Useful Tips Section How is going, man?
It's pretty alright, just sitting here in my room. You're about to drop this new video, what can you tell me about it?
The "M00N" video? It's got strong Kenneth Anger and Steven Klein vibes in terms of the direction. I gave Andy Capper a bunch of ideas I had for a treatment in terms of films that I personally enjoyed and we just came up with something. There's not much of a narrative at all. It's meant to be visually stimulating, which is something that I enjoy personally. So there's no underlining message behind the visual aspects of the video?
The video is really aggressive—there's a lot of red [laughs]. I think it encapsulates the whole idea of the track, because the song is mostly about my insecurities. A lot of them have to do with relationships I was in and internal struggles I was having over whether or not I should've made certain decisions because my choices hurt the person I was with. It's about being selfless and apologetic. Can you tell me about the relationship?
I don't want to go too deep into it because it's something that has come back up. I don't want to talk about it. But, I made some bad decisions and put me in a position where I just wanted a way to express myself. So I just sat and wrote down all the stuff that I was insecure about—even things beyond relationship issues. Give me an example?
In the second verse you hear, "I'm treatin' her so wrong." When I say "her" it wasn't exactly referring to a female, it was more just the whole idea of "her" as hip-hop personified in a lady. It plays on two parallels—one side of it was the part of me that had emotional problems in this world and the other part of me that was having the same kind of problems in terms of my work ethic and whether or not I was going to be successful. Do you feel like you're on that route right now?Are the insecurities and questions that you had about the hip-hop/work aspect of your life alleviated?
I mean, I don't think it's ever going to be alleviated. I think that every artist… Well, I I can much only speak for myself when I say that no matter how many ups I get, I try to be as humble as possible. Are you afraid of getting the big head?
It's not even a situation where I have to force myself to think about it. It's just a natural thing. And I think it's a blessing and a curse at the same time, because it causes me to over think things or compare myself. Sometimes I feel as if the work I'm putting forth isn't good enough, but sometimes a pat on the back really levels things out for me. So you're in Barbados now. Tell me about it.
Well, I was born in New York. I'm there every summer and my parents live there. But I'm there mostly for school. Growing up, music wasn't really a career path or something that I thought about too much. But when I got into high school, I thought about it a bit more because there are people actually in the music scene there and I was inspired by that culture, by hip hop culture. I'd listened to rap before because my uncle used to rip cps and stuff. I remember listening to the Slim Shady LP when I was 9 or 10-ish. And I guess maybe seeing people do something that was liberating where what you said wasn't dictated by other people and it wasn't like school where if you learned something you had to regurgitate it. These were all your own philosophies and all your own ideas are being projected on people. So it was as if you were the mouthpiece for everything that was in your head, as opposed to someone putting something in your head and you trying to analyze their stuff and then writing it all down on a piece of paper. It was up to me to capture the encoding, my message, my personal whatever. So the power of being able to do that really inspired me to make music and then eventually push it to the level that I'm gonna push it to right now. What you're trying to do is different from what you see a lot of people doing in hip-hop, obviously you're referencing some different things that maybe a lot of hip-hop artists aren't aware of, like you dropped Kenneth Anger a second ago. Basically, do you feel like you're broadening hip-hop? Honestly, my inspiration comes from everywhere. I like to research things a lot on the internet, I usually find myself going through Wikipedia. I remember when I was younger, like 12, if I was on the internet and I saw something I didn't know I just used to get really deep into it so I wasn't ignorant anymore. That carried on a bit, so I'd have friends who'd be like, "Oh, I just came across this artist or film," and I'd just find myself looking deep into everything that person did, you know what I mean? I used to find myself downloading entire discographies instead of a single album-- I had that kind of thirst for knowledge. I guess over the past four years I've accumulated a decent amount of knowledge and it spills into my music unintentionally. I've only recently gotten into Sartre's Being and Nothingness, so I'm on that existential tip (laughs). That's really interesting-- do you consider yourself to be an MC in the traditional sense? Of course, I grew up freestyling and cyphering -- the thing about it is I can do all that, but I find myself getting tired and bored. I remember yesterday I was in the studio with my in-house-- well not really in-house, he's just up the street from me-- this engineer Strat (? 