changed and grown like between albums and every time that they reintroduce themselves they reintroduce like a new part of their life or a new vision that they've had or a new emotion that they're like living in so I have to always like stick to the path of growing
and know that sometimes you shed people along the way but as long as like I'm on this like same Mission which is cool you're one of those artists now for me and for a lot of people who are those artists for you who are the ones that paved the road
um Kaye was a big wing and you can hear that sonically like between each album like you can remember where you were you can remember where he was you can remember the outfits that he was wearing during the time there's no artist who's traveled as far and is wide through the
through their eyes as as him yeah you know it's hard for us I think when we fall in love with our artists to not create too close a distinction between the two yeah but we have to almost treat the music differently don't we to some degree absolutely but I think one thing that
I've learned in my personal life which I can now like apply to even like some of my favorite artists is when I'm in like in the midst of like trying to figure out things with people in my life when I'm in under like immense stress when there are so many
outside factors and things that like other people could never relate to or know what's the point like what is like what's the actual point or the message like within the mess that's like happening what is somebody actually trying to say to you yeah if you can
find that then reacting you know isn't always necessarily like my my go-to anymore like I've been more reactive than I have been proactive for most of my life and now I'm at the part where I'm like why am I tripping so much over like how if I can understand what it is
like if I can understand what the point is that's real gross man and it's just Grace like everybody deserves a little bit of Grace everybody deserves patience um I know that's what's been saving me the last few years like if I didn't have a partner who had Grace for me then there
probably wouldn't be an album right now it's a great place for us to settle for a minute because I mean I said to you on text in person and now on the record that's the that's the that's the triumvirate yeah this album is um it is a remarkable collection of
thoughts inner and outer and the music and Arrangement everything about it is it's Soul loving and as my friend Fred said to me once I said to you this music knows itself um so congratulations man thank you thank you thank you I can tell you no I
can tell you about it it's cool to like to know yourself and to stand on that and to honestly teach other people to like do the same things like this is me really looking myself in the mirror and knowing like how I want to be the influence I want to have on my daughter
uh the influence I want to have on my future kids my future family um and knowing that with music there is a bit of responsibility and whether you acknowledge it or not people are listening and they're learning and they're following so what do you want to
say to them social responsibility absolutely unless you're in a good place within yourself social responsibility becomes a weight around your ankles yeah you know for sure you have to truly understand what it is that you're saying your purpose before you can become
anything to anyone else absolutely that's a lot of that's a that's a really intense Journey it needs a catalyst to some degree sometimes it's loss sometimes it's just some kind of a movable object that's in front of you mental spiritual what was
yours was it was it your relationship was the fear of losing somebody was it what was the Catalyst that made you want to really take a look at your life and do some proper work away from being black feeling like I was putting myself in a position to have to make free black too
it was like it was like I'm watching myself self sabotage everything around me to get there yeah I'm watching myself like lie about like small things and watching myself like put off hard conversations because they make me uncomfortable and it's like I'll talk
about it on Wednesday and then Wednesday comes and it's like oh I'm having a good day today so I'll get to it on Friday and then by Monday it pops up in a in a way that you didn't expect and you're like oh now now it's not a conversation
anymore now it's an actual issue now back to that reactive no proactive exactly exactly so I mean it was really just feeling like things were slipping through my hands and knowing that the main factor was myself it wasn't anybody doing anything to me it was me doing
things to myself and it got to the point where you know the person who I care about the most was just like you look like you got it together to everybody else but I can see you in you know I think about that album title the debut album free black I mean it's
an iconic album for a lot of fans and he knows it's it well I know how it makes me feel it served a purpose at a point in my life when I needed it yeah I think I've told you this before but I used to listen to that album a lot driving through the hills in Los Angeles
at night where the street lights aren't light enough yeah and there's a lot of dark space in between yeah and that album seemed to really suit that feeling for me who was that kid that made that record looking back on him now 2016 me was obviously like coming out of a bad
record deal and feeling like I have something to prove to myself coming out of at the very least like two or three relationships that didn't even match with who I felt like I was it was more so just like feeling time and feeling space and settling and allowing like my
depression and my moods to just like just overtake like my decision making skills and then that started to like Inspire the creativity and then that became like a crutch it's a copy mechanism yeah so it's like a crutch and I honestly feel
like that's the reason why this new music has like pushed me in a different direction because I know that it's cool to like create things from that space and you get amazing things from it but at some point it almost becomes like a fetish and it
also and it becomes like a style and it becomes like we were talking about uh what's your identity yeah it's like an identity and I'm just like but is this really like where you want to be is this really how you feel is this really like is it benefiting you like when you wake
up in the morning how do you feel do you feel full and I was feeling more and more drained with every relationship more and more drain with like every moment and I remember going on that tour and after that tour was over I was just like
us like there's been no progression like I feel like I just lived that album on the road yeah and now I'm just back looking at my life and it still feels like it's in shambles you know it feels like pressure to me that album so it feels like you're carrying the world on
your on your shoulders so it's music for people who feel overwhelmed I think absolutely it's like I'm feeling overwhelmed so it's okay listen to this yeah it's it's a bit it's hopeful in there you know it's hope in there but it was definitely a coping album for sure
and it was definitely an album where 90 of the songs that I made I was in the room by myself and it was definitely an album where uh everything was you know monochrome and black and white and muted and the way that I even performed back then was completely different too it was
looking down at the ground I didn't do too much like running around I didn't even know myself you know I was I knew free black the album but I didn't know like who I could be until I really took what step one which was as soon as that tour was over just cut it off cut it off
