I had this EP I was making called silky Santiago and it was a three song EP that I made with Scott Storage and Timberland in Miami couldn't have been further from what this became right and I it was called silky Santiago because it was like my drunk Alter Ego because I wore silk you know it's like so ridiculous the bright lights I'm in Miami getting hammered like silky sounds so embarrassed [Music] and the first impressions of funny
things you know we create them and covet People's First Impressions of us we add them to our identity and then we move forward accordingly and then ultimately if we're not careful we become the thing that we invented in the first place but if it comes at the expense of who we are really then you've got a couple options right you either go back you change your shape and you become something else altogether or you go
deeper than you've ever gone before and you reintroduce yourself to yourself and ultimately to us and that happens on the record very rarely yeah um but when it does we welcome artists with open arms into our lives like that and if we're lucky we welcome them into the studio talk about it Russ you just pulled off a miracle bro what an introduction oh my God bro you should make an album I'll have to listen to this one I think
anybody listens this one needs to go back and attend to their allotment a little bit make sure their Gardens grow in the right way wow um that's a nice place to start actually from where it grows you know this album It's I haven't I
remember the last time I kind of I don't want to go specifically track by track like I don't want to stick to an exact framework but I want to give the album It's its place because you've given it a a very defined timeline yeah
um it's an album that is very much about growth personal growth but always with the idea of inspiring others to to to grow and to have some self-awareness and be unafraid to face things I feel like that's a big part of who you are that it's not just the singularity you have to be able to help you're a helper yeah I think by Nature um you know I kind of talk about it on fraud where you know for a long time starting my
childhood I got my identity from helping and making sure everyone else was good Same by the way emotionally yeah it spoke to me that song yeah and then when you inevitably like can't save everyone it's a threat to who you are and I crumbled when that happened you know it's funny too there's something about trying to fix everybody else that you think is the selfless exercise but every now and then you know you have to have a
little bit of self-awareness and ask yourself am I doing it to help others or am I doing it because it actually helps me um like him I am I am I gaining some kind of positive affirmation for my own identity by putting myself in other people's problems and trying to be the solver yeah probably yeah I just I always felt so emotionally responsible for everyone and I felt like it was on me to make sure my mom was good and my
brother and my sister and was this a job you took on or a job you were given I think both unconsciously you know I think um when I was like you know just super young um I guess well I would jump right into it it um transparently just like uh my house was you know I talk about it on I love you boy where my mom was you know her nervous system wasn't really regulated and neither was my dad's and so it was you know a lot of arguments and and just
high stress high tension environment um and my mom sometimes would be very fatalistic and my dad was very reactive and you know my brother and sister were sort of the Still Waters Run Deep sort of people and so I was just running around knocking on everyone's door making sure like everyone was good yeah because they fight because your security relied on it man yeah I mean as a kid right it's pretty simple it's like am I
gonna survive this and it's as dramatic as that like if my parents separate who's gonna put food on my table how am I going to be able to get through the day who's gonna look after me I don't have the tools what am I going to do
well you know what too we're trying to keep the family together because you're terrified it was are they gonna survive this right it felt life or death it truly felt life or death I was worried about self arm yeah you know and so
you know it's it's such a it's such a heavy burden to deal with as a kid when you feel like those are the stakes yeah that it's life or death yeah if I don't knock on my mom's door and make sure she's good and make sure my brother's good or whatever it's like who knows like I felt like I was talking people off the ledge it's a heavy thing to deal with um but like I said it ends up becoming a part of my identity and so when my
parents separated when I was 24 25 it's like I struggled with this idea of like hold on why am I tripping that my parents separate I'm grown like who gives a yeah but that's when I had to like do the real like growing down in searching for like okay why does this what does this actually mean what am I bothered about by this you're like this is because you're out of a job in a way oh yeah yeah kinda well and if I don't have
that job what's my job what's my job who am I right and that's fraud right you know right felt like I felt like a fraud so it wasn't boohoo my parents got divorced it was who am I yeah yeah and not just who have I become that's the other thing about this which is fascinating that when we go through these experiences as a kid a chain of events that sit into motion which can go in lots of different directions and it's
not uncommon for it to become um an artistic Pursuit some kind of destination as a way of expression and sharing your thoughts to hey it feeds the desire to help others but it also gives you a sense of purpose and identity yeah that isn't stuck in their job and it was Noble you know it felt Noble in a sense of like like I am the savior of my family you know but your family become your fans then too because a lot of when when you came
out right don't get me wrong you have a serious style and mood to you which is very dialed in people are excited by your music but like I said at the very beginning of our conversation there's always been a holistic side to what you do always a sense of like whatever steps I've taken I'm going to help you to understand the benefits and the negatives of this yeah so it's definitely built into the way you move
even as an artist yeah I think for me I'm trying to share internally what's going on in the most authentic way possible because I think that will help resonate with people and give them the light at the end of the tunnel and it's like I think in the past I tried to make it seem like I had it all figured out and that was sort of the coping mechanism yeah you know was like what we as men do which is berry berry berry it's all good