10:50) because I was pretty much free styling over a bunch of DJ (? 11:00) instrumentals and he was like, "Why don't you rap like that more often?" And it was just like a flow of consciousness type of thing. And I could do that, it's easy to do that, but I like to challenge myself sometimes and I like to actually sit and take time to write myself. It's different, I find there's more people who work on the lyrical punchline-emphasized rap that, you know, doesn't exactly have a body to it. It's more, you know, "Let me see how many mindfucks I can fit into one song (laughs)." Right, it's less emotional and more mechanical almost. It's really interesting to see how these people see the whole culture and this thing that's built on basically stating 'the reasons why I'm so cool' or the reasons 'why you should fear me', it's this crazy ego.. It's cool, I've always been down for shit-talking, but I think for my personal projects I'm trying to reflect different ideas and things. The tape with Supreme Cuts, Chrome Lips, that is less subject-based and Oxyconteen is fairly based off the fact that it's just collaboration, it's a collaboration album, and I didn't really want to go too deep off the edge for this project. I believe it's a collaborative mix tape and it gets treated as such. And you know, it's basically me and Supreme Cuts kind of just playing some (? 13:15). And on Moon, to actually give it that edge, that purposeful edge that I try to give all my tracks. Like Moon is probably the one track that I __(? 13:29) most of my essence into in terms of that entire project. Did you hear about the King Crimson thing, though? Oh, yeah, I called the sample. The first time I heard it I didn't recognize you used that sample. Are you into prog-rock and that stuff? Of course, dude I'm the one who co-produced that track and picked out that track. I was supposed to have producer's credits on that track but, like sometimes you want production credit but I wasn't really crazy about it so I was like, "It's not really that big of a deal." I'm a really big fan of Gallo and like Buffalo 66, when she's dancing to Moon Child. That's what really inspired me-- I knew I really wanted to write a song about a woman and my issue regarding females or whatever, and I really wanted to pick something that really represented that, so then I just kept flashing back to Christina Ricci where she's just so -- she's like pretty much being held against her will, but at the same time she enjoys the moment. But it's really sad, strange, I don't know how to explain it. Yeah that movie is definitely weird. All her delicate qualities came out in that one scene and I was like, "I really need to sample that song." It was less a choice of, "Oh I really like the way this song sounds and I'm gonna sample it." Even that visual is taken into consideration, and I don't know if you knew about this but Crimson issued a cease and desist. I didn't know that. Yeah and more or less they've pretty much aided in the removal of Chrome Lips in its entirely off of the Mishka Bandcamp. So right now we're trying to figure out that situation. I mean, this is kind of off the record, I guess, but, you know, that was something that really upset me because I personally felt that, as an artist, there was so much thought that I put into that song and it was a selection of the music in which we used -- because we easily could've just made an instrumental that was moody and similar -- but that was something we personally wanted, and that was just distasteful in my eyes because, I mean, we weren't selling it. They didn't even email us directly, they just went straight to Bandcamp and only had the one song removed, not the entire mixtape. I guess that's just the way the world works and I'll leave it at that. I put so much thought into it that it was very distasteful what they did. I mean, did you talk to them in advance to clear the sample? No, I didn't obviously, because your assumption is, ok, it's a mix tape. Yeah cause you're not making money off it. Yeah exactly but they took it there so I guess so.. No big. Yeah that's awful, the thing is that like the band probably had nothing to do with it. It was probably the lawyers of whoever the label is… You know, you could still collaborate with King Crimson some day. (laughs) Yeah, I mean, I'm still a fan, I've been a fan, I really like them. I started listening to Aphrodite's Child the other day. So what's the next move for you? You have this collaborate project, you're dropping this incredible video, what are the next steps you're getting into? What can we look forward to? Well I'm dropping a (? 