cut it off cut it off yeah yeah yeah I didn't realize you were the eldest of three k of you have younger youngest siblings yes yep you know and I I think about this this image of you when you came out and it was like a lot was built around you
yeah industry was built around you your fans surrounded you you made all the music on your own there was a sort of sense that you were doing this for everybody as much as for yourself and I wonder whether an element of that comes from being the older sibling and if
there's a kind of innate sense of responsibility at least when you were starting that you've now been able to get past and move in your own space I know what music did for me when I was younger and like when I went through certain things so
that coupled with like you said being the oldest just makes me feel like and figuring out just what my purpose was in general is like I have this passion for music but I also have a passion for people and maybe I'm not the most like expressive but there is something that I
can do with this that like helps other people so let me just figure out what my Knack is let me figure out how to tell the story and yeah taking care of my brother and my sister was like step one to figuring out how to help take care of my listeners yeah can you try to
describe how that felt looking back on that now with some perspective having an identity that was ultimately manufactured from within side yourself that became success and then we start we just want that again um I mean it's just a teaching moment
more than anything like I love to remind people that like who I was yesterday is just not who I am today and it'll never be that way sonically it'll never be that way emotionally it'll never be that way spiritually like I have been enjoying this process of growing up and
I don't think that music has enough moments where like people just Champion growing up and Champion maturing and Champion healthy love and Champion like I'm working on myself and I'm trying to be a better man and a better father and a better brother and a better science so
since I felt like that boy was missing I I just want to continue to feel it and I want to continue to tell people like this is who I am you can catch up or you can find somebody else to listen to good man that's a really important point
is that you know in your life is it in growth is to be able to say it's okay I don't have to hold on to everyone and everything all the time um this album feels like that you know it has that same feeling that you've been putting in your music this idea of
opening the front door to your life um there's voices and the introduction yep not to be super nerdy but I have to lean in to hear what they're saying it's almost like they're just for you to remind you but we get to experience them only if we're present enough to listen
was that by Design absolutely these are like all the things that happened in the past four or five years pandemic wise uh personal life-wise and it was like moments where my daughter pops out uh there's a moment where moments where you hear like a fan talking just like talking about The
Hunger for new music and in the midst of creating you know having all these outside forces you know kind of sometimes clutter sometimes help sometimes inspired sometimes a little bit depressed it's just like these outside factors are just going Non-Stop
and I still have to figure out a way to like be linear and to be clear and to speak up and at the end of it all it clears and we take a deep breath and then we get into what today is yeah in Woodhill Park yeah New York yeah absolutely why
um first it was named that before like and the beat was named that before anything and wants to beat was named that I felt like it was my duty to go up to Amway Hill Park plug in my headphones take a walk by myself and say I sat on a rock in the middle of Emily Hill Park
for because you're not like six to eight hours this is crazy I don't think I've ever spoken to an artist who has actually named something after a location and gone to the location and had the experience that inspired the song subconsciously it's normally I sat
there for hours I sat there it was sunny outside and by the time I left animal Hill Park it was Pitch Black outside yeah just me by myself headphones and music playing I didn't need anything else in that moment except to like just take in this place that I was about to
name the song after wow but um yeah I took my walk I took some pictures I had a pretty rough day that day and that was like a good moment to take a break and just like re-center myself reground myself um not talk to anybody not text anybody
how would you have done that last time if you'd had a rough day and you hadn't gone to Inwood Hill Park and meditated in that space with music I just would have tucked away in my room somewhere it would have been something simple I'm happy like through music I've been able
to travel and as simple as it may seem sometimes for us because everybody's going to move these days like to be able to go somewhere and like experience life in a completely different way than you're used to experiencing it it's just 10 out of 10.
I don't know two years of pandemic as unkind as it was on everybody it was a little bit Kinder on artists because it if you want to take five years between albums that's like two off the top already it's called three years yeah everybody was up because I don't think
you can expect anyone to make art during two years of quarantine if you did great but I don't it's not something I was like oh you got two years off go make it yeah you need a life yeah you need life to make life right absolutely absolutely so I don't want to ask you that outright
Where Have You Been um but but I'm going to ask you like has it felt like five years to you what has happened to time for you in between records definitely felt like five years um some days it feels like it's gone by like faster than I could have ever
expected and then when I think back to like certain moments um some days it was really in slow motion and I remember being almost like a little bit not excited but like when I heard that we were going on lockdown I was just like I'm I'm used to to like being a
homebody and and I thrive you know being to myself so this will be something that like I'm familiar with and then I got into it and realized it wasn't you know what I expected it to be and it really like put a mirror in front of me because you're alone with yourself exactly
you're gonna put a mirror in front of my face and it forced me to look at myself um and sharing space with other people and you know learning what it is to like share space and love somebody and for that to really be unconditional and what
that like requires and how like you can't just go outside and go to lunch and take a break from like whatever you need to deal with it's like oh we got to deal with it right now because we actually don't have a choice but to deal with it right now is it too literal to
think this song like Playhouse relates to the plant house is absolutely related to that 100 because that was like um a theme that just like popped up in conversations every now and then you got two individuals who are good on their own who end up liking this
moment in time where you are leaning on each other but you're also trying to say at the same exact time like I'm not trying to just be somebody's boyfriend I'm not trying to just be somebody's girlfriend like there are things that I want to do there are
things that you want to do like how do we honor those things and then come back together at the end of the day and like have that peace and have that you know that Unity especially when you can't especially when you can't actually go about your the life that you had
