I mean you just know as soon as it begins that you're dealing with a different artist has got different approach for [Music] real I mean this isn't just like quantity this isn't a quantity game this is a quality game M it sounds like a lot of reflection going on on this record how does it feel putting out another body of work knowing that the first one changed your life how does that affect
your mentality going into to make another one when you're not that kid anymore making your first one I always just try to outdo myself with everything and I'm not one to live in the past to think about the past um I I like to be present and have infinite gratitude presently but then also look as a futurist and think about what can I do to take everything creatively musically
artistically to a whole another level that is Mastery level I mean that's a practice every day you don't just wake up in the morning and get into that sweet spot I mean look the artistic spirit is restless and therefore there's often a prepar it to want to dwell on past successes or or challenges and worry about future successes or challenges the present moment is hard to
achieve it's hard to achieve right it's it's a discipline right no absolutely you know that's my my word of this year so far man is just gratitude I try to start and I started off ending I'm kind of going off the momentum from last year um I read this book called Atomic habits and it basically sort of teaches you the Art and Science and the neurology about how our our brain formed habits and um
one habit that I wanted to get into was um you know starting my day with with gr starting and ending my day with with just gratitude just thanking God I just want to make a cohesive body work that I can stand upon and 20 years from now 10 years from now be proud of and be happy about you know like each of these bodies of works of my babies man for real let's
just dissect this in a meaningful way you know you work with l Durk and Gunner your contemporaries your peers on this record put amongst Legends focusing on your peer group right now these are these are real artists making real inroads doing like Legacy work but you all come from a pretty different sort of point of view creatively I feel and and I wonder what the balance is for you
taking a look at the way your contemporaries your peer group your generation move and using all the tools at their disposal but kind of deciding to make an album that is only 10 full songs and two interludes and thinking a little different and whether that outlier mentality works for you or you don't see yourself that way I try to have main character syndrome you know
just be super self-indulging I just like to exist here on Earth you know I'm just existing here man I'm just a vessel and and not to be the guy that uses the word vessel right use it everybody who's on this album like Gunner and Dirk both of those are like very good friends of mine I don't use that work very lightly especially when speaking upon people that's uh within the entertainment space
you know so Gunna U we made that record when we was in Australia we were both doing a festival run in Australia same with little Derk man he's been a supporter of mine since like three years ago you know I remember when that lost boy first dropped he was like you a goat young you know like DK tweeted that he said that publicly that's not something he just
told me in private he tweeted that and um show love like that man that's that's something I don't take for granted you know as an artists we love getting um we make this music you know for the world to hear and for the fans and the consumers to hear and digest and love but also we want the admiration of our peers as well and um it's always been a mutual respect with with both both those
cat the title is very meaningful clearly it's the tail end of of the introduction to the record and it and it leads into this next into the next piece of music the second song je Michelle perfectly thank you um and I want I'd love to know the meaning behind it and I'd love to know what the intro is saying to the album and what is the story because I know there is one oh you know charow
that's my my my younger brother um he's in prison right now he got 25 years and um I have him rapping on the intro bro because you know we was coming up rapping together he was more lit than I was we were both coming up like for real he was popping more so I feel like I'm kind of like a harvesting a seed that he planted in a way and um I say that to say I thought it was I felt as though it
was only right that I had bro on the intro rapping on the album the music is is always powerful when when you choose it and I feel like you you're very deliberate as a producer yourself you're very very you know in the idea of of the of the sometimes you hear verses and you're like cool it's a great foundation for that but with you I feel like you're inspired by what you hear musically and
you want to add something almost like a Timeless approach to songwriting absolutely how do you sort of approach choosing your Beats and deciding what you want to embellish and work on sometimes I just go through a whole day myself picking out samples and I'll chop them up and I'll give it to one of the homies that got because my drums that I have right now is like not good you
ain't got the photo no no no you know what cuz being a true leader is recognizing your strengths and your talents the strength and talents of of others you know coming together on a conglomerate effort and so um I'm I'm pretty good at picking uh sample choices and different sounds and Sonics and things of that nature what song on this album called day was is is is the most
emotional for you or at least the one that resonates on a truth level the most probably Mama's Hood can we talk about that I wrote that song the day after one of my best friends got killed from back home from West Lake and um we were really close in high school man my boy pit shout out Jaan Ross and um when he got killed man I just started dealing with survivors guil like crazy and um