my therapist Mentor just incredible person told me uh some really interesting where he's like you know Society um dictates the value of a Man based off of like how much you can carry how far you can carry it and how alone you can carry it and it's so true and that's what I was doing for the longest time and I think now I'm at this place in my life where I have the humility to understand that I don't have it figured out
trying to figure it out and I'm trying my best I'm gonna like let you all know like what I'm doing to figure this out and maybe it'll help it made your best music out of it thank you thank you that means a lot because I agree even when you know you you discover that vulnerability and in a very real way and a cut in the courage to share it it doesn't detract from the fact that when you came out even with that sense of
kind of um I got this that there was an earnestness to your music that really resonated with your fans but I think put you on a path of of sort of Confrontation to some degree with with the in particular hip-hop and with the industry of making music of that level of excitement and energy of like this guy's two earners it's like what's going on like I can't get my head around him like what's happening how was that
experience knowing that you were achieving your goals but at the same time the community that inspired you in the first place you were ahead of the curve on there we're hearing a lot of big name artists now coming out and putting their hearts on the line I felt like you were doing it ahead of time thank you that's awesome that uh you recognize that I think for me or early on I had entitlement to be honest I think I got to a place now where I
realize it's not hip-hop's job to reaffirm what I already believed and earlier on okay we got one away early that's a powerful observation it's true that's but the issue early on was I was mad that hip-hop was not telling me what
I should have already believed about myself and that caused a lot of you know y'all look what I'm doing why are y'all bigging this guy did it and it's like you know that sort of that's trickled throughout the album as well
this like need for external validation and and all these you know just you're chasing yourself the whole time I was chasing myself well because when you're a kid and you imagine what what it's going to be like and you dream it up and and you get lost in your in your imagination that's an escape tool yeah when there's trauma going on in you in your in your home or in your life the imagination is a very effective way of
avoiding that and disappearing into somewhere else the good part of that is that if you do it enough ultimately it becomes manifestation before you realize it and you sort of set yourself on a pathway right right then you get to the destination and you've imagined it what it's going to be like and it doesn't turn out to be exactly like that right confusion yeah complete confusion in like denial and resistance and
resentment yeah thank you for not understanding what I'm trying to achieve here I'm dog right right but really you know what it comes from it comes from when I was younger wanting approval from my dad right and that manifests into like a vicious inner critic because his standard was Perfection so I adopted his metric as my own so now my metric for success is perfection so now nothing I do is good enough and so I ended up
replacing my dad with the industry with hip-hop yeah and so when I get into hip-hop and I'm still not getting the approval it's the same driving what the you know but once again it was really this this chasing my tail scenario where it's like I'm really I'm really chasing myself that's what the whole album is it's like it was you all along yeah yeah yeah I mean this is for the cameras run yeah yeah man and this isn't really for me to
look at this is for all of you look at yeah right it's true you're looking at this you can't see your reflection we haven't been able to build technology that allows you to see yourself run reflection through cameras uh of this caliber yeah but it was you all along it truly was yeah you know one of the really great things is is going to your social media feeds and seeing the the experiences you're having with your parents individually
traveling with your mom yeah a lot of amazing memories that you're sharing without with us all you having with your mum yeah Courtside with your dad yeah that was a big one you know having these moments where you're able to kind of understand your parents in on their terms yeah on who they are the best jobs they could do yeah rather than from a place of disappointment or trauma or judgment how has that how did that
healing process begin through therapy to be honest and I think it's really easy for us to like blame our parents and like y'all me up and y'all made me this way who else are you gonna blame if you don't have the tools to understand it's not their fault it's not their fault it's a very easy place to go they were doing the best they could and by the way there's a certain point in your life but probably around the age of 16 to 20 when you
should blame your parents it's called forming your own identity that's facts as long as you come back around yeah so I think I got to this place where for the longest time I was resisting who they were I was trying to change them and why are you not perfect yeah see what I'm saying yeah and I realize that that's not real love you know accepting them for who they are is real love not I'm not going to love you unless you are
this that's not real you know how emotional was it for your parents and I'd imagine a particularly a mom to hear this album for the first time she hasn't heard it knew that was my Dad wow yeah nah God that's good is that are you
worried about the way you're gonna feel the way they're gonna feel or both damn them yeah yeah because I would imagine off rip they're gonna feel like super guilty yeah we up and yeah because I know they're temperament you
know especially my mom's so yeah I don't ever want them to feel like oh I'm pointing the finger this is really just a solution it's a it's a success story it is but it's it I would imagine it's tough for parents to sort of hear how they indirectly and they didn't want to but there's effects you know that that um that happened in yeah it's just it's weird even when I like perform certain songs now like I have a song called
September 16th that is the you know anniversary date of my parents wedding and I perform it at the shows and my mom comes like every show but she leaves like she goes to the back when I perform that song because it's tougher to hear yeah you know so um yeah and it's like and that's okay if they're not ready to hear this you know truth of mine but like I said I feel like this is this is a success story this is here