designed for yourself that was the big thing I took away from a lot of it was like by design of what we sort of if we're lucky we start to imagine it up and then we start to put it into into action yeah combination of sort of fortunate experience and luck hard work
being present obsessing over the future absolutely yeah you know and then you find yourself a situation where it's like I've created this construct that fits me and that just evaporated I think in that time yeah player house was a good step for me to like
once again like have a conversation that was a little bit more difficult for me to have a conversation just like one-on-one it was just a moment of exercising a thought uh something that kept popping up my producer sengot um introduced The Sonics of it to me and
introduced like something that he was dealing with as soon as he said the phrase playing house I was like oh my God that's just that keeps coming up in my Combos and honestly at the time I'm like I'm so sick of that phrase but let
me like flip it and look at myself you know as I speak about it and not use it as a moment to make like a x calling or problems or anything that's like pointing the finger at somebody it was it was saying how do I self-reflect like well because it's growth right you've
moved on from those things into a place where you're not quite home yeah playing house is the step before home you know exactly exactly exactly exactly so I'm glad that I handled it with maturity and every song on this album was a moment of that too it was just like how do I look
at myself and not point the finger at anybody else because as of you know right now I've made a maybe like a good portion of my career um not being as accountable as I could have been yeah there's a lot of Nobody's Perfect on this album which is great
um the album title the title track it obviously means a lot to you where'd it come from what does it mean you know there's a reprise basically at the end of that song so it's clear you don't want to let that music go yeah it's like I feel when that song Finally ends it's
you just going okay I've got to move on but it's like I think you'd still be in that piece of music right now if we even made an album since I is I honestly felt like it is the answer to like where have you been or what have you been doing or what's inspired you
know what's inspiring you um since I have a lovers normally the album titles for the last two uh and including this one have come at the very end of making the music so free black I made the song free uh towards like the last month of recording
and then I kind of stepped back and was like um this is what it is and he's still in a love letter um we were are already done with the process and East London Love Letter the song just popped out and stepped back again and was like I think this is what it is and then
since I have a lever was another moment where I knew the theme I knew the story that we were telling we already had a bulk of the music but there was something missing and I went maybe weeks of just it was like we were supposed to
pull the trigger on when it was time to wrap things up and release and you know start to shoot things and I just kept being like something's missing and I don't know what it is and I just have to like be patient and say a deadline and sit until that thing popped out and
when I heard the music for it I was like that's that's the feeling right how has anyone even apply deadline when it's been five years like wow what is somebody gonna turn around and go like hey man it's been five years you need to hand it in by May it's like dude what
about last may like yeah yeah what's the deadline like at the end of the day the only reason why is because I kind of like started to speak on like wrapping up and I gave everybody like the the energy of right we're we're almost done yeah so once you say we're almost done
everybody starts to move and get things in order and uh until I made the title track since I have a lover that was like the moment where I was like okay that sounds like an album title that sounds like an answer to a question that sounds like an Ode to the person that I'm it
sounds like everything like all wrapped in one is great title um it was also is really it's a really lovely um extension from the sentiment in the album cover and the artwork and the and the aesthetic of East Atlanta Love Letter which is you on your own with
your child on your chest making music in the kitchen yep and we in the next chapter I mean that to me is like that was one of the most striking pieces of art I'd seen in a long time because what it said was like this is my life this is
the balance that I'm in right now I mean I can't stop this I'm certainly Never Letting Go of this absolutely and I'm gonna I gotta do whatever I got to do wherever it is everything changed for me when I became a father yeah everything does change it's still changing every
day yeah every day and you're absolutely right it continues you know parent being a parent is is one of the great gifts and one of the good great challenges and you can't have joy without the challenge and I think what I realized really quickly was that
I had a lot of work to do and I had to do it really fast yeah people make you realize that super quick yeah and I had to reflect on what I'd come where I'd come from to find out where I was to be able to go where I needed to go to make you reflect on your childhood
and your relationship with your parents and becoming a parent how did you to change the way you relate to that experience it really made me think about how I grew up and I love my mom I love my dad like the relationship is absolutely there but
there were certain like things that I had to get to the source of as far as like issues in my present life and in order to like really clear things up in my present life I had to go back and just go in chronological order and say there was a moment where I stopped
caring so much and there was a moment where I you know started handling things on my own there was a moment where I stopped sharing my grades I stopped trying to impress I stopped trying to like um latch on to my mom or my dad and those moments were the moments where
like this personality started to shake and then this personality started to basically tell the narrative for the rest of my life up until after free black and I just didn't want to like repeat anything uh with my kid like she reminded me that I am expressive and
that I am funny and that I am you know filterless and that I am uh everything that a kid is too it's just like I can I'm that with her so when I see that version of myself pop out it's like this is what was lost this is what was suppressed and
I need to like be exercising that every day I need to be stimulating that everything is a muscle it's a muscle absolutely for sure I forgot how to work it for a minute and you know my my daughter really helped spark you know what I needed to just remember for a
second and once I started remembering it was just like I gotta I gotta practice that's it I just need to practice I need to go out in nature I need to go to the beach I need to go on a hike I need to go camping I need to feel something yeah I need to like continue to feel and
stimulate because I don't want to like continue to put these labels on me for like who I who I am or who I thought I was like I remember thinking I don't I don't do this and I just never done that and oh I just don't talk that much and I'm just
like why why did I go through like so long in my life thinking that this is just who I was yeah and not realizing that that was just a coping mechanism to get to where I am it's a song called chasing feeling that I think really speaks to that absolutely it's this idea
