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i've been looking forward to this moment man i've been a fan from a distance i've tried to draw you in i've tried to use common friendships to try to get closer i've leaned on kent i've leaned on kenny beats more than
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once to try to make the connection that guy's been practically useless in that job i tell good to see you bro how you holding up how's life i'm holding up well life is good life is great um i just like got back from this trip and i went to like idaho and
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um i had a lot of time to think about everything why the scenery is beautiful there are things that like it's like there are pastures and valleys and giant lakes and trails and i don't know it's great there i love it how was it
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actually getting away from all that and just kind of leaning into space and leaning into a meditation rather than staying indoors in the city which is kind of up intense it was intense i haven't done something like that in a while i mean
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in a long time probably since i started making this album it's been years since i really sat with myself and like dug deep so i was there was i had some moments i had some breakdowns but um good time over all together i
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feel good i've had some really important conversations this week with a lot of people that you know in my life that i just needed to have kind of and um that's like moved me forward i'm ready to start doing i'm starting my second album and it's sounding amazing
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i've been making music differently i write differently i play the piano better now some reason i don't even know what it is did you enjoy leaning in and not feeling like you had to just keep putting song after song out that you had this chance
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to like make a body of work yeah when i sat back and thought about it like all the uh resources that i had and like the things that i could do to get it done i was like i found myself taking things for granted
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as well i was like damn back in the day i could never do this like hiring like an orchestra or whatever you know i had like people come in and do crazy things for me and i was like wow this is just unreal man the places that we can take
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it yeah it's funny you know someone who suffers from anxiety and has done through my whole life i really actually found the whole conversation you and kevin had really insightful because it was super transparent and open
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a lot of times that stuff just gets cut it's like oh we'll just start the interview once you've been able to take a breath and i love the fact that you were just like nah man like we're just going to keep this a very kevin thing to do
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i would definitely leaned into those things like the anxieties and stuff like that those are good for songwriting as future would say i did there's a lot of songs on there that are just made of anxiety just built on those feelings do you listen to your
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music you fan are you able to just to divorce yourself from the process and actually be a fan of what you've made with your friends when i first make it i'm like a narcissist like i will listen to it a million times the next couple days over
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the next couple days when i start to realize things i become like self-loathing and it's like really crazy to switch up you'll see my my manager's always like damn that's nuts dude how you literally loved it now you're like you
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feel this extreme about it so yeah i'm hot and cold with that i don't think there's anything wrong with it i mean i always thought it was really sad you know when artists would would say to me i can't listen to my music i'd be like that's almost a sadness the part that the musician gets to enjoy though is the do the making of it like the journey the output you know element of it they're like letting it go and giving it to someone else i guess
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that's the whole point so you know you said something that was really interesting which was i mean first of all you shared more about your background than in your and your life story than than we'd ever heard before i ever have
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yeah yeah which obviously makes people infinitely more interested but you did in a controlling way which i thought was great and then um you also said thank god i can make music because they're nobody hiring me to do anything else anymore
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that's so true yeah i just wanted kind of like you know what point that dawned on you uh whether it was that the time that you spent in prison or whether or not you even realized before that that that ultimately your passion for music
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was was a linear experience yeah i mean i never really that i didn't put those together as soon as i got like you know i've always been looked at as pretty much it felt like growing up in my town like i always had these like
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tattoos and this colorful hair and these like you know eyes like it felt like i always had that the way that people treated me so this really didn't make much of a difference i think after i'd made a couple songs that i really liked
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you know that i had sat and i cried over and showed people and they felt the same way there was probably a shift in me where i was like well this is the only thing i can do everything else is just like you know it's not going to matter
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i love it um okay we're going to play jimmy stagg i know that there's a personal relationship there now as well well first of all a really good friend like you know jimmy's like he's now like a really good friend of
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mine so i definitely got that out of it um he's taught me so much in our sessions because we just work a lot it's like me and him you know i'll pull up and he teaches me like two you know he doesn't like dude there's a lot of producers that don't
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even like use instruments they'll just be like direct people and i'm like that's tight so he conducts he ultimately can he conducts he conducts people and gets the best possible result right and he's also like me in the way that he'll
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take a project home and he needs to be alone and by himself and no one's looking at him and then he'll send you like what his thoughts are and i love that you like your own company i just don't want to put it on other
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people all the time like i could be around people all the time other people i just feel like sometimes they need a break from me what do you think it is about yourself that it hypothetically speaking is causing that need for space
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the fact that i can literally be around humans forever like i said like the fact that i could just i don't know sometimes i just feel like it's a lot for people and i feel like they need their alone time i don't know you seem to me like you said like you
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said you know you seem to me to be someone who's a people person like you know i i i kind of i kind of wonder as a child uh when you were growing up um how that was how that was received you talked a little bit about the hair and the wires
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and feeling like you stood out even as a young kid what do you think that was partially the like class system that you know was like it was like a whole class what is it called like a hierarchy yeah like that partially that
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um partially my family's reputation like i feel like my family has always had a crazy reputation that i had to carry around with me as you were going through that and realizing that this is the situation that you're in but you also strike me as being a very sort of loyal empathetic human being and i wonder how that was that was a constant struggle yeah being empathetic and all that having you know the people i love being the ones that are like