22:20) called 88 that was on Oxyconteen, but then more or less I've been working on new material. I think this next wave of stuff is gonna be what cements my name in people's brains. I think I've matured a lot, because quite honestly a lot of Chrome Lips was stuff I did in the whole different state of mind and I felt like I was a whole different person then. Now I'm more in the zone, and I'm ready to get my hands dirty in terms of working very closely with other producers and whatnot. Did you record the music in Barbados or New York? All of Chrome Lips and all of Oxy, they were done in Barbados. But I've actually been working on tracks with Van Rivers, who pretty much co-produced the entire Fever Ray LP, so I've been working with him on some stuff as well. I've got some Clams Casino coming out in a bit, just been out there really. I donno, I'm really not trying to give away too much or whatever but it's gonna be (? 24:02) That's crazy that everything is starting to come together in that sense. So have you done anything with Clams Casino yet or it is something that's going to happen in the future? We went into the studio early-August a couple days before I left New York and we pretty much just co-produced three tracks, more or less. That's awesome. Yeah it was pretty fun, I was really into it. I'm really not trying to like-- I'm really weird about whether or not we give anything away yet. Because I don't really want people to focus on that aspect of it. That's the whole reason I didn't use superstar producers or anything like that for Oxy, I just really wanted this stuff to be low-key and I wanted people to respect what I had to say. But I've been a fan of Clams' stuff for a long long while so I guess that's something I just wanted to do. I've also been a fan of Van's stuff because Fever Ray is one of my favorite albums of all time. That record was incredible. I love (? 25:37), just pretty much all that I'm really working on right now. Obviously I'm still doing stuff with Supreme Cuts, obviously I'm still doing stuff with.. I have a couple other things I'm working on. I can tell you this stuff on the record… Off the record I'm working with Saul Williams, Bob Buzzins (sp?), (? 26:19), some other stuff I can't really think of right now (? 26:27) Oh wow, so will all those different collaborative things be on one Haleek Maul project that's coming out soon basically? Probably not because I kind of want my next project to be less feature-based, but definitely I'm going to get one or two of them on the tape. But I'm really trying not to get too many features on the mix tape, so that maybe when my next project drops after that, I guess people can expect that. But I find that you make a better impression on people when you give them your raw energy as opposed to people hyping you up because you're on a song with someone. That's not the way it should work. Definitely, it must be pretty crazy to be pretty young and be on the verge of something so exciting, so how does what's laying ahead of you make you feel? It's an incredible feeling, there's no doubt that I'm excited. But what I try to do-- I try not to think about it too much, the way I think about it is that you never know what's gonna happen, and I find that I get the best results when I don't think about shit. I remember when I got on Noisey the first time, for Gulley, Gulley had just dropped, and I wasn't expecting Noisey to put it up, and I wasn't even thinking. And I realized that sometimes when I thought I had certain blogs on lock or when it was definitely gonna get up close, it wouldn't happen and I would get disappointed. So I stopped looking at that, I stopped thinking about the way things are gonna be received or who's gonna post what. So I just put it up and hope for the best, and that's the only thing that you can possible do to enjoy it. Not only to safeguard in terms of how you do things but also to safeguard your personality, at most. Because some people get arrogant and I'm trying not to do that, I'm trying to just have the least (? 30:15) possible (30:18 ?) You said you live with your grandmother, what does she say about all the music stuff that you're doing? My family, they're more or less supportive, because right now I'm becoming a management (? 31:02) doing my college courses, I'm working to get my associate's. They're really kind of scared for me because they're realizing this is kind of becoming a thing and just becoming a part of my life and they really want to make sure I have something to fall back on and they don't want me to get disappointed. I try to work just as hard at school as I do with music. Are you in college yet, how old are you? I'm 16, but I finished secondary school, which I guess you guys would consider high school. I'm working on getting my associate's. What did your parents do in New York? My father is currently unemployed and my mom works at JFK in sales. I'm not super rich or whatever (laughs). And your folks were born in Barbados? Yeah, they eloped at a really young age. They had me and my older sister and then they divorced, now they have separate lives going on. Was the divorce hard growing up, did you work that into the music? I mean, yeah, I've made a couple references to certain things, especially my song Fraulein. I'm not like I'm angry about it or anything, as I've gotten older obviously realized about certain things in life, especially to do with relationships, you really just can't wait. If you've broken trust with someone it's very hard to get it back, and even if you do there's still a little chunk