this album being made and the way you're able to open up and tell your truth and get to this point of understanding a better understanding I don't see a better a a better result than that yeah thank you you know for anybody anybody in the in the family or or in the story it's tough though because as you know everyone's on a different place in their journey and on their race of personal development and yeah and truth and if
you're not ready to hear certain things about yourself or face certain things and I think that was the that was the toughest part about making this album is how confronting it was to have to come to terms with like who I am and what was really going on and be honest with myself you know on like the second verse of I love you boy when I'm like calling out myself like you know you would Chase in validation had it made yeah yeah and it's like it's
confronting you know and not everyone is ready to confront themselves I'm not saying my parents aren't but you know one of the best things though is that and great artists do this is you took uh subject matter that is in your words confronting and you built it in a very soothing and very open way the music plays a very important supporting role in this album um and that's one of the things that blew me away and I texted Scott and
Larry after I heard it and was like look you know I didn't go into this level of detail but one of the things that I just loved about it was that um you've found a beautiful contrast between the harshness of some of the observations and this beautiful nurturing Arrangement and sound design yeah that's awesome that was the goal um I still am a massive fan of just beautiful sounding music strings flutes
beautiful chord progressions in space yeah and that was always the goal and you know kudos to Aaron Paris who is this guy brought in to um the album basically made the whole album gave it to him I'm simplifying it but gave it to him and said like you know go crazy Twisted Fantasy this album you know what I mean go add the strings the choirs the flutes the Transitions and he just went nuts you know he really he really
understands where you're coming from and he's fully invested in the subject yeah and shout out to all the producers too this was such a new experience for me I didn't recognize any of them right so they're all like this is the crazy story and I'll try to tell it you know short version of it all the time bro okay beautiful so my manager yeah uh you know lives right around the corner from me his next door neighbor
um they have a son who's a producer and so for years they were like slipping hard drives you know to my manager's house like my son makes Beats all these things and Milan my manager would like tell me about it and he would play me
some of the beats and I was like yeah it's cool the potential yeah yeah it's not ready yeah yeah yeah um and then I'll never forget we were on the way home from a video shoot like 20 21 and uh he's playing beats I'm like
who the is this it's crazy and he's like these are these are the guys so the neighbor's son has a uh Collective like producers from all over the world like YouTube Type Beat producers and um playing me all these beats I'm like this is insane bring them all to the house because I have the studio in the house I'm like bring them all to the house let's do like three days I'm gonna call uh Bibi Borelli who I just think is one
of the greatest writers and just thinkers musically I'm like I'm have her pull up I'm gonna have all these producers and we're just gonna do like a weekend and just make there was no idea of making an album sounds like heaven right so they all pull up and these are like you know 18 to 21 year old producers who have just been making YouTube type beats so this is like can you imagine the level of corner eye
going on that moment youth unable to translate exactly what's going on at this time and how special this is tend to do this what's up man yeah yeah yeah oh yeah what's going on what's going on or that front yeah or that front they were awesome though man it was such a good energy and what's funny too I brought down my my cousin my like you know I still like he was a baby when you know baby will but um 1819 when I when I had him come down
with these producers because he makes Beats and he's insane and so I had everyone in the house and we're just making stuff and I I was rereading The Alchemist at the time by Pao kawelo and I had this Epiphany where we're all sitting in the studio and I was like yo here's what we're gonna do this is the name of the album you guys aren't staying three days I'm getting you a house you're staying a month and we're making the album crazy and that
was that and it happened that way that's how it happened and so we just from that day on BB stayed a month they all stayed them I think everyone went back for like three days to get like their together they came back stayed for a month and we made the bulk the skeleton of the album we did the beats and like the hooks no verses yet because this is like a really interesting thing the Inception of the album got made in that
summer of 2021 so the beats and the hooks and the concepts and then I stepped away from the album for like a year and I just I didn't feel I didn't have anything to say I didn't know what to talk about it started off as this very
surface level Alchemist parallel book of like oh you know I went through adversity but if you believe in yourself you can like get through it yeah it's just fluffy it was vapid it was and no no no real deep solution no there
was no depth and so going through life and experiences and getting into therapy I remember like after the first or second session I'm like I have to scrap the album it's it's Fab it and then I sat with it I was like oh nah there's a lot here I just have to scrap the verses and now I know what I want to talk about and so then I went in and I did all the verses I was doing you know I did therapy in my studio on Zoom right
next to the mic so I would do therapy and then turn to the mic that's the first time I've ever heard that before oh yeah awesome that's literally the album is crazy like straight up I got this thing about therapists right now right because like we talk about therapy a lot in this room and I didn't do therapy and I love therapy and the amount of times artists have gone to me oh I see that my therapist gave me that
line oh you know I'm like therapist the most underpaid Creator oh my God oh my God it's insane who's gonna be the first therapist that turns around is like three points on the record honestly I told my therapist this is I mean I live in this witness world as well man I mean you know I learned from my therapist and I come in a conversation and I have a bit deeper understanding about how the whole experience works and it's kind of yeah
