you look great fantastic thanks man this is the new look this is the new look you're liking it you're feeling it oh very much so it's dignified it's wizened i don't want to do too much i want to keep it low key you know you mean when you walk in the room it takes people like 10 15 minutes they figure out you arrived i'm dead yeah exactly listen it's been an incredible ride up to this point i'm so
glad that you're back holiday is such a smasher we just played cash page this is one of the most amazing and essential new voices in rmb i called it like i don't know maybe nine months ago i said if she's not winning a grammy in the next two years what are we even doing here there's something so incredibly authentic about cash page you know what i mean exactly she's amazing she's like
i feel the stories you know i feel it i can say it definitely feels like super authentic it's like i'm living in what she's singing i don't know what takes me to like a world you know yeah and you know it's so beautiful that you chose to you know for her music to go side by side with frank ocean because nobody paints pictures like frank no one applies that detail that we unpick over and over again and discover new
things every time we listen to it how does frank factor into your life as a fan and also as an artist because you can be both without being mutually exclusive if you know what i mean i think artists like frank be like artists like frank in general and like tyler and whatever like they made it easier for me to be where i am you know comfortably also provider was like a very special song to
me during like this relationship i was in so yeah you go frank he's amazing it must have been nice to have the space though to be able to explore it i mean you would never have done that the pace you were moving before was that kind of also part of what wanted to you wanted to stay grounded for 2020 i know we had no choice as a species but the fact that you could explore personal relationships which over and
over again i speak to artists it comes up as the number one sacrifice of success a loss of personal relationships i'm such a loner of a person i really like i honestly like being alone you know and sometimes i'll convince myself like no i need more people ryan but then i was like ah i want to be alone again you know and so relationships for me have been like you know in and out
i guess it's mostly because i still don't know what i want in a relationship or what not because you know i didn't get to date when i was younger so yeah definitely interesting i want to play phoenix next if that's cool because i have this enormous enormous love of this french band and the fact that they make me dance and happy but also it's like this crazy whistle phoenix was french they are french my
man wee wee that's amazing wee-wee and that's one of my favorite songs ever well because it makes you really happy but it also makes you really reflective i like to look out the window listening to this you know imagine i'm in a movie or something they're so cinematic how did you discover the song how do you discover because you have a really broad taste and i wanted to sort of when you
started to recognize that your musical taste was really vast and not just locked into one genre as is the case with a lot of young kids you know with this song honestly i think i first found this song when i was like a child it was like in this car commercial i was like yo what the this i was like that sounds amazing and then like the years later i actually found the song again
and then i found some other phoenix other songs and it was just like a journey for me yeah but then i heard seven and i was like oh no this is like drawing all these different influences so it's almost like it felt to me like oh no you were trying to reestablish that diversity and taste and your taste through your music to tell people don't box me in 100 that's definitely probably the main goal of seven for me
because it's like i know doing old town road in general it's like or doing panini or any other phone it's like no i'm going to make what i want to make and i don't care what even my fans have to say about it i mean because at the end of the day it's going to be my music that i'm putting out into the world you know that brings us to album talk and i'd love for you to share a little bit about
sort of what you've been making how you're feeling about it i'll leave it pretty open-ended for you to kind of fill in the gaps this ellen exuberates like confidence like uh creativity just me completely stepping out of comfort zone and saying whatever i want and giving my actual stories uh like giving my friends something to take from me you know because seven was cool i love seven it's
great but it wasn't personal enough and i feel like that's that's exactly what i was gonna bring what else has been going on this year i mean apart from you know falling in and out of relationships and finding your voice in a different way what other sort of significant things have occurred this year that you feel have added to your growth i feel like like strengthening a
relationship with myself you know which is very underrated and unsaid and like learning to like love myself more and realizing that sometimes i i i wasn't doing that you know just being more confident in what i'm doing and blocking out anybody's negativity if i don't feel like if it's if it's not good critique then it's not for me you know was it confusing for you that that you perhaps you weren't really
recognizing your own inequality and yet the whole world was showering you with praise was that was that the most confusing time for you like how come i don't feel the same way about myself that everybody else feels about me yeah definitely because i mean i guess i like grew up a lot having like this head and self hatred like for myself you know and not even realizing that it was there and i guess
having something where i could be super creative and express myself it's definitely brought it forth you know like how much no matter what happens like i'm all i'm always gonna be there for myself you know and you know i used to always like depend on somebody else or other people like for that love and attention you know you know it's right here you know within me we just play brock hampton and