missing so sometimes it's best to just walk away from situations when they get bad, because you could more-or-less be causing more damage to yourself by being in a place that you don't want to be that much. I'm thankful for it in certain aspects because I think they've figured out what they want. I mean, I wasn't there for that whole (34:57 ?) or whatever but I'm just (35:00 ?) (laughs). I think it's cool, I like my stepmom, my stepdad is a man of very few words, so it's cool. Can you tell me something about your experience when you realized your music had started to reach people out in the world? And a moment where you were touched by another person's music? It's really crazy. It's really really really crazy. Because I personally don't see my music as something that has an influence that big, but then I remember shortly after Oxyconteen had been released which was June 18 2012, I remember later on that day, at like 6, after the EP had dropped and this guy sent me an email. He was basically just giving me this really long story about his life and certain situations he was in with females and how, you know, it really touched him and he felt like a whole different person after listening to it, and he found solace and peace of mind knowing that someone was experiencing things, if not exactly the same, then similar to him. And that kind of changed my life, because as a teenager especially, people try to look at you as a weaker member in society. They look at you as if your physical maturity and mental maturity are things that are on-par, which I disagree with completely. You know, there are some 16-year olds that are more competent than people way past drinking age, and it's upsetting at times because it makes you realize there are certain things you can't do and people discourage you from doing certain things, and then when you actually accomplish them, some people just say, "Oh, he's a certain age." They don't even look at the art or whatever. And the fact that he actually listened to this thing and removed age and gender and all these stupid things that people base their opinions on-- he stripped all of that stuff away and gave the hard facts. He was inspired by it and felt happy after listening to it. He felt comfortable after listening to it, and that made me happy. Can you tell me a moment when somebody else's music really impacted you? Well, Nearly God by Tricky is pretty much my life (laughs). He has a song called Poems on Nearly God, he's pretty much just speaking about this relationship and being really pessimistic about it and that was something I could relate to. Visit the Useful Tips Section
It's pretty alright, just sitting here in my room. You're about to drop this new video, what can you tell me about it?
The "M00N" video? It's got strong Kenneth Anger and Steven Klein vibes in terms of the direction. I gave Andy Capper a bunch of ideas I had for a treatment in terms of films that I personally enjoyed and we just came up with something. There's not much of a narrative at all. It's meant to be visually stimulating, which is something that I enjoy personally. So there's no underlining message behind the visual aspects of the video?
The video is really aggressive—there's a lot of red [laughs]. I think it encapsulates the whole idea of the track, because the song is mostly about my insecurities. A lot of them have to do with relationships I was in and internal struggles I was having over whether or not I should've made certain decisions because my choices hurt the person I was with. It's about being selfless and apologetic. Can you tell me about the relationship?
I don't want to go too deep into it because it's something that has come back up. I don't want to talk about it. But, I made some bad decisions and put me in a position where I just wanted a way to express myself. So I just sat and wrote down all the stuff that I was insecure about—even things beyond relationship issues. Give me an example?
In the second verse you hear, "I'm treatin' her so wrong." When I say "her" it wasn't exactly referring to a female, it was more just the whole idea of "her" as hip-hop personified in a lady. It plays on two parallels—one side of it was the part of me that had emotional problems in this world and the other part of me that was having the same kind of problems in terms of my work ethic and whether or not I was going to be successful. Do you feel like you're on that route right now?Are the insecurities and questions that you had about the hip-hop/work aspect of your life alleviated?
I mean, I don't think it's ever going to be alleviated. I think that every artist… Well, I I can much only speak for myself when I say that no matter how many ups I get, I try to be as humble as possible. Are you afraid of getting the big head?
It's not even a situation where I have to force myself to think about it. It's just a natural thing. And I think it's a blessing and a curse at the same time, because it causes me to over think things or compare myself. Sometimes I feel as if the work I'm putting forth isn't good enough, but sometimes a pat on the back really levels things out for me. So you're in Barbados now. Tell me about it.