of um how come I don't you're emotional right now in this moment how come I'm not emotional in this one I asked oh my God that question is like like for a while like the what's wrong with me thing has popped up so many times because I would be in moments where I would just
think about the fact that a normal person would would feel something in this moment a normal person would feel this Embrace from this person who I love and like be able to to equally match it but I'm like I find myself like digging and like trying to like either bring it
out or just sit in there questioning myself like why isn't it hitting the same or why you know why why am I not able to match and that what's wrong with me was tearing me up for a second because it's like how do I like how do I pinpoint what that is and
how do I fix that because it doesn't have to be this way and I know that I've like convinced myself that it it is this way and it just might be this way for the rest of my life but it has an effect on like the people around me and what's hard to have
relationships with people when people don't feel that you're able to exist in that moment with the same degree of connectivity that's why I say like getting to the source was that was the problem solver that was a game changer for me because it was almost like I'm
promoting this like story of growth and the story of like positivity and the story of Triumph and hope but I had to really spin around and think like you're not doing the work that's yeah it's like you're false claiming right now yeah
you're not you're not doing all the work that you perpetrate that you've done and it's cool that you inspire other people yeah it's like it's cool that you're trying to inspire other people to do it but yeah unless you do it in your own life it's gonna it's gonna it's gonna
come and get you it's gonna take you it's gonna yank you up and I felt like it started to really like just throw me off and make me like look like a more just like a a bad a worse version of myself than I really am the full of the album is really fascinating
to me because it's like pretty emotionally intelligent track listing you know you you ease assemble this like where have you been it would in Woodhill Park like yeah man I'm here I've got this Tempo it's emotional but there's urgency and then we we roll pretty quickly through
um you know to the point where I think it it takes it gets into the real heart and soul of the of the of the journey which is from about Spirited Away on it starts to feel like okay now I've got you got you where I need you yeah this is really where we're at okay
um Spirited Away is one of my favorite pieces of music on the album nice and um I just wanted to to leave it open and just and just ask you what your thoughts are on that from the art as the artist who made it whether you can detach yourself enough to appreciate it the way
we do that one took the longest for me to finish and it feels easy to listen to that night I was watching Spirited Away um I had a little bit of shrooms to heighten the the emotional experience and connection to it and then you went
Spirit it away but it yeah but that's that's what it was it was like an unlocking moment for me it was me like starting to to like get into motion and getting a rhythm and be more expressive and you know just honor the fact that I'm in my home right now and this isn't
something that's like that I should be taking for granted like this is a safe space I worked for it nobody's coming in the room to interrupt me I have the food I need I have the water I need I have the snacks I need let me go a bit deeper
inside I got the studio I need yeah yeah I can make whatever face I want while I'm recording I can get as ugly with it as I need to get to like to really get it out and that was really a moment of me you know looking at my life and saying like it's really time to unlock
and go to another level uh spiritually there's a couple of moments on the album where I feel like you're looking back through the window of the room that you used to being observing it the way that you the people behave in those rooms yeah other artists industry all that
stuff that we get swept up in now especially through social media and stuff preach is one of them yeah talkback's one of them yep you know this album is not without judgment you know I think I think there's definitely moments when you're like calling us you know spadeous babe
absolutely yeah I mean just because I feel like there's more of everything else than there is of like things that feed us um I'm a fan of everything I enjoy all kinds of music all kinds of topics I come from Atlanta I come from Baltimore
I've seen I felt I understand uh I sympathize but I think that we have reached the point where money I mean money's always been like the driving force so for me to be like the adult in the situation I was like now I actually have a mouth to speak on it and maybe when I
was a kid I'm just like observing or I'm not like fully aware but I'm I'm grown now and I see my peers and I want everybody to to be a little bit more responsible because we've lost way too many people in the last five to ten years like prematurely too not even just
you know tragic yeah like prematurely we've lost more people than we can count on two hands as far as household names yeah so you know it's not like I can see that and feel that and not speak on it and not say like what are we doing like what are we what are we
teaching what are we trying to do what do you think it is I mean being in a situation where you you know your ego and your Edge was driving you to some degree forward into this music space there's a competitiveness a desire to achieve that gets you there that's the
ego drive drive yeah so to have the presence of mind to be able to write a song like preach what is it that you see from the outside looking in now it's more so just a question like when when you get there what do you do with it that's that's really it it's like we all
have some kind of Journey of making it through something to get to like point B and now the next question is from point B where do you go like what what do you say next how do you like flip that for somebody else or do you continue disciple and if you look at what you
produce and that's just like an ingredient to continue in the cycle then it's not really something to be like that proud of like telling a story is one thing but you know glamorizing or glorifying or like keeping our people just like stuck I could never
like I could just never be that person and I could never have friends that are those type of types of people without being like hey I need you to wake up a little bit so is that going to affect the kind of collaborations you do and the songs you choose to get on and the
environments you find yourself in creatively absolutely but you know not in like a judgmental way like I have friends that haven't you know necessarily graduated to the part where I am right now but that's why I'm around them so that I can
continue to speak to them and so I can continue to be like I know what's going on over here but this is what's happening over here I'm going to this Retreat next week you should try it I'm talking to this therapist I know you said you know you got some stuff that
probably nobody would ever understand or know but you should try it and I've had those moments with like plenty of artists obviously I don't want to you know give nobody's business away because but I've had moments with people who I've literally been like the line is