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you know almost bringing this kind of toxicity that was like present in my life so no there was a lot of gut-wrenching moments dude we could make a movie out of it who are some of the other people you connected with i know you've been you've
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been establishing this i mean you know everyone was talking about kenny beats i mean i can hate that guy but we should spend a little time talking about him jesus can we not talk about it yeah i mean me and katie like can he help me in so
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many ways making this album we actually have we made a lot of songs that didn't really even make it to the album but like the ones that we did make are like wow and uh he gives me good advice kenny's like um you've talked to him he's a grown-up
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exactly he's a grown-up he gives me good ass advice and uh that's the way he helps me the most you know you've taken the opportunity to go away and to sort of collect your thoughts and to move through sometimes and grow personally
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um but you're about to release this body of work which you've spent a long time three years making and um i sort of i sort of wonder like have you sort of adjusted your expectations a little bit in terms of what you can do um to support this recording and is it exciting to you is it daunting have you figured it out not figured it out i mean what is putting music out at the end of july meme oh it's all the same it's all this it's like all the
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all at once i don't know i'm getting so many feelings like a lot of anxiety definitely happy about it super relieved also scared but you know today though i don't really you know today's like a new day since i got back from my homie i'll tell
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you did you go out there did you get yourself into like a traditional meditation experience or was it just literally like switch off and was it just you and like like what was it the same for us i just i don't know i went out there with a
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couple people that i didn't really know very well to be honest with you that's cool i did by the end of it by the end of it i know that's exactly yeah it was i just put myself in weird situations you know you're the kind of artist that to me
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somebody as a writer and as a creative that i feel falls into this kind of really unique modern space that has been kind of carved up by tyler frank said mac cudi just great artists who came out and put their honesty and their anxieties on the
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table but also just word and red like didn't didn't bury themselves in it was still like this is this is me and this is culture you can you can you can exist with both are those the kind of people that that you were listening to when you were so
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trying to find your voice oh those are definitely definitely people that i was listening to trying to find my voice especially frank yeah especially tyler you already know what was your first impression when you
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met him like what what was that experience like because he he likes to put you on the back foot in order to work out where you stand i think i know he'd be doing that uh i forgot the first time i met him i think i was like eating
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with somebody he rolled up on me he always for me but he scared the shot of me last time i saw him i was like in new york it was like after or before one of my shows and like he just i was talking to someone and it's in new york and it's dark you
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know what i'm saying and he like i don't know he puts him in my back he was like give me all your and he has a deep ass voice and i don't i didn't know he was in new york give me all your money i was like oh my god what the can that attorney turn around is tall ass i'm like yo jesus christ i was okay hot i was like dawg where do you stand right now in the idea of of collaborating now your album is done i have been picky about it also been
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more open about it what i really like is collaborating with like instrumentalists producers whenever i like collab it's rare that i get in the room with another artist and we're making a song every time i get
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you know i like to meet artists but i have done some pretty big collabs recently like who like who you've been working with what's the name i did what i did it was slow tight hard uh mk mkg do you know him um oh damn i have a secret one but i'll
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tell you later give us a clue it's a rapper as a rapper it's a rapper how do you find uh living in los angeles coming from the other side of the coast ups and downs every day's the same the food's good sometimes the people suck
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sometimes they're fun the beach is not the beach it is in florida although florida's bad for me too right now why can't you be in florida dude first of all well i need to be i just got my mama house there so i would love to go be there and
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my family's there that's amazing it's like the corona epicenter yeah it's awesome i'm so happy about that so you've been able to afford to put your family into a more secure situation through art yeah which is nuts don't take me
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there that's crazy that's amazing when i when i realize that you're in a situation to do that and art enabled that fact that is just like that's incredible man and you had to do that remotely yeah i didn't even get to look at the house i just
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it's crazy i just i got like a virtual view my mom's like i like it i'm like okay then we did it so i haven't been there i want to it has a pool i don't have a pool here and that one hasn't cooled do you like the idea of coming home does
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florida feel good to you when you go home given that it's it's it's a place that is that is that has been mixed but mixed experiences right yeah for sure i mean it depends i i do like going home i'm so you know when i get there i'm like oh wow
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you know even when i come here like you know the feeling when you came home from school you take your backpack off and you know you're home you feel lighter i don't really get that all the time here when i'm in florida that's like the real you know i really get that feeling i'm like oh i'm home and i know all the people i feel like drake in toronto when i'm in florida yeah i know all the good food too cuban food i miss cuban food dog
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all right there's a young artist there's somebody who kind of makes you know who chooses when you work picks and chooses your moments has to stay self-motivated in order to create and complete right nobody's putting you on a clock
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you're not you're not being paid by the hour um you know and and you know you've got a lot of internal you know discussions to have with yourself in order to get the art out um what's your relationship like with distractions and with that stuff
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love and hate loving hate for sure i was talking about that with someone really important to me i don't know i'm 24 years old man so i'm just gonna do me for now i i want to look like like pharrell when i'm like
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old so like i'm gonna stop you know kind of want my skin to say i don't want that big red florida man nose like we're gonna finish with bow wow bro it's been nice to make the connection at last um and you know to to to for real it really was just
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yeah man and listen i mean like i know there's a lot you said you know you want there's a lot to talk about and um the album's coming into july and however we land if maybe maybe we land close to that we get a chance to dive
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into that track for track i'd love to do it again but in the meantime man thanks for thanks for letting us you know um dance around the fountain a few times and just get to know you a little bit better really respect the music that you make and appreciate it you