every single time I mean it's kind of it's a but then you ain't crying for therapies for therapist man it's a decentrality rate that's how it came together so then I was doing a session and jumping on the mic and going in and that was that process their moments on the mic where you pulled up because it got too deep for anything you didn't even realize how deep you were going you like had to pause and just be like wow I'm actually
I'm just I'm actually doing the work in real time with the mic being live because that Stakes is high yeah yeah there was moments like that because you know he's so incredible he would be like look for the exercise for this week I want you to journal right you can do lyrics whatever I want you to write about you're in a critic or whatever it is and so I would just use the creative side of me to sort of which I've always
done to make sense of everything else yeah and I would do therapy exercises on the mic yeah and that's what the album is was there a song on the record on the album that that was really hot for you I love you boy yeah it was probably the hardest wife um because it was the most confronting it was me saying stuff that I just like there's a lot of shame in my life shames played a very big part in my life I think it plays a big part in a lot of
men's uh life but it plays a big part especially when you're a perfectionist one of the results of that is a lot of Shame and so having to accept that I am flawed and that I maybe didn't do everything the right way and I didn't know as much as I thought I did it's tough and that's my arrogance the arrogance is the omnipotence to think that what I know now I should have known then and what a loser and up for not knowing exactly I mean you've
created a shame-based mechanism by acknowledging your shame right and the shame is how I used to win I would shame myself into victory like funny man the fuel we use yeah and so we talk about in therapy where it's like dark motivation or light motivation you can win either way but one is sustainable one isn't you can shame yourself into Victory you know like um you're a lose you fat you need to lose 30 pounds and I lost 30
pounds but I still didn't feel good about myself you know because when you shame yourself into Victory you win and it feels like you lost you know it's brutal it's a vacuous vacuous win yeah yeah you know it it makes me wonder what your relationship is like with the ego now because um that is another powerful tool that motivates us into achieving things we we did out you know I think we often um take the god down on our ego because we
know it's going to serve us well we put ourselves in situations where we become offended or frustrated or our ego kicks into gear it's like all right I got that now let me drink that juice I'm like Popeye yeah I'm done I'm in yeah um you can't make an album like this without addressing that without understanding that you know you have to have a new relationship with your ego to some degree and how you want to use it
in order to achieve things because it can't be that no that devil on your back anymore no man yeah it's heavy man there's just this like um there's like an inner dictator you know who's just so uh everything has to be done perfect and right and and it's very reactive when things aren't done his way and and um that was the cause of a lot of my uh anger and frustration I don't know if it was ego or whatever that is but that
inner dictator and that inner Soldier who's just like you know a nutcase but what I've learned is that that guy needs love that guy needs compassion and that's been the hardest thing and I'm still working on that is like how do I give compassion to this piece of you know what I mean hahaha but he needs it yeah that's gonna be one of the big that's gonna I mean that's just an ongoing process and you know
what I've learned too is that I used to ignore it I used to resist that part of me that shadow part of me and it would get louder yeah and now I'm this is the confronting part is like looking at what you're ashamed of about yourself and and given him empathy you know because I never got it from anyone else and I was looking for the world to give me empathy and I was looking for the world to give me love and compassion and that's once
again it was you all along it's me who I need to give myself empathy you know and compassion but I don't know how to do that quite yet but I'm working on it so what role did Money play in your life when you got some if if so much of what you were trying to achieve and build around your identity was to some degree manufactured and when you manufacture well you trade at a high level and you receive goods and rewards from people
and you start to make money yeah money was confusing yeah because it it was a distraction from what I was really going after but it was confusing which is kind of what like Oasis is talking about I was getting at that song
it's a fascinating little it's a Fool's Paradise yeah you know it's like I'm getting money and plaques and whatever so my life must be good I must be great I must be awesome I must there's nothing wrong what are you talking about
um and so it was confusing because I couldn't tell if I was feeling up if I was allowed to feel up or if you're just biting time for the inevitable crash yeah it's like I didn't know the other thing yeah subconsciously you kind of know it's not sustainable right and you know you're bracing for impact you know yeah yeah it was it was confusing and it allowed me to sort of um mask everything that was going on internally you know and that's what
Oasis is like yeah things are up but at least they're Platinum you know what I mean so what's your relationship with stuff like now stuff it's just you know what I mean though it's just stuff it's just like symbols of success it's not actual success you know it's just like the symbols of it the car the this I think I was chasing plaques and all that because I thought well the next plaque that's when I feel good about myself
oh no double Platinum didn't do it maybe three times Platinum I must at that point I'll feel good about but I don't want this conversation to to um disrespect or be unable to reflect the success that you had and the impact that it had on an industry that um ultimately you were you were a threat success was a threat yeah because you had chosen a different psychology to the one that's baked into all of us when we
want to pursue a career in the Arts which is like you need us yeah yeah yeah you need us at all times right and if you have an issue with the way that you were um nurtured or supported or or something of that nature by a parent you are like that that's for the for industry that is built on the psychology of like you need me to live that's shooting fish in a barrel yeah that's just like that is low hanging fruit the Arts is low-hanging