there whenever you need the line bro whenever it gets too much it'll be right here I promise so getting back to the role of relationships in this album and the fact that there was so much blame either on yourself or on someone else as kind of inexperienced as like it's my
fault or it's your fault Tit for Tat yeah this idea of it's okay this is the cycle this is how it goes um just being really straight up and asking because I'm fascinated by that by the way the art relates to life how making this album has positively
affected your ability to maintain a healthy relationship it feels good to not have to hide songs from from somebody you know to not be embarrassed or or guilty or um shy anymore about like what I'm doing like to be proud like to have a song
like since I have 11 and to be able to say I know when you hear this you know you you'll know exactly what I was thinking about why you remember the moment you remember the day you remember the feeling and it's been such a positive reinforcement to have somebody
that really holds me accountable because for so long I was the leader for a lot of my friends I had never had a mentor I Never Had A og I never had like somebody who was there to like give me tips and give me up and to have somebody who just
came into my life and knew more than me in certain areas I'm like oh this is this is different and it's gonna take some adjusting because I didn't know that I had an ego but here it is you know any time that it's something as simple as like hey did you know that if
you were to uh put this in your water then it would help you with this and you want to be like yeah I knew that but because because everybody else I know everything that's what we do but to somebody uh you know for somebody to come with more knowledge and different
knowledge and different experiences to be able to say she don't know that yeah it's been helped so to have somebody who helps me like be accountable for my body and making sure that I have a routine I got a text before I came here basically saying you your bedtime is 8 30 tonight
you should go at 8 30 in order to like feel good tomorrow and I'm like that's actually crazy you said it because my phone just told me that my bedtime is 8 30 tonight so she knows like even without knowing sometimes and that this makes for like a healthier
soundscape when I get into the studio like I I move with the weight is off and and I'm able to like create with different sounds that I wasn't able to explore before yeah I've always loved like acoustic driven like things but um I just never explored it that much
because that's just not the vibe that we were in it's beautiful I mean the sound design if we just take a beat there for a second is incredible on this record the production the feeling it all just nurtures your words and performance so Tastefully
um I don't know if this is a reference for you but I hear elements of Jeff Buckley in there the way the guitar just rings in this beautiful almost clean Strat it just flows through the Reverb and the catch this time will be I get to bring guitar to Stage which I've never done before
um I'll be playing guitar on stage for this next tour I played like a couple of licks on the album which ones um someone Sensai um and I had a great teacher Taylor um Taylor gamble uh she came throughout the perfect time too this uncomfortable time
period where I'm just having to like really fight the resistance and learning guitar was almost like getting in a new relationship it was you know nothing I was I sucked in front of somebody there's no fluff I haven't been trashed at anything in a long time your fingers
hurt I mean you don't know what you're doing and by the way there's nothing more like humbling than picking up an instrument for the first time and bringing um success to the table and realizing that you're not successful at this it was it was a perfect perfect
humbling moment in the midst of everything that was going on because it was just like damn I just keep getting humbled and I just have to eat this and I have to make sure I have practice next week even if I feel like I haven't gotten like better or if I feel like I
haven't learned exactly what she wanted me to learn it's just like I have to stick to it just to pick up an instrument and just I mean we could you could just be here on your own with an instrument and inspiration strikes you when you're great absolutely I think that was like
another thing that almost not like slowed this process but made it a little bit more of a task for me is just knowing that I'm also reaching a phase where I have to get more into like yeah being able to create things on my own like completely
on my own even if it's just a guitar Loop and and getting out of song you know I've always had ideas and always been able to feed ideas to people but I have to I have to be a producer and also help other people too exactly help other people find their voice as well I think
about like John Toliver who's one of the only only guest appearances on the record my favorite he's incredible and and to me I I think this gets back to the idea of of being able to um present your learnings in a way without it being preachy Don Tolliver is kind of
you now where you were a few years back he's probably the most guested artist on the planet Everybody's Records right it's great making great music finding his identity finding his voice do you see a little bit of his journey in yourself and and is that part of what
do you think connects you to him as recognizing yeah one for like absolutely and I think more than anything like is just really inspiring for me like it's really inspiring for me to listen to somebody else's music and just go like the Acoustics of this is just
amazing like it's every song every Melody every part of the production Like It just fits and it sits perfectly and I have things that I would have changed about you know certain albums looking back or certain moments looking back
yeah but when I listen to uh like life of a Dawn and when I listen to lovesick I'm just like it's a really great place to be at the basically at the the beginning yeah of a career I'm like that's it's so tight so so so good yeah yeah um it's been super inspiring Don
got me through the pandemic for sure there were a couple albums that got me through uh whiz kid yeah the um made in Lagos yeah album Amazing record so those are the things I really like made me look at myself and say oh you got to learn a little bit more I hear a
little bit of that like it even it may not be where you were going with it but it's not like Takeda yeah flowing in different rhythms and finding different feel um yeah I want a little bit of can we talk a little bit about Decatur because
that song came out of nowhere for me movement man like like I said that whiskey album really inspired just like it made me move during a time where nobody wanted to move where we actually weren't even able to go outside yeah I remember that feeling of listening to
that album all the way through and just being like I could play that again all the way through and not skip a song a single song yeah so uh Decatur for me sonically was a breath of fresh air uh Olu from Earth Gang produced it and that was just on the ketchup combo we weren't
even like technically scheduled to make anything or talk music it was just ketchup you know that's just your friends yeah see how you been he's like I've been working on my production stuff plays me some stuff yeah and I hear Decatur and I'm like oh yeah and then
storyline wise or just like feeling wise Decatur for me kind of speaks to like I said that moment of like doing things that I'm just not used to doing like getting outside of my comfort zone uh and in my personal life like being able to go to a tea party with my girl