Well, I was born in New York. I'm there every summer and my parents live there. But I'm there mostly for school. Growing up, music wasn't really a career path or something that I thought about too much. But when I got into high school, I thought about it a bit more because there are people actually in the music scene there and I was inspired by that culture, by hip hop culture. I'd listened to rap before because my uncle used to rip cps and stuff. I remember listening to the Slim Shady LP when I was 9 or 10-ish. And I guess maybe seeing people do something that was liberating where what you said wasn't dictated by other people and it wasn't like school where if you learned something you had to regurgitate it. These were all your own philosophies and all your own ideas are being projected on people. So it was as if you were the mouthpiece for everything that was in your head, as opposed to someone putting something in your head and you trying to analyze their stuff and then writing it all down on a piece of paper. It was up to me to capture the encoding, my message, my personal whatever. So the power of being able to do that really inspired me to make music and then eventually push it to the level that I'm gonna push it to right now. What you're trying to do is different from what you see a lot of people doing in hip-hop, obviously you're referencing some different things that maybe a lot of hip-hop artists aren't aware of, like you dropped Kenneth Anger a second ago. Basically, do you feel like you're broadening hip-hop? Honestly, my inspiration comes from everywhere. I like to research things a lot on the internet, I usually find myself going through Wikipedia. I remember when I was younger, like 12, if I was on the internet and I saw something I didn't know I just used to get really deep into it so I wasn't ignorant anymore. That carried on a bit, so I'd have friends who'd be like, "Oh, I just came across this artist or film," and I'd just find myself looking deep into everything that person did, you know what I mean? I used to find myself downloading entire discographies instead of a single album-- I had that kind of thirst for knowledge. I guess over the past four years I've accumulated a decent amount of knowledge and it spills into my music unintentionally. I've only recently gotten into Sartre's Being and Nothingness, so I'm on that existential tip (laughs). That's really interesting-- do you consider yourself to be an MC in the traditional sense? Of course, I grew up freestyling and cyphering -- the thing about it is I can do all that, but I find myself getting tired and bored. I remember yesterday I was in the studio with my in-house-- well not really in-house, he's just up the street from me-- this engineer Strat (? 10:50) because I was pretty much free styling over a bunch of DJ (? 11:00) instrumentals and he was like, "Why don't you rap like that more often?" And it was just like a flow of consciousness type of thing. And I could do that, it's easy to do that, but I like to challenge myself sometimes and I like to actually sit and take time to write myself. It's different, I find there's more people who work on the lyrical punchline-emphasized rap that, you know, doesn't exactly have a body to it. It's more, you know, "Let me see how many mindfucks I can fit into one song (laughs)." Right, it's less emotional and more mechanical almost. It's really interesting to see how these people see the whole culture and this thing that's built on basically stating 'the reasons why I'm so cool' or the reasons 'why you should fear me', it's this crazy ego.. It's cool, I've always been down for shit-talking, but I think for my personal projects I'm trying to reflect different ideas and things. The tape with Supreme Cuts, Chrome Lips, that is less subject-based and Oxyconteen is fairly based off the fact that it's just collaboration, it's a collaboration album, and I didn't really want to go too deep off the edge for this project. I believe it's a collaborative mix tape and it gets treated as such. And you know, it's basically me and Supreme Cuts kind of just playing some (? 13:15). And on Moon, to actually give it that edge, that purposeful edge that I try to give all my tracks. Like Moon is probably the one track that I __(? 13:29) most of my essence into in terms of that entire project. Did you hear about the King Crimson thing, though? Oh, yeah, I called the sample. The first time I heard it I didn't recognize you used that sample. Are you into prog-rock and that stuff? Of course, dude I'm the one who co-produced that track and picked out that track. I was supposed to have producer's credits on that track but, like sometimes you want production credit but I wasn't really crazy about it so I was like, "It's not really that big of a deal." I'm a really big fan of Gallo and like Buffalo 66, when she's dancing to Moon Child. That's what really inspired me-- I knew I really wanted to write a song about a woman and my issue regarding females or whatever, and I really wanted to pick something that really represented that, so then I just kept flashing back to Christina Ricci where she's just so -- she's like pretty much being held against her will, but