As cliche as it sounds, don’t stop. I feel like so often people will have talent or have potential, and they’ll quit because they don’t get anywhere as soon as they want to.
If you’re my woman, you’re somebody I give emotions to that I don’t give to nobody else. You’re my safe space. I don’t want my safe space to be compromised.
If I’m being honest, I was messing up on every other level in my life growing up – whether it was in school or in my jobs. I was always distracted by my love for music.
If I have a collection of songs for an EP or mixtape, I create the narrative afterwards; but usually with an album, I have a concept and the name first.
I got a dog and am trying to elevate. I’m working out, eating healthier, reading books. Making ‘Make it Out Alive’ is going to be a reflection of all of that.
People will listen to a song and expect that you just have that persona on all the time. But really, that was your one outlet that one day to get that emotion out. The only difference was you put it on a canvas that’s going to be there forever.
I recorded everywhere. I would go to different cities and do a session there for the project. I did sessions in New York and I did sessions in L.A. It was just kind of wherever I was and I felt like cutting a track.
If it feels good coming out, then I really don’t care about anything else, for real. It’s all about just having fun with it. If it feels like less work, then the project is coming out better.
I used to think that there was a certain way I had to stick to when it came to R&B, but now I’m saying whatever, the same way these rappers do. I’m bringing that into R&B music.
I’ve always felt like I was observing everything, like I’m just looking out of the window, peeping how everybody is living and just penning about it, so I made the album about that concept.
If you tell somebody that you make music they’re all interested. But when you say you rap, they just start rolling their eyes at you. It would’ve taken me a lot longer to get my foot in the door if I’d continued rapping all the way.