and feel like I'm I'm not uncomfortable I'm not I ain't got to worry about nobody seeing me and being like Oh you know I ain't supposed to be here yeah yeah but like yeah Decatur is like it's high tea for me it's a moment where I
get to to be in touch with like another side of myself and when I think of that music video even though we haven't shot it yet I think of all the people that you wouldn't imagine in a tea setting yeah but just there like Gucci and you know Waka Flocka and like all the
Atlanta Legends it's like in a spot where it's like oh they all got dressed up to go to a what tea party that's that's really cool that's life that's life being lived experience experiencing things and not being like turned off from something
just because it's not what you didn't do in your past life I've been able to enjoy so many different things recently all based off of like learning with my partner and being like actually I think I am interested in going to see a ballet I am interested in going to see a
Broadway show I am interested in like I said having a tea party with you and your sisters and your family like these are things that help me type into like another side of myself that I just never got to express but what else do you want to do in life I want to get my green
thumb together for sure I want to know how to like actually put stuff into the Earth and grow stuff so that's like a sooner goal than anything else but I think overall it's just continuing to like figure out ways to do things around me like we did a water well and Uganda a
few years ago and the idea of knowing that three thousand dollars in the US is a shopping spree for some people but three thousand dollars somewhere else might be water for a whole entire infrastructure yeah like infrastructure for a whole community so it's like
finding more projects like that uh so that I can just feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing while I'm here so like if I have access to resources if I have access to money then let's find somewhere productive to put it and as of
right now that's like my main goal so what is money to you is it is it about sharing I mean do you like to spend money on your family on your parents on the people in your life do you like to be generous yeah for sure um but with that you know starts to
bleed a little bit starts to spill over the edges so I always have to remind people that uh in addition to helping you I have to help myself yeah and I have to help my kid and your kids is the big one and I got a lid for about at the very least like 50 60 more years so yeah
it's a long time to be responsible for yourself like it's a pretty and this is the thing a lot of people don't realize about music as well which is the Andre 3000 has summed it up so brilliantly in elevators when he talks about living beat to beat and check to check if you
don't move your feet then I don't eat so we like neck to neck that idea of like people think because you're doing what you love that you've you've made it financially but the music keeps the lights on absolutely and like I said it's just a very we we're all going to
be here for hopefully God willing for a very long time um and that is a lot of time to be responsible for yourself that is a lot of time to like figure out you know who you will be in the next phase of life because who I am right now is not you
know who I'll be in 20 years like I won't still be black on tour uh I'll be black somewhere maybe hopefully on a farm somewhere hopefully on some land but you know who you'd be looking at you'll be looking at your daughter and your other children he'll be 15 20 25
years old who will reflect you back to you and the decisions you make in life now ultimately set them on their path and imagine your daughter at her age now how old is she now sexy yeah she's into stuff she loves stuff and you can't be
like don't just go I had all the stuff you can't have all the stuff I'm doing you a favor she's gonna be like don't talk like you're not the stuff she gets the stuff but she gets it's a really good talking about the stuff too she gets balance too I got videos of her
doing like this in moments where she's beautiful that's beautiful because even though she's pretending right the closest beginning yeah I'm like just breathe just breathe yeah and they pretend yeah so I know that even though she might not fully understand like what
she's doing in that moment the breathing and the patience and the grace and the moment of just like speaking to her as an equal is what she needs and I didn't always get that growing up you know it was more so like you do what I say it's my house I pay
the bills otherwise I said defensiveness again right yeah yeah so it's like let me yeah let me not like have this like overbearing control over like her emotions and what she feels let me give her space to grow space to feel space to cry space to laugh space to do whatever
make mistakes and ultimately she'll have a way healthier better outlook on like who I am to her that's just my baby I just wanted to always like know that I love you I got you if there's ever anything cool if you want to talk about it great if you don't I'm cool too but
I'm here you know what Spirited Away introduces you absolutely meet us again around talk around from talk on it starts to get again we get in this place where it's like you know I have to talk to someone on the outside to find out what I was really saying on
the inside yeah I want to talk a little bit about talk because to me it's it's almost like a it's a tribute to therapy it's a tribute to the idea of being able to talk to someone you didn't grow up with who doesn't know you that's kind of the point yeah
yeah Sarita is at the uh that's my therapist she's at the end of that song too um on our day where I hadn't had sessions with her in a while because I had not because like when you're doing so well it's not that you just don't have to to talk to your
therapist anymore but I was in a place where I was just like working on stuff on my own and I was getting ready to speak to her and right before I got ready to speak to her something just ended up happening and I ended up having a moment and I called her and I'm just
like man I did it again and it was cool uh to speak to her in that moment so that she could remind me of something that sometimes I just need to be reminded of what's that which is if there is something that like doesn't make you feel good and it's rooted and
something that you can really stand on and explain then talk about it and stand on it and and be okay with that like some things you let slide but if it's not worth us letting slide then speak on it and be and be co-speaking on it and that was a moment where I was like did I
do or say the wrong thing and she just reassured me like that's just something that like you have to be willing to communicate you can't settle like or you you won't be able to like let that one slide wow and setting those boundaries was just really really important for me
to like get back into my day and to get back into feeling good and to just like continue like this motion of working on myself and working on my communication skills because before I met her my communications to those were shocked they were terrible really really bad so
we wouldn't encourage this certainly My Generation there was no one looking at us going you know hey talk through the thoughts it was just like what are your thoughts tell me your thoughts it wasn't like what's motivating them what's behind them
often what we're thinking and what we say isn't necessarily how we feel anyway it's it's like like you you beautifully established before it's uh an invention yeah it's kind of like a placeholder yeah it's a perception and it takes a lot to really like just get
