[Music] [Music] there's my friend what's going on dude my friend good to see you brother welcome back how have you been why i haven't spoken to you for so long and that's because of everything the world quarantine life love family priorities and creativity
and i just want to know how's your world my world is beautiful i took a nice little break um i filmed a movie and then when it was time to get back in the studio i was like okay i want to do this differently than i ever did it before i want to just work with people that
you know are my friends first and people that you know like i build like intimate relationships with and i want to do it like in an intimate way so i um became close with scott harris who's the frequent collaborator of um of sean's and um i was like hey do you want to you know do you want to
write together and it started off um he and i in my bedroom and my house in miami um and then we brought it over to la and we brought along uh mike sabbath and ricky reed and then we ricky irene's on fire right now ricky reed is making amazing music right now i
know and i love him so much he's become like my studio dad and and scott and mike are like my studio brothers wow that's great and that's why you sound so free on this it and what's really beautiful and incredibly immediate about it is it it very much speaks to who you are as a
human to your family to the origin of your family you think i sound like a party like that is that what you're trying to say 100 stand by it no i i just think you know it's it's clear to me that you know as far as the tree will grow that you seem to have further identified
your roots through your music and you seem to be going there totally well i love being latin and i love um like i think especially i feel like before kovid i was just feeling a little bit i was feeling kind of like i've been working for so long with no real
displaced displaced a bit this lost like just like and struggling not gonna lie like i had been working so i was like 15 i was like really struggling like with with my mental health and i think that just like there was like a combination of like burnout and just like i don't know i
wasn't feeling great and i think like when i was kind of like emergency flown from the movie back to miami for a few months you know i was a little bit like you know obviously it was a terrible thing but i think for my personal life and like my brain it was really good to slow down
and um and so i was like oh this is i don't know i was just kind of like learned how to be like i think a human and develop like interests and passions like outside of the studio and outside of music and outside of like of that and i think that that brought me
really close to just being like brought me really close to my family i wonder what how that's changed the shape of music for you because like when you're making music in the moment and you're in the middle of that success all those constructs start to attach
themselves to that experience and then what what you make is influenced by what you hope to achieve when you let go of that it completely changes it right first and foremost i was like i just want to connect today like with the people in this room and i think that really
showed itself in the music like i formed friendships that i feel like you know with scott and mike and and ricky like they're like my homies now like i want to have dinner with them you know what i mean i want to go out with them and i like i i remember like just in sessions like
i really am vocal about how i feel like if i'm feeling nervous or if i'm feeling like i'm struggling with something i'm like hey can i work this out out loud like i think it it really is like i like a therapy session for me in terms of like being able to be
free and like i think that creates intimacy between people and it almost is like if you kind of personify a song it creates intimacy between you and the music you know what i mean totally well each one of those songs and those moments attach themselves to your evolution to
what you're trying to achieve you know it gets out of the imaginary space and it becomes very much a form of manifestation almost exactly and i think like this album for me was like a manifestation like i i the name of my album is familia and and um i think i was like really
manifesting um i was really inspired by when i saw i don't know if you saw tangana's tiny desk no i haven't shout out to setangana because i'm a huge fan of his um and like in the tiny desk he's basically doing the tiny desk at this dinner table and he's got like a ton of people around
him and there's like half eaten like food and i was so inspired by that and i was like that's the life i'm trying to have like for me it's like it's really become like not about you know not about success not about obviously like if you win with your
friends like that's incredible but i think like it's really become about that kind of life for me like just like i think i was like really inspired by i feel like when i was growing up and starting this industry like when i was 15 and also the messages that
we get from the society are so like individualistic you know like individual um success and like my name and my name and my name and i feel like well it's all a race camera that's the thing it's all this big kind of race to some sort of spot at the table and it's like wait but who's at the
table totally exactly and you don't want to be alone at the table even if it's the fanciest and best table um and i think that was like what i really wanted to manifest is collective joy i was like i don't want to be alone on stage i don't want to be alone you know
hopefully you know doing the tiny desk i want it to be like that kind of family affair selfishly because it would make me happy it would make my life better and that's what i want you know so that's like really what i was trying to manifest like with this whole
album and i think don't go yet it's just like i think sonically and melodically just me like being free you know and like it really sounds like freedom again letting myself feel joy and like collective joy and also yeah i've been listening to like i think
like being in miami for so long and like having more family around me and speaking spanish more made me feel like i don't know just kind of brought me back you know like brought like i think my my roots went deeper in a way that i that i really needed speaking of like speaking it right
you know i was speaking to sean and camilo the other day sean was saying that you're riding him super hard when he was doing his vocals for that track and you were and you were just like it's not no that's and he was like is it good enough and you're like
oh no there's no such thing as good enough i know i was like trust me if you want to sound if you because you know spanish-speaking people can tell when somebody that's english-speaking like you know it sounds a little bit just so generous with it you're so empathetic with it trust me i know
because there's a new zealander who loves the music trying to pronounce things all the time i watch my friends just like just subtly just wince like like it hurts you're like i'm like kamilah kabilo and it's just like oh it just oh it hurts a little bit but no
you know so you're so generous with it i'm so grateful but at the end of the day you're right like if you especially if you're going to put it on the record literally it matters literally no it matters for sure because you want to be able to like enjoy the song and not be like you know
but sean really he put he puts the work in too and it wasn't just for well first of all that studio session i was riding him so hard he was like that's good i don't hear that like that's good i'm like do what you want but it ain't right i'm just saying
but he apart from that song like really like has also like fallen in love with latin culture and like i don't know if he'll do this but it's like taking spanish lessons like you know he like really you know wants to learn to speak spanish so he he already had you know he had some some
some ground covered before that he looks great too he looks great he looks so handsome i know it's great when he's like does things that are weird and dorky because i feel like it makes him just like less intimidate his handsomeness like not makes me not as nervous can you
imagine how i felt like i'm standing in the studio right and and up comes camilo who's like hello it's just so so handsome and then sean is like like james like like young american james bond he's like hello and i'm like oh my god you guys can both off you know that's hilarious you