fruit because a lot of people who are in the creative Industries ultimately trying to prove something because there's a gap in their life and they need validation yeah guess who's going to give you validation to people who put money in your pocket well it's that's not real validation though right right it's not it's business and so and so you know you achieved an enormous amount on your own terms yeah yeah and so
coming through the other side of that and recognizing maybe it's not the person that you want to be what's your relationship like with your achievements at this point because I don't want you to even we can never discount what you
did yeah and that's tough that's a that you know reconciliation with all right I don't love how I handled certain things but I still gotta like Pat 23 year old me on the back yeah and be like you did kill it considering you
had no tools to figure out what was going on internally yeah the fact that you know I was still able to have the impact I did make the music I did and Achieve what I achieved you went down the car but no one else was going down yeah very early on now it's like the model is like well it's distribution in line with the labels and as an artist you can pick and choose how you want to engage with the big business at a time
when you want to engage with them yeah but I never asked you this you know how much of that was based out of rejection and how much of that was based out of an understanding that it wasn't the model that suited you necessity versus choice is my question yeah wow I never thought about it like that yeah I think I didn't have a choice I had to do it myself and I think that's a big misconception is people think that
you know I have a song obviously doing myself they think that I was like preaching that as this is what you should do it's like nah this is what I had to do but I'm gonna be proud that I'm able to do it myself yeah just because you forced me in the corner doesn't mean I'm not proud that I held my held my ground right right but this isn't me saying like be so fiercely insular you know and ignore every don't receive help that's
not what I was saying I was just like if it comes down to it do it yourself but isn't that kind of what you were saying in the end like the net like I feel like the got so ramped up over time because everyone was who loves you was egging you on to make the stand right and you were like well you know what it's working it let me lean in yeah the last few years before this project became beside to come into Focus for you and your life changed I feel
like you were I mean I I would watch a lot of clips of you sitting back and podcasts going the system yeah yeah well because like you said it became I became like a slave to the perception of myself sugar water yeah exactly so it's like yeah I did I leaned in because I didn't know where else to lean you know I thought well this is a good identity it's working like this is a part of who I am so it it's crazy how we just
we build these things to try to create opportunity for ourselves and ultimately they end up controlling us yeah I didn't know any better you know why would you yeah that's and that like that realization is like the one that's so hard like I couldn't have said that sentence yeah two years ago yeah because of the omnipotence of like I always knew better I always knew everything I think that's the thing that people kind of
used to get wrong about you and and if anyone was sort of rubbed the wrong way by Russ it was like the guy kind of is got this kind of like like this very high level know-it-all Vibe like I I don't I don't know at all this guy's kind of like and Gary gets a 200 Gary's the homie and Gary's a friend of mine Gary gets it to me Gary has a Gary vaynerchuk has a huge amount of support but also people are just like if you've
got a so sorted out yeah you know that's not you your Solutions are not my problem right right right right right and it's so it's it's so um it's so true because omnipotence is like the opposite of confidence you know what I mean it really is this is a good one bro we're having a good one today it and so all of that like know it all energy was really from a place of insecurity which is why that you know second verse on uh
I love you boy what I'm saying Supreme confidence deep crippling insecurities it's like that's such a vicious mixture you know I had Supreme confidence in myself but I was deeply insecure internally with [Music] um
who I was and what I was supposed to do and I was just in true man fashion you just act like you got it all figured out when in doubt act like you know it you know and um I'm trying to sort of get to a place of authenticity in a place of
vulnerability in hopes that you know other men and people in general but specifically men can feel aloud to not know everything and that's okay you know you don't have to know it all no one does so how you how do you feel you're gonna the way you conduct the more important relationships in your life is going to change you know I think that um now you've created an open link you know and you're in an open field and there's
a lot of space yeah and you can choose how you want to fill that space because it sounds like you clear a lot of out you know and and we reserve space for the relationships in our lives and I and I wonder kind of how your attitude towards letting people in because I'd imagine you probably had problems with that I don't know you well enough to know but I'd imagine trust normally that story of like I'm trying to fix everybody means that I don't
really want anyone to get too close to me I kind of want to help you well I didn't trust her and I still don't trust Health yeah you know help was not a yeah wasn't a trustworthy thing so I'm working on that you know because you talk about the importance of one particular relationship quite a lot on this album you know it definitely shows up in within this very honest kind of discourse of this album you know you
talk about like um getting confused about what a relationship means to your identity and how how it reflects upon your your idea of yourself versus a genuine Union yeah yeah whoo yeah I'm figuring it out it's tough man um I think I think all I'm trying to do is be open and be honest and be and be open to the idea that I'm probably wrong right now about this about that but like I'm sorry you don't have to have an answer for
everything but I'm trying to figure it out yeah you know what I mean that's where I'm at now I'm just trying to figure it out and I'm trying to do my best and I'm open to the idea that I don't have it figured out you've done your best this album is your best work thank you no question about it thank you I mean I can imagine it feels like a fresh start in a strange way it does it feels like it feels like this is my