at the same time she enjoys the moment. But it's really sad, strange, I don't know how to explain it. Yeah that movie is definitely weird. All her delicate qualities came out in that one scene and I was like, "I really need to sample that song." It was less a choice of, "Oh I really like the way this song sounds and I'm gonna sample it." Even that visual is taken into consideration, and I don't know if you knew about this but Crimson issued a cease and desist. I didn't know that. Yeah and more or less they've pretty much aided in the removal of Chrome Lips in its entirely off of the Mishka Bandcamp. So right now we're trying to figure out that situation. I mean, this is kind of off the record, I guess, but, you know, that was something that really upset me because I personally felt that, as an artist, there was so much thought that I put into that song and it was a selection of the music in which we used -- because we easily could've just made an instrumental that was moody and similar -- but that was something we personally wanted, and that was just distasteful in my eyes because, I mean, we weren't selling it. They didn't even email us directly, they just went straight to Bandcamp and only had the one song removed, not the entire mixtape. I guess that's just the way the world works and I'll leave it at that. I put so much thought into it that it was very distasteful what they did. I mean, did you talk to them in advance to clear the sample? No, I didn't obviously, because your assumption is, ok, it's a mix tape. Yeah cause you're not making money off it. Yeah exactly but they took it there so I guess so.. No big. Yeah that's awful, the thing is that like the band probably had nothing to do with it. It was probably the lawyers of whoever the label is… You know, you could still collaborate with King Crimson some day. (laughs) Yeah, I mean, I'm still a fan, I've been a fan, I really like them. I started listening to Aphrodite's Child the other day. So what's the next move for you? You have this collaborate project, you're dropping this incredible video, what are the next steps you're getting into? What can we look forward to? Well I'm dropping a (? 22:20) called 88 that was on Oxyconteen, but then more or less I've been working on new material. I think this next wave of stuff is gonna be what cements my name in people's brains. I think I've matured a lot, because quite honestly a lot of Chrome Lips was stuff I did in the whole different state of mind and I felt like I was a whole different person then. Now I'm more in the zone, and I'm ready to get my hands dirty in terms of working very closely with other producers and whatnot. Did you record the music in Barbados or New York? All of Chrome Lips and all of Oxy, they were done in Barbados. But I've actually been working on tracks with Van Rivers, who pretty much co-produced the entire Fever Ray LP, so I've been working with him on some stuff as well. I've got some Clams Casino coming out in a bit, just been out there really. I donno, I'm really not trying to give away too much or whatever but it's gonna be (? 24:02) That's crazy that everything is starting to come together in that sense. So have you done anything with Clams Casino yet or it is something that's going to happen in the future? We went into the studio early-August a couple days before I left New York and we pretty much just co-produced three tracks, more or less. That's awesome. Yeah it was pretty fun, I was really into it. I'm really not trying to like-- I'm really weird about whether or not we give anything away yet. Because I don't really want people to focus on that aspect of it. That's the whole reason I didn't use superstar producers or anything like that for Oxy, I just really wanted this stuff to be low-key and I wanted people to respect what I had to say. But I've been a fan of Clams' stuff for a long long while so I guess that's something I just wanted to do. I've also been a fan of Van's stuff because Fever Ray is one of my favorite albums of all time. That record was incredible. I love (? 25:37), just pretty much all that I'm really working on right now. Obviously I'm still doing stuff with Supreme Cuts, obviously I'm still doing stuff with.. I have a couple other things I'm working on. I can tell you this stuff on the record… Off the record I'm working with Saul Williams, Bob Buzzins (sp?), (? 26:19), some other stuff I can't really think of right now (? 