we also play some miley cyrus in the playlist as well two artists who have been fearlessly open and honest about who they are and therefore amplified the conversation around who you can be as an individual and not who society expects you to be and that kind of refers back to what we were talking about before about the idea of loving yourself and appreciating who you are
um you know you crossed that threshold i thought with and i sent you a message and we've spoken about you cross that threshold so beautifully um at a time when you were at the ultimate popularity you know i i don't want to paraphrase you wrong but something along the lines of i kind of figured you're new and it was just such the most perfect way of just throwing away any of the any of the drama around how you
identify and who you love and who you're attracted to it was like really is this really a thing and i wonder if that was kind of your way of of helping everybody else but did it feel like a big thing to you because you made it seem really easy but it not often it isn't it isn't easy to make those kind of statements in public yeah i mean i honestly feel like you know i have my angels with me
at all time and i just felt like i was just getting signs okay it's time to do this thing because it's like i'm already moving forward and i'm becoming more free with everything i do so let's take this to the next level and you know do this because i mean it was either going to be that or what like pretend this for the rest of my entire life and also not be able to express that in what i do my music you
know billy ella shows up on the playlist a fellow apple music award winner which is a beautiful thing and we loved obviously honoring you in that fashion billy and phineas are just an incredible partnership as brother and sister and creative duo but also billy herself as a human being is raw and honest and upfront and unafraid right and you must you must really identify with her in that regard aside
from the music that she's just an unafraid human being she's just billy is just like so amazing and talented and that's exactly that's exactly like the main reason i love her like what you just said she's going to do whatever the she wants and she's apologizing for it and she's going to say how she feels about whatever and like i really admire that how do you get yourself over that line
in those moments because you have made some significantly brave steps and statements that now just seem like they're a part of the conversation but you one of if not the first to do it so let's talk a little bit about where that courage comes from um i guess it just comes from the point that i know like i'm here for a reason you know like be like especially definitely music
but it's like beyond that it's like all of us if i feel like we're put in a certain place in this universe it's definitely for more than what we do or like what we see ourselves is doing so it's like i know i'm here for much bigger reason you know so i want to definitely step into these conversations and start these conversations because i know my word means something you know it's definitely going to raise
more eyebrows and if i would have said it two years ago as the same person you know the idea of destiny and the ability to be able to see yourself in the grand scheme of life and the experience that we all live and not get lost in all of the you know thrash recognize you have purpose um can come from a place of faith from spirituality it can come from just being instilled with these beliefs at a young age like
how do you form an opinion like that of yourself when the whole world is just i feel like we're all just crawling over each other a lot at the moment just seeing the way that things lined up seeing the way that things fall into place and how the ball falls into your hand in different situations like everything's a chance and more often than none you know i definitely want to step into that
and i definitely you know i see signs and synchronicities you know that okay this is why i have to do this this is why i have to do that you know everything makes sense for me you know such a crazy 18 months you know two years or so that you came out billy was around lizzo was around juice came through juice just changed everything and then juice left and we lost him and it was just i can't
even imagine how it was for family and friends and those that that worked with him but as a fan and someone who met him a little bit it was a real hard one it was a tough one it's a really tough one to take and to hear that news um did you ever have a chance to kind of connect with him or is there a story that you have with juice because you both came up at exactly the same time i have no story with juice but like
there was just there was this time where i was like on this red carpet and you know people always would ask me who would you like to work with but for the first time i had like okay yeah i want to work with juice world because i had never said that i don't i don't really know why because he's definitely a big influence on me um and the next days when he passed which is like super crazy
the earth wind of fire september keeps showing up right here people just need this clearly the song is so unreal is that something you grew up listening to in the house or how do you discover september how does ewf play a part oh my god my grandmother loves them so much and you know beyond that just just hear this song in any movie or any occasion i'm just like oh my god this is the best thing ever
let's talk about in bloom and how that felt because it's it's one of those moments that when you get a shot to work with an artist who's no longer around and you get to work with the estate and do something like that and we never really touched on it because i was just still trying to make sense of it all when the music came out looking back on that it's crazy you know what's insane i think i don't know if i
told you before but i didn't even know that i like subconsciously accidentally like sampled nirvana so or after that i listened to that album for the first time in my life i i've seen the cover a million times but i listened to it for the first time like this is this is um this is unworldly you know unworldly uh and that's how i found this song this is my favorite nirvana song you