that off of you and to feel like I can be a 2.0 version of myself but I can like offer something different not only like for myself but for the people around me to to be able to just like be proud and be happy and be filterless and just be fluid in a different way and
I'm really really grateful that one I've been able to create a space where the people around me are the best people around me and now all we have to do is work on creating a setting where like the setting is always the perfect setting stories in motion
I I apologize to anybody watching this who by now knows who's on that song because I didn't have it in my track listings and which is kind of cool yeah I liked that yeah so who was it why are they it's Wale yes I love like Easter eggs I love moments where there's plenty
of them on a project yeah who else India Shawn did some vocals on Spirited Away amazing uh mariba did a couple of harmonies on night ride home uh the last track songwriter Bae help with Tit for Tat um Cadence help with Spirited Away as
well obviously Wale um Ty Dolla did some vocals one night ride home but it's nice because it's someone who's known for being a guest on other people's record as a collaborator it's cool that you make it more of a personal experience for yourself for me
it's personal and yeah I know that Wale has always like had a way with his words and I know that like during times where I was still figuring out myself and figuring out my music his music spoke his word spoke to me I hate using this word because I think it's actually
almost borderline disrespectful but if if underrated could be a word he is underrated flowers man flowers for him yeah all day long because yeah everything that we see right now as far as hip-hop goes like has graduated from a specific era and as of right now the
current day that era is Drake that era is Kendrick that era is while that air is cold like these are some of the building blocks of what we have right now so um flowers for him it was an honor to be able to reach out to him and just say I need you that's awesome and
the song was pretty much already um done and I could tell just in our exchanges that he took it serious even though it was a moment those next couple of days he's like all right so you want me to like come at it this way and you know should I do this should I do that
and I gave him free reign he painted a picture in a matter of I don't know what 30 seconds if that because he done the work he figured it out and it's good and everything that he said is like yeah amazing like spot on as far as that song
goes he wrapped it up in such a perfect way yeah he did and it's it what I really like is it's succinct right it's what is it like eight bars Max 16 Max it's like eight yeah but he made it feel like a 16 yeah yeah it's beautiful yeah um you know in recent
years you've been the go-to collaborator in so many songs and have experienced success by proxy as well as on your own terms it's like and you get all these additional songs that you can choose on choose not to put in your live setup it just creates this much broader Universe
for you to work to work in yeah but even you must admit that there was a year there it was just like there was a lot of black on a lot of other people's music absolutely and you know you've chosen carefully in the last few years I know you know the the little TJ record
was a huge success for you how are you going about that part of your life now knowing that it is a card you can play at any time you're in that room people want to work with you all the time but you don't have to yeah I mean it's relationships like if I meet people and
it feels right and I feel like there's something like worth pursuing as far as like music and creativity goes yeah and cool do you remember when I said that when I first started listening to your music it would be at night I loved hearing night ride home for the first
time ah yeah right NRH because it's like a different ride a different time in the day absolutely a different perspective the world looks different but it just felt to me like you're coming home different I am night ride home is like one I had to have a
disclaimer for that song when I was uh presenting it to my partner I'm like I know what you're about to hear all right I'm like if you listen to it it might sound right right but trust me you know uh night ride home was a moment of me stepping outside of my situation and
thinking about something that I know tons of people think about which is what will my life be if I did something different if I was with somebody different what would it be and it's having those thoughts like past me and then at the end of it all being like
actually I'm good where I am like I'm I love where I am I'm enjoying my life I'm enjoying my day I'm enjoying love the way that it is to have that conversation is normally like one that you shy away from and to be able to have that conversation on wax and to be able to
share that with my partners is a moment where I just feel like more accomplished because those are types of songs that would have been written differently in the past yeah in the shadows right lots of metaphors and exactly I don't think
and it would have it would have been a little bit more like shame attached to it and now um I'm I'm just becoming like a better communicator and night ride home is me just feeling good like giving myself a pat on the back and being like you you're doing pretty good bro and every
conversation that pops up every feeling that pops up that you feel the Earth to say something about say it say it just keep saying I got a tattoo on me that just says talk about it because I have to remind myself like as much as I can to talk about it
but look who we are man I can't remember the last time I I was this close proximity wise to a really active waterfall yeah I didn't even know L.A had in Los Angeles right right I was like there's enough water for that [Music] they really got everything they need
here yeah look at this that's insane how much of this by this on me just kind of being out in something that isn't music or industry or cities or whatever like what kind of influence did isolating yourself play in getting to this place creatively
I mean it really just opened up the Sonic so what we were doing like it made me realize that there was a different like feel to life and like my good day changed from what it used to be like maybe back then it was just like having a day at the crib
playing video games yeah yeah yeah and not having too many outside influences but yeah my good day today is a day at the beach or a day like on a walk or a day somewhere out in nature and it's just sounded different than what it used to sound like so inspiring being able to
have this conversation by inspiring I think for other kids who right now are burning the candle of creativity when you're young and you think like I've got this something I want to say the work ethic is going to get me through I'm just going to hustle hustle
hustle hustle yeah there's a period of life you have to do that but I think what you're saying is like there is a way to find balance through that yep and it's like now if I need to have a moment where we have we get into a mode and it's like are we working tonight are we
going to be up it's a good session it's also coming out let's work like I know how to do it I know how to thrive in that setting I know how to have a good session yeah but yeah that was the lifestyle back then it was I was in the studio from 3 P.M to 3 A.M every single
day yeah and overtime was literally leaving the studio when it's sunny outside it's the never-ending childhood dream you know of like if I can sit in this place and create why would I ever leave yeah I'm I live in the studio I lived I lived in the studio