debut album and it in a sense it is this is this version of myself has never been heard yeah you know yeah I mean it's like you say goodbye to your old cell phone see you soon it's like it's like one one more chance to remind you where I was coming from like that confidence that's kind of built I built for myself this environment I built for myself and then like okay let me take you somewhere else you know um everything's going great you get to I
love boy and then I felt like enough sits at song number seven for a reason I'm fascinated with numerology in the way that it relates to how to track listings I I don't think any artist whether they're conscious of it or not cannot think about the order of things in the way that it feels yeah you know that just felt it felt right right there sort of the halfway point of the album and it's sort of this excavation of just
everything that's been going on you know yeah and the rapping on there is probably the best on that on the album I mean you wrap your ass off on this one yes yeah yeah yeah I mean you had to right yeah that was one of those ones where like that was intentional like I'm gonna purposely try to push my pen to just like the nuttiest limit but not fluff like I wanted to still be you really like read the lyrics for that it's so
potent yeah and it's so like if there's a lot of depth there but yeah I mean it's it's an immersive listening experience I'm telling everybody who's listening to this conversation right now um you know this new album that Russ has put together uh Santiago is is a very emo you will you press play on it and it's designed to draw you in you should let it happen it's designed to do that is the idea of penmanship is that where
the competition can live in a healthy space I think so yeah I think so right I think so I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be the best I think it comes down to like where it starts to get a little sketchy is why you know like why do you want to oh because then people will like me more so that's when it's up but it can it still be about the next the next artist can it still can you still race can you
still get behind the car and race your race yeah I think like I don't is there a little bit of you that's still just like that's kind of you know what's interesting like smoker yeah like that's what like I'm still trying to figure out
that balance of like I like to compete yeah you know I do but I don't want it to get into a comparison space you know where I start judging myself and start feeling less than because I'm not you know what I mean and that did
happen oh yeah yeah for sure it's so especially in this game in this genre it's so you know so competitive and yeah so it's easy to fall into that battle me versus this person and did you ever feel comfortable in those rooms did you ever find yourself in those rooms where you could say okay I'm in the room now with with my peers and I've earned my way in here did you have was imposter syndrome a thing for you
when I was in those rooms I probably did feel a little imposter syndrome but tequila would solve that yeah quick you know straight up you know knock the edge off and you know get drunk enough to the point where you forget that you don't with yourself like that you know what I mean what about now though I mean have you been able to maintain a healthy relationship with without with a lifestyle you enjoy or or you in an abstain environment now in
order to maintain Clarity I have a healthy relationship with it where you know I was drinking a lot and it was just because when I first started making music it was that's what it was the studio was a party you're smoking weeds you're drinking and so I would drink when I was in the studio it just felt normal it felt regular um but you know that I was drinking before interviews and that's how a lot of those interviews went left was like I
was you know pretty hammered in some of them that's where the the industry site comes in right yeah because it's all of it's coming out but I never had like a problem with that like I wasn't waking up and like I need a drink yeah you know I would just drink in certain situations but that in and of itself was an issue yeah we're feeding the Beast right and it was easier to just do that than actually like be authentic and be
like you know what I am nervous I am feeling insecure I am all these things um and now it's like yeah I'm not rigid to the point where it's like I will not drink it's like I'll have a drink whenever I want to have a drink it's just now I don't want to have a drink when I wanted to have a drink back then I don't need it yes even before this interview it's like I could have like came in here like the lit a couple shots
deep yep and it's like I was nervous walking in here I haven't done this like stuff in a minute but it's like I'd rather just sit here and be nervous just sit in it yeah just sit in it it it yeah instead of trying to come off like I'm more comfortable with myself than I am and that was the masking that's what was like it was Operation I have to look like I have it all together I have it figured out I know it all and if I drink and get rid
of the nerves you won't be able to tell that I actually don't have it figured out it's not sustainable no it's brutal because when I wanted to like physically get in shape and you know my brother's my nutritionist and personal trainer and Chef I was gonna ask about your siblings I'm glad you brought it up oh yeah and so he's you know telling me like look it's you want to lose weight getting a calorie deficit it's that simple yeah
and by the way the first thing they tell you to do you kind of drinking yeah it's such a brutal thing I mean to someone who likes a drink I mean I'm in New Zealand I like a drink and it's like and it's like oh man you know it's time to show up a little bit man it's getting a bit Shakira over here you know the hips don't lie you know what I mean and so I'm just like trying to figure out like what can I do and I go and talk to
my to my boxing trainer about it and I'm like don't say it don't you say it right and he's like how much you drink and I'm like yeah that's the first thing they took there's no way around it there's no way right it's all that unnecessary sugar it is yeah so like you know I was drinking white wine a lot and they'll do it yeah it's so much sugar and so I cut out the drinking for that reason to get healthy but then after I like got to my
like desired weight and like I looked how I wanted to look it's like I'll have a drink now and then find a balance you know when I was in the studio with Dr Dre and Snoop I'm drinking gin like I'm not gonna sit there and be like no I can't have a drink I don't know did you smoke weed no surprising I did not because I've smoked with Snoop before not surprising it's not surprising if you'd said I smoked