26:27) Oh wow, so will all those different collaborative things be on one Haleek Maul project that's coming out soon basically? Probably not because I kind of want my next project to be less feature-based, but definitely I'm going to get one or two of them on the tape. But I'm really trying not to get too many features on the mix tape, so that maybe when my next project drops after that, I guess people can expect that. But I find that you make a better impression on people when you give them your raw energy as opposed to people hyping you up because you're on a song with someone. That's not the way it should work. Definitely, it must be pretty crazy to be pretty young and be on the verge of something so exciting, so how does what's laying ahead of you make you feel? It's an incredible feeling, there's no doubt that I'm excited. But what I try to do-- I try not to think about it too much, the way I think about it is that you never know what's gonna happen, and I find that I get the best results when I don't think about shit. I remember when I got on Noisey the first time, for Gulley, Gulley had just dropped, and I wasn't expecting Noisey to put it up, and I wasn't even thinking. And I realized that sometimes when I thought I had certain blogs on lock or when it was definitely gonna get up close, it wouldn't happen and I would get disappointed. So I stopped looking at that, I stopped thinking about the way things are gonna be received or who's gonna post what. So I just put it up and hope for the best, and that's the only thing that you can possible do to enjoy it. Not only to safeguard in terms of how you do things but also to safeguard your personality, at most. Because some people get arrogant and I'm trying not to do that, I'm trying to just have the least (? 30:15) possible (30:18 ?) You said you live with your grandmother, what does she say about all the music stuff that you're doing? My family, they're more or less supportive, because right now I'm becoming a management (? 31:02) doing my college courses, I'm working to get my associate's. They're really kind of scared for me because they're realizing this is kind of becoming a thing and just becoming a part of my life and they really want to make sure I have something to fall back on and they don't want me to get disappointed. I try to work just as hard at school as I do with music. Are you in college yet, how old are you? I'm 16, but I finished secondary school, which I guess you guys would consider high school. I'm working on getting my associate's. What did your parents do in New York? My father is currently unemployed and my mom works at JFK in sales. I'm not super rich or whatever (laughs). And your folks were born in Barbados? Yeah, they eloped at a really young age. They had me and my older sister and then they divorced, now they have separate lives going on. Was the divorce hard growing up, did you work that into the music? I mean, yeah, I've made a couple references to certain things, especially my song Fraulein. I'm not like I'm angry about it or anything, as I've gotten older obviously realized about certain things in life, especially to do with relationships, you really just can't wait. If you've broken trust with someone it's very hard to get it back, and even if you do there's still a little chunk missing so sometimes it's best to just walk away from situations when they get bad, because you could more-or-less be causing more damage to yourself by being in a place that you don't want to be that much. I'm thankful for it in certain aspects because I think they've figured out what they want. I mean, I wasn't there for that whole (34:57 ?) or whatever but I'm just (35:00 ?) (laughs). I think it's cool, I like my stepmom, my stepdad is a man of very few words, so it's cool. Can you tell me something about your experience when you realized your music had started to reach people out in the world? And a moment where you were touched by another person's music? It's really crazy. It's really really really crazy. Because I personally don't see my music as something that has an influence that big, but then I remember shortly after Oxyconteen had been released which was June 18 2012, I remember later on that day, at like 6, after the EP had dropped and this guy sent me an email. He was basically just giving me this really long story about his life and certain situations he was in with females and how, you know, it really touched him and he felt like a whole different person after listening to it, and he found solace and peace of mind knowing that someone was experiencing things, if not exactly the same, then similar to him. And that kind of changed my life, because as a teenager especially, people try to look at you as a weaker member in society. They look at you as if your physical maturity and mental maturity are things that are on-par, which I disagree with completely. You know, there are some 16-year olds that are more competent than people way past drinking age, and it's upsetting at times because it makes you realize there are certain things you can't do and people discourage you from doing certain things, and then when you actually accomplish them, some people just say, "Oh, he's a certain age." They don't even look at the art or whatever. And the fact that he actually listened to this thing and removed age and gender and all these stupid things that people base their opinions on-- he stripped all of that stuff away and gave the hard facts. He was inspired by it and felt happy after listening to it. He felt comfortable after listening to it, and that made me happy. Can you tell me a moment when somebody else's music really impacted you? Well, Nearly God by Tricky is pretty much my life (laughs). He has a song called Poems on Nearly God, he's pretty much just speaking about this relationship and being really pessimistic about it and that was something I could relate to. Visit the Useful Tips Section
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