Dissect - Rapsody Dissects 'God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops'

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Rapsody breaks down her fantastic new album 'God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops.' Learn about how her trip to Africa inspired its themes and sound, the reverence she has for hip hop, and why she views herself as a guardian of the culture she loves so dearly. Listen to ⁠'God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops'⁠ on Spotify. Host: Cole Cuchna Editor: Kevin Pooler Engineer: Jon Jones Producer: Justin Sayles Theme Music: Birocratic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everyone, as part of Dysect's 10-year anniversary celebration, I am releasing a limited run of anniversary-themed merchandise, available now at Dysectmerch.com. We've got three great designs for you, including a Daffpunk-inspired piece to honor our most recent season on them. We're also reprinting one of the most popular pieces of Dysect merch in the show's history, the season 8 bounty. A ton of people over the years have requested a reprint of this shirt, so now is your chance to get one. I should also note that this will be a very limited run of of merch, essentially I'll be taking pre-orders for the next two weeks and pretty much only printing enough to fulfill those initial orders. So if you want a piece, it's kind of a now or never

thing. So check out dissectmerch.com today. There's a direct link in the show notes. Thank you everyone and enjoy today's episode. Welcome everyone to a special episode of dissect. I'm your host Cole Kushna. Today we are honored to be joined by Rhapsody to dissect our brand new album, God Goda Afro and Gold Hoops. Rhapsody. you for being here. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me making space. Yeah, congratulations, first of all, for a fantastic record. We're just talking off-camera a little bit, and I do think it's some of your best work. It's only been a week, but it's a beautiful body of work, and congratulations. I'm definitely going to say it's my best work. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think, like, it's because I've reached

freedom. Like, I've evolved so much, but when you add freedom to it, and then you add someone like a Dona Porter who helps like sonically bring what that all sounds like together. Yeah, I'm really proud of this one. And I would definitely say it's my best work. Like, it's the one place too that you see the full range of me and what I've learned all throughout my career. I was on Instagram this morning and I don't know if you follow the account. I still love her. I saw the breakdown.

She is. She went from like 20 maybe, no, Cooley High, like 2005 to present. I'm like, yo, some of them joints I cringe at. but yeah it feels good but thank you yeah i mean that's that was one of the questions i had for you um because i was actually talking to um i think you're familiar with them we are deciphered on youtube they did a uh two-hour like reaction yes yes i listened to it yesterday okay the whole two hours i think they are hilarious but more importantly like they get it like they get the intention and the meaning of everything like they didn't miss on any

thing. And that was cool to see. You know, people are going to interpret it, how they interpret it, which is cool. That's what art is supposed to do. But what my intention was, I was happy that they got it. Yeah, I was DMing with them when your album dropped and we're like talking about it to your point of what you said just a second ago about the freedom. We were trying to like pinpoint, like, why does she sound different on this album? And then like the kind of the conclusion I came to It reminded me a lot of like G&X in a way where there was a Mr. Moral before it. And then there's emotional and therapeutic work and there was a unshedding of a lot of weight. Absolutely.

And then you get a G&X and there's a confidence, a new found earned authenticity and confidence. And that's kind of like how I would compare it. The energy is different on the album. It's exactly that. I couldn't have made this album without making Please Don't Cry. Like, you know, I tell people like I for real had to completely get naked. And I had to take off and let go of other people's ideas or thoughts of what the world thought, what was successful, what was right, what should be supported, what should be praised, what was dope, what was not dope, like how you should show up. your family expectations, friends, like you got to let all of that go. And I think Kendrick can probably affirm that in his own walk, that you got to get naked and then redress yourself.

Like, who am I? What do I like? What do I believe in? How do I see the world? Like, and operate from that place. And it's like the freedom that you have because, you know, you really just walking your walk and what feels good to you, what is aligned with you, what is a sign with you. When I was walking in, I was on the phone. I didn't mean to be rude. But I was talking to Ab Sol and, you know, I was telling him that. It was just like, because he was like, man, like, I can't remember in this moment what word he used. But for me, it was like I got to go back to like 2005 when I got into this because I loved it.

And I didn't, I wasn't thinking about anything. I just wanted to make something dope and that was honest. So it was like that was what I was in more evolved before anybody could take my mind. my ideas or make me overthink. You know, it's a knowing that you have. Like, I know who I am now. I know who I am

not in relation to anybody else, just me. And when you could walk that walk and create from that place, I really can't articulate it. I guess, you know, the best way to explain it is like you just hear it in the music, you know, just how certain and affirmed and free you are.

Yeah, there's a difference between ego and actual confidence. And I feel like when we're younger, we tend to have egos, which is more performative. Right, right. And I don't mean you're the same age. And there's even a line on the album that you say, you know, the 30s were my biggest lessons.