that inspired the song and um I I felt guilty because I'm like man I could have saved them I could have brought him on the road me I could have found a way I could have saved them and um I wrote that song um in remembrance of my homie I'm sorry you had to go through that man it's that's not that's not right Chronicles is a song which is jumping right out from this album and I know
that you love it because you know it's right on the cover of new music daily uh featuring her and little Dirk this is just another one that's really meaningful collaborations and uh it's just it's again a different side to the record can you tell us a story about making this one yeah so um I made this record uh at home you know I have a home studio where I create a lot of Music at
and um I remember the day like it was yesterday it was probably towards the top of this year and um it it was just just pure raw motion and transmuting that into song form that's essentially how every song on this album was made and uh but that one in particular it just gave me a certain feeling when I heard it when I finished that record I was like it just gives me
a feeling who are you most nervous to playing this album to when you felt it was good enough to play to anybody did you who did you decide to share it with because you knew the feedback you were G to get was going to be the most honest I sent it to CP3 to Chris Paul I sent it to Dave Chappelle um I sent it to Colin Kaepernick all of who are like good very good friends of mine and um not really
nervous um just more so just to um you know I feel like you know they'll send me like some sneakers or something or something exclusive before it comes out you know always but uh so i' just like to return to favor one song with you and Nas Stevie Wonder lending his incredible breath to this record as well um how was it putting that particular song together cuz that one's such a standout and I
feel like you and Nas Just aesthetic Al and tonally are sort of separated at Birth if you know what I mean yeah n Nas man listen I'm a Nas baby all day like I most of my style and influence comes directly from nas I'll say that all day like my style my cadences like Nas directly influence me just straight up like there there is no me without Nas do you have a favorite Nas verse or a
moment that you know really stands out for you I love it was written I love it was written as like one of my all-time favorite albums you know love that man I would expect nothing less it was definitely some some last minute Ali oops and buzzer beaters Eminem is um stylistically very early on any artist with uh coming to a Lyricist approach with making music and Hip-Hop definitely
has some sort of Eminem influence it's like impossible not to it it's impossible and um Eminem man you know definitely you know my first song that I came out with um was the my name is remix you know so that that tells you all I need to say about what I think of Eminem you know and uh how much his music has uh meant to me and um just an honor to work with you know like a
Stevie Wonder as well you know him to put his harmonica and and bless it with the record um so is definitely a blessing let's just be very very clear you know you're also on a record people already know about this because it's Sinister with little Wayne you got Freddy Gibbs on there um Rody Rich showing up on there I mean it really is a beautifully curated body of work and
and I think one of the real magic tricks that you pulled off well it's not a magic trick cuz it's who you are and your skill set will always shine through but it's undeniably your album despite the quality of the guest list on this record every song that I make where I add another artist too I I just think about what color palette that they're going to add to the song I think about
what their vocal tone is like a paintbrush if you would you know what are they going to add to this and I just like to curate dope dope things was there sort of a constant to the way you approached writing the words on this is is there like a like a like a sort of feeling that you knew you had to have before you could write to this album and know that you were going to keep the
subject matter and the mood cohesive even if it was loose is there a sort of sense of something that flowed through this experience looking back on it for you as you made it man every song I would say has an I can tell you where I was what happened that day and what real life event influenced that song for every single song that's on the album every single song has a memory attached
to it has what I did earlier that day what event what did I go through that day that made me or go through that week that made me write that song Jean Michelle what was going on there that's where we started for sure that was at the beginning of a pandemic and that's why it's so dark and the the cores is so dark and it feels so like this Vibe of hopelessness and anguish because it was
at the the opening words the brink of Extinction held been on Survival you know this is like the first week of um you know the announcement of like you know everything's being shut down lockdown and quarantine and I'm in the studio as this is happening and I am Legend cam on imagine I'm in the studio and it's the first day of quarantine about you know you can't leave the house
everything is shut down and so we started made my boy kid culture shout out to him made that beat and that's why it's so like an exaggerated feeling of Anguish like brink of Extinction hell been on Survival this Life's a Contin with cycle you know so like that that's just the feeling I brought West Lake high so I wrote that I was off shrooms that day when we made that beat and um
we were just in the studio vibing and I heard that my boy um Jalil matter of fact sent me that sample because I'm always collecting samples he sent me that sample I'm sitting down with kid and we chopping it up and we are like on cloud nine literally on the cloud and U we creating this joint and I'm like I just want to make everybody feel like how I feel right now and this does that