weed with Dr Dre in the studio I'd have been like are you doing it's a Death Wish yeah and also he's a dude he is there to work oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah if you're snooping you can smoke weed and be serious yeah yeah yeah well that's the thing like I give my younger self credit for is like I drank so much that like I can drink and be completely functional it's not like I've never been the yeah yeah you know all over the place so can
we talk about that experience can we with it from the perspective of of who you are today looking back on that moment not the person who's like yeah of course you know maybe maybe back in the day if I'd asked you about that would have been it would have been like you'd have been in your bag still like you know of course I'm a majority of snoopers no problem I walked in I handled it you know but looking back on
it now it's a mind-blowing thing it's insane and I was so nervous so nervous and it was really interesting because we walk in I don't really know what to expect snoops on the mic Dre's recording in straight away I'm like this is insane like Dre is coaching him like that's what we walk into and I'm just sitting on the couch at the back and I'm just like cool we're about to just like observe a session yeah sick
this is insane and then they start playing like songs with like open Hooks and whatever and Dre's like yo we need you know like we need Bridges Hooks and Snoop like vouchers for me like speaks up because Dre didn't know who I was at that time and Snoop speaks up and was like yo you got to with him he's a crazy writer And Dre's like oh yeah for real and so boom I saw the power of a cosign in real time you know what I mean it's like oh
okay this is what they mean with a co-sign yeah and then you know what happens at that moment in time yeah Snoop Little Match right and you've got between the moment that he lit a match to the moment it goes out to deliver so that's exactly what happened because then it was like like it took a second and I was like oh like I have to you can't bask in this one yeah the match is left to step up yeah and the mic's out in the open
there's not a vocal booth like there is but they have the mic out in the room with like 12 other people and so I'm like analyzing how nervous I felt on the couch the strangest thing happened though when I got on the mic I was so
comfortable and I was talking with my boys about it and uh my best friend Bugis he was like it makes sense you've never sat on the couch in a Dr Dre session but you've been on the mic a million times so of course you felt more
comfortable on the mic than on the couch it's got to be that gear right The Athlete's fine too when you know yeah you know you get out there and you're in your rookie season and you know it's like in two seconds and somehow the ball gets in your hands and it should have gone on you in in your more experienced partner's hands you and you took the shot and you know this is where you could end up sitting on the bench for
the next six months right it goes in yeah you find that gear it's like I just watch Steph Curry's uh hot ones no his uh Apple documentary though oh yeah yeah underrated yeah yeah and I think his second game it was against Michigan yeah I think the first one was like Michigan State second one was Michigan first game he the bed like 13 turnovers crazy second game they still give him the start and he drops like 32 or something
but it was at that moment where it's like where's the gear who you about to be yeah where's the gear are you gonna get in it get in your zone or not and that's how it kind of felt in that moment where it was like well this is it you know even though like objectively I'm sure drain Snoop are not like putting that much pressure on me but knowing and knowing maybe I think Drake but not as much as I put on myself
that's fair but you know Dr Dre knowing him as much as I do which is enough to be able to say this I think he exists in an environment where he knows where the precious jewels come from man it's pressure yeah yeah it's pressure and I'm sure he knows objectively in that moment like this is a high pressure moment for this guy like I feel fine but he's probably he's got that Paul McCartney thing about him you know when he walks
in the room he he does he is aware that you know you're on your heels immediately because of who he is and I think it's uncomfortable for people at that level I'm sure you've felt this a little bit too as you've as you discover success on your level that when you walk in a room and you and this brings us to the conversation about your relationship with your fans which is deeper than a lot of artists you know you have a very
personal when you give so much to yourself and you also share and you try to make other people's lives better through your own experiences it creates a bond and I'd imagine there's times when you have had to sort of like really
kind of to my point about Drea McCartney and Dave Grohl and Beyonce's of this world people talk about Beyonce like this all the time when they meet her as a fan she puts them at ease very quickly and I don't think it's a gift
necessarily as much as it is self-preservation because it's like how much am I going to be able to really put up with somebody freaking out every time I meet them yeah I gotta find a way to make people put people at ease so I'm at ease well that's what I think that's interesting yeah I think May maybe yeah I think I talk with my fans on such a personal level like I have a Discord server where I'm going in there and
talking with them like one-on-one talking to the whole group chatting in the lounge with them whatever and I think I do it to humanize myself and to connect on a deeper level because I just want to be understood you know I have this I have this like deep desperation to connect and to feel understood it's also probably a really really great response to being misunderstood by the people you were trying to get to in the first place yeah it's like
all right if some of you are just not understanding who I am or where I'm coming from let me go and strike a bomb with the people who are going to keep me in business right and you know why that was never enough is because that whole Perfection thing in the whole well I'm not unless everyone loves me it's never gonna happen right that was the other thing I talk about on fraud where it's like surface level it's like
why did the hate bother you big deal you had haters it's like no I wasn't really that it was this idea that I got my identity from Perfection from everyone loving me and when I found out that wait you mean I'm not God you mean like people cannot like me that's insane and it it threatened once again my identity because who am I if I'm not perfect who am I some people don't like me for who I am you know it's a hard thing to wrestle