And the 40s, I'm loving myself more than ever. And I feel like, yeah, when you have true confidence, it just exudes. It's not a performance. And I feel like that's the energy that you're giving off on the album. Yeah, it definitely is confidence. And it took me a long time to get there. You know, because like you say, it's like, otherwise you do operate from ego, which is really a lack. And it's all the things that I felt like I was lacking.

But I have this idea of who I am that I know. But it's like, but in relation to that, maybe I don't know because I lack so much when you compare it to how everybody else measures that. And now it's just like I don't lack anything, you know. Yeah, confidence. Yeah, even like the acceptance of flaws, I feel like, you know, it's like it's not like a, I'm perfect type of thing, but it's more of just an acceptance. It's an acceptance. It's being kind to yourself in your season. It's allowing yourself to know that like this is where I am right now. Right. And I'm going to continue to become and become. But right now, like, be present in this and, you know, live in it and be excited and, you know, find another version of yourself. And that's kind of really what it is. It's like. I get to look in the mirror and it's just like I like this person.

Like I really like myself, you know, who I am and how I treat people and how much I love the art. And yeah, it feels good to do that. Yeah. I also feel, yeah, we'll get to the music, I promise, but it's so interesting because I do also think like that shift in seeing yourself also allows you to see others in the same way. Exactly. And it promotes empathy and understanding where people might be in their own journey. And that's where your peace comes from. It's exactly that.

Like, you know, once you go through that healing phase, and again, you get to the other side and you have this knowing. And you know who you are on your own human experience. You have so much empathy for other people and grace. You know, like I can look at somebody and they can say the most mean thing to me, you know. And it's okay. I just get to observe because I understand. understand that we all are going through a journey of finding ourselves and healing. And I understand what projection is, you know, like, you get to create your experience. That's what I learn most.

Like, I get to create my experience and how I feel about myself, how I feel about other people. And I choose to like, I don't have to take that on. I could just observe and have grace that, you know, this is where you are with your journey. And you'll get there at some point, you know. But yeah, I just observe. I don't have to take it in. And that's, cool, man. I'm so peaceful right now and I protect it really well. Boundaries is up. Hard metal gates in real life.

Okay, so let's get into the music a little bit. The question I always start most interviews with is trying to get a sense of your relationship with music. Music is something that we hear just kind of in the background as we're growing

up, but at some point there's a transition particularly with musicians. where be it a song or an album or some experience where music becomes something you have a deep and meaningful relationship and in your case find self-expression through. So I'm wondering when that shift happened in your life. I knew I wanted to do music at an early age, right? MC light, poor Georgie. Where you was that? 88? 89? Something like that.

So I'm like five or six years old. But hitting the point that you're talking about, for me, it was right around like. the last two years of high school into my first year of college, where, you know, it gave me a place to have a voice. It gave me a place to give things. I did, everything was to music. I cleaned up to music. I watched my car to music. I played basketball to music. I played pool to music. Like, I cooked the music. Everything, it had a soundtrack in the back. But, you know, the house I grew up in a bunch of Aquarius at that, you know, if you believe, however you believe. But how we communicated was different, you know, and I just never had a place to outwardly express

myself in that way. So hip hop gave me a place to feel understood, to feel seen. Like, I'm a young girl who hung around with boys. I never like to put on girly clothes, and I'm looking at, you know, M.C. Light and Queen Latifah and also Aaliyah and like, oh, I relate to that. Like, I see myself in that. Method, man, you're all I need. Like, hair half undone, half braided, like so fly, even though it's raw.

Like, I feel this. Like, I don't have to be. Hip hop is not about being perfect. It's just about being. Like, I saw a place for me to be. And so, you know, high school and that age is so, like, so much is going on in life. You're finding yourself. And it just gave me.

a place to like write about how I felt, write about what I was seeing in the world, what I was thinking, what I was questioning. And I think that was when it all clicked. Like this is a place I just get to be me, you know, like I grew up with Jehovah's Witness too, you know? So I was like, I could just shut everything else off and just go here. Like even when I started rapping, and tell my family at all, you know, and they ended up at my first show once they, found out. I remember I got off my mom. I was like, I didn't even know who you were when you got up there because, you know, you're shy, you're reserved, you're quiet and here. Like, you know, you're bouncing all around the stage. Like, you have stage presence, confidence on the stage. And it's like,

that was my safe place. You hear talk to basketball players and, you know, world is going around him and they're like, I just go to the court and I don't even think about nothing. Like, that's what hip hop was for me. Well, take the question on one step further. Because on this album, the way that music is framed in position as something even beyond, our connection is framed as something transcendent and divine, or at least a pathway to that. You know, the kind of conceptual framework of this album is these kind of divine transmissions or broadcasts. Divine creative, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. This is counter-programming at work.