Interscope Studio no excuses it's not there anymore like the the original one but that was like the place where Kendrick was making damn and like I remember just knowing that in every room Schoolboy Q sizza there's something great going on in every room so I'm here
I'm gonna live here I'm going to stay here if somebody walks in the room they're gonna walk in on something great because I know that something's great something's great it's going on down the hallway so I remember being in that
studio and following that as much as I could and to the point where like I said you just reach that threshold where your body just burns up and it's like and then but then we walk out of those rooms and you go like oh that's a badge of honor yeah
yeah you know literally it's not healthy bragging about it almost bragging about it but there was a day where I sat there and I kid you not like I was so done just like I finished the album I'm still trying to like crank out music burnt out completely and there was a day where I
just sat and that day everybody kept kind of like popping and checking on me because it was just dead silent no music and they're just like oh you're good and then that you're good turned into I talked to them later they were like yo were you in the room at at this point in
the night because we popped in and we didn't see you and I was like bro I sat in the same spot all night alone but I was so like locked in that I didn't have a thought I didn't have a feeling I didn't have a word I didn't want to hear a sound and
like that just made me really step back and think all right you got to be a little you gotta have more balance that's it you just gotta have a little bit more balance because you just can't continue to put yourself like in a position to to not have anything left to
get like you need to save it I started to realize like my voice doesn't have to necessarily like be a traditional thing or be a familiar thing for it to thrive like I'm I'm around people who are doing things that are brand new and all I have
to do is just like find out what my version of that is and you know being two doors down from like greatness like Kendrick and greatness like this is a greatness like Schoolboy and whoever was popping in and out of the studio just really made me sit with my own work and
think all right like how can I match that energy like how can I how can I do my own thing how can I do my own thing that's such an important question it's hard though sometimes to avoid comparison even just self-comparency be inspired so much by
your peers that you end up wondering whether I'm keeping Pace I might do anything of value do you have it did you used to have those feelings like self-doubt what role did it play if it if it all in your life I think more than anything it was just like
me trying not to like get too ahead of myself and and just being honest with myself like just because I make it doesn't mean it's the best thing in the world just because I wrote it don't mean it's the coldest thing in the world is like really listening back and not being
biased to what you create yeah and holding yourself to like a standard like is this song the best version of like this feeling that you're trying to convey and if it's not then make another one and see if you can compare and if that one's better then there you are
you're getting somewhere so with that being said you know East Atlanta love that it might be one of the most important albums you ever make in your life because without that album there is none of this yeah absolutely free black was being like in that place of turmoil
and being that place of self-doubt and being in that place of like being a little bit like muted and then easily on a love letter was me opening my heart and my mind into like different ideas and being like okay actually I'm starting to get the hang of this yeah
it's cool that you're you know some of the earliest relationships you had in this business remain like working with Earth Gang and I mean you think about those kids that came up and you were you're searching for Community right mean spillage is just really an exercise
and Friends figuring out that we're better together than we are as like on our own terms yeah and the industry in general too is just making music with your friends is way more fun yeah than anything else create that Community thrive in that community and everything
else is easy like if we have to do a camp you know we don't have to worry about who's in the camp if it's just all us like if it's Maria but down the hall Earth getting down the hall I'm down the hall jit down the hall it's all the
pressure's off all the extras off and we can just rely on each other lean on each other remember what we used to do and still feel like that I mean even though you've all grown up now and you know kids family success industry every Camp's got its own Camp do you still
feel like the the essence of that camaraderie still exists yeah absolutely I still talk to everybody regularly like just saw Olu um anytime I've been away from Ariba for too long I text her like hey we gotta we gotta we got a link we gotta sit down we
gotta talk we gotta catch up and same frigid it's like these are people that coming into this we knew that we were going to be a family and even to today it's just like that family thing is really important to us even if we spend time away from each other and somebody's
on tour it's like when it's time to link and when it's time to talk it'll always be the same I feel like you and jitt are almost the same person but you just um decided to emphasize the different sides of your personality for sure it's like jit is the one who grabbed the mic and
decided to leave it torched yeah smoking on the ground absolutely but he can definitely hold Melody and leans into that song structure whereas you're more than capable of going down that road as well but you chose to lean into the song
structure but you can also still torture mic when you choose to so it's like the balance is perfect between the two of you absolutely I think one day uh soon I'll probably lean a little bit more to the right side yeah and exercise that yeah I think it calls for it especially
that's how I started so yeah I want to make sure that I spend some time like figuring out what that sounds like if I need to go sit with no idea if I need to go sit with Hit Boy if I need to like go sit with somebody who can help that voice like start to eat emerging and
also when you grab a microphone I think being a life you know a big fan of of rap and hip-hop and the idea of exercising language and in a way that is sharp and funny and aggressive and truthful and competitive and all the things that come with it heartbreaking
you know there's so much wrapped up in it then often if you're going to grab a mic and you're going to exercise that muscle yeah it comes from the ego right yeah and yet you're trying to find a way to work with your ego not work for your
ego yeah so what does that sound like when you decide to grab a mic this time it's like do you just do you just unlock the ego as an exercise and let it run free I think in a sense that it is unlocking it and letting it run free because regardless of like what comes
out it'll always be more tame than it was I don't know it'll be more tame than 2016 me for sure so balance is okay like life is both life is everything like you know it's good it's bad it's bravado it's peace and Tranquility it's moments of ego it's
moments of accountability yeah where were you before you were here today exactly so I'm down to continue to just like honor and remember that life is balanced I feel like I got headphones on I guess yeah let's do one Harmony you stop we've got to do a Harmony go hi do you feel help