with when you grew up thinking that who you are is based on if people like you or not what's interesting to me about this album as well is that is that you're doing so much self-work and so much um of the of the important and necessary foundation work in order to create a very positive rest of your life yeah but yet you've still found someone else's identity to put it through Santiago the idea of this book and everything else
that to some degree you still had to put it through someone else's filter just at this point in your life I tell like my friends and my manager it's like the album could have just been called Russ right it's the same thing it's like a last minute pull up yeah it's like you know but Paul cuello says some in the forward of his book the beginning or whatever where he's like Santiago is my story but it's your story because one
man's journey is everyone's Journey so that like really resonated with me and I think it was a way to make it I just I guess just more artistic and less fourth wall you know what I mean I do I think that's pretty smart actually yeah because if I just call it Russ it's a little too on the nose it's like man should I even be listening to this yeah like this feels you probably should have just kept it just right now
is your Journal leak and also the artwork is incredible and I can imagine that it's really informing the way that you present this music over time and the cut even just the palette the color palette's incredible Taffy is the artist and he's insane he like when I told him the idea for it it was just a rough idea I didn't even have any of the songs I just told him like what it was based off of and he the way he interprets things is so powerful and
magical like I wasn't thinking it was going to be that dark of a cover you know because when I first presented him the idea actually it was for I had this EP I was making called silky Santiago and it was a three-song EP that I made with Scott Storage and Timberland in Miami couldn't have been further from what this became right and I it was called silky Santiago because it was like my drunk Alter Ego because I wore
silk you know it's like so ridiculous they're bright like I'm in Miami getting hammered like silky sounds so embarrassed yeah that's too much and so I tell him like yo I'm making this EP with the storage and Timberland and this is what it's called but it's like the title is based off of The Alchemist and he's like cool I got you and he sends me that based off of fluff right so that just goes to show where his head was at and
I'm so thankful that he was in a place where he could deliver that level of an artwork with I didn't give him much to go on maybe maybe subconsciously realize that actually Soca Santiago wasn't the move right and then that back cover came after the music where it was like Me and My Shadow and my inner child morphed together sort of and that was it's just so powerful he's he's incredible and I and I love that his art when you go look at his
stuff there's a dark undertone and I wanted that for this album This is not supposed to be the original version of it which was vapid and click your heels and you can do it and manifests it's not that no it's not it's and by the way it's entirely frameable if I saw that on a wall like you know 12x9 I'd be like all right how much yeah it's a pretty amazing piece of art yeah he's incredible where does the wind take us
as listeners where do you want it to take us where do you want it to leave us at the end of this experience um I wanted to leave you with the idea that you are what you've been chasing and you're capable of evolving to a you know better for lack of a better word but better version of yourself because the wind is sort of that scene in The Alchemist where Alchemist and Santiago get captured and they're gonna get killed and The Alchemist is like
Santiago is going to turn himself into the wind and if he does you got to let us go and Santiago's like what the are you how am I going to do that and he does it they let him go whatever and I took that as like okay this is just him evolving into a version of himself that's pure and that's maybe he didn't realize was achievable and that's kind of how I took it so but when you hear the hook on the wind it's me saying
watch this yeah which was intentional because I haven't become the better version of myself yet but watch I will you are I am becoming it right it's the process right and that's why like I ended with it with it
was you all along because I want that that's part of the manifestation where it's like oh he must have done it he must have turned himself into the wind because this feels triumphant and feels climatic it was you all along you did it there's
no destination to this and Man by this I mean life it just there's no destination it's like they're all just resting points and that's what I love about this album It's So open-ended for the next one how do you feel about yourself really no oh God away from the music and yeah and because the music is a beautiful way for you to do the work but it is still born out of the fantasy of being a kid searching for escape yeah
and as truthful as you can be on an album it's still artwork trackless things right interviews videos live shows just a different version of the Manifest yeah yeah so away from the art how has this process affected slash benefited you I think it's woken me up to what's been going on internally and at least I now am aware of what's been going on and I have tools and resources and help to try to figure out
and how to manage what's going on it's like it gave me a lighthouse you know and at this point even though it is Art and there is like a you know distance from myself a little bit but I think my goal is to merge what's going on internally yeah with the music seamlessly so that they just go hand in hand it's like the creative side of me was always the part of me that would come downstairs and make sense of everything that was going on in my
personal life so even though it is Art but you know whatever the quote is life imitates art Etc but yeah I think you know how I feel about myself now is that um um optimistic for the future and I feel hopeful about the future for the first time in a while because I feel like I'm actually going somewhere and I and I'm going somewhere that doesn't have anything to do with achievements plaques it's like no I'm going towards this personal like
self-mastery self-love self-truth self-acceptance I'm going towards that and I'm gonna share my process along the way in the best way I know how which is through my art you know in hopes that it resonates and helps other people but my journey now has become more about self-development than it is about you know getting the plaque and doing this and doing that I want those things but it's for a different reason now you know