Instruction is in the vibration. Instruction is in the vibration. So I'm wondering when in your life, music became even that deep when you realized it was this kind of pathway to divine energy. I think that's happened recently in the last five years or so. I've always known the power of music, but not in that context until these last five years, until I started the healing journey.

and even learning, like, my own relationship with God and, you know, reading more and learning about Africa and history and spirituality and ancestors. You know, I'm learning about Yoruba and Ephan and all these things and how that relates to the vibration. Like, just putting something on with no words during the time of my healing, I didn't really, I didn't listen to a lot of rap. I was listening to jazz, and that's just music and it's emotion and it's feeling. Or sometimes I meditate and, you know, we're doing the 435 hertz, you know, thing. Right. And I'm just understanding the importance of vibration and how it affects ourselves, you know, our mental, all of those things.

But I'm also learning about, like, the idea of what happens when we leave here. you know, and divine energy in that way and, you know, connecting with people. Like, I'm just putting it all together. So I'm learning the connection of all of it at the same time. And I think that's what this album is, especially in Africa, when they just talk about the drums and how they spoke to each other in the drums, how they spoke to the sky. Even when you think about Native Americans, they drum when they won't rain. You know, like, just that power. And it makes me think like how much of that have we lost?

You know, so it was adding those fabrics of what I'm experiencing and what I'm feeling and when I'm learning. Like, when it lies around, we're playing drums, you know, like it's those things that I wanted to bring to the forefront of this album. You know, the Dogon Tribe, thinking about Afrofuturism and imagination and people being of the future. future and signals. What we do is like really like transmission for sure, Negro spirituals. We just sing in but there's so much coded messages and how to be free. Literally, you know, by foot, left, right, north, south, where to go. All of it matters. And I think we've kind of lost that in a way, understanding the power of what this does, vibration, frequency. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, there's nothing more primitive straight to the source than vibration. Yeah. You know, it's stripping away the noise, the technological noise and everything that we're inundated with on a daily basis and just stripping it something down to talk about, you know, purity.

On the day of this album, release, you even posted a SunRaw interview clip where he's talking about the same thing. When musicians are compelled to play anything, it goes straight to the throne of the creator of universe. and that is how he sees you according to your music

because the music is a universal language. It feels like all these ideas are in the music and specifically, well, one, I guess maybe we should talk about your trip to Africa because I know that was an inspiration for this album. But then I do want to talk about more about the framework of the album and why you chose this band broadcast type of theme.

So maybe talk to a little bit about your trip to South Africa. I went to Ghana first. Okay. We went to Ghana. I knew we were going to record in Johannesburg. I had been there 12 years ago. Nomi Superstar, who was on this album. She was on my first album in 2012.

So, you know, I had community and village there. But whenever I went to Africa, we would do our shows. We'd have meet and greets. We had one day off. we go spending Soweto, I really wanted to take time to be in Africa, to go with no objective to, you know, perform or anything. So we started in Ghana, and I was there for six days, and I did all the things. I went to see slave castles. I learned about the true voyage, you know, when they started at the top of the hills, and they're captured and they're walking down,

and it's a long, hard walk. I don't know if it was. weeks, I want to say it took them weeks just to get down. And people are sick and they're old and they're dying and some are being sacrificed. So, you know, the lions eat them and they don't eat everybody else. And I'm just hearing all these stories about, you know, death and, you know, the journey and they get to the last bath of return and people die there and the slave castle. So, like, I'm just taking all of this in of who we are. I'm learning about the Ashanti tribe. And, you know, women are the kings there and how much they love and appreciate women. You know, I'm learning about how they even celebrate.

You know, outside of the slave castle one day there's a carnival. I'm never going to a carnival in Africa, but I'm walking through the carnival, and it's just so much joy. And people are dancing in the street and are playing instruments and walking on stilts. the dressings that they have and I have a moment where I stop and I'm like this is New Orleans second line so that's another connection you know especially after going on the tour of the slave ship and you're learning how much we have lost you know they get to these slave castles after going through all that they've gone through to get there and all the people that they've lost and then men or women are separated and the men that try to rebel they're killed and then they're

put in front of everybody to see as a mental form of like, you try it and it's going to the same way for you. They can't speak their native language. They can't pray. They can't worship. Then you get on a ship and more people die. And you get here in slavery and more people die. And I'm just like, man, this is just one slave castle. Just one. And this is one story. And this has happened over years, hundreds of years, and many slaves. And it just made me think, like, how much we've lost, how many people we've lost, and we still are here. You know, like, those are the things that I left with. But I'm still hearing the joy in the carnival outside.

And I'm like, joy has always been, you know, our peace, our freedom that has kept us alive. Yeah, it was a beautiful. it was just a beautiful walk. I went to a botanical garden and I'm learning again how people survived and ate and medicine and they used trees. And I'm also learning like you hear the conversation of, well, black people, Africans sold their own people to slavery. You know, and I'm there so I get to get the real story from the source. And it's like, yes, slavery existed in the continent, but not like it did in America. There are two completely different things. Like we would war and we'd have prisoners of war and they come to these tribes and now they had to be a part of the

community and you know they insert themselves they work but they still keep their name you know we don't take their children we don't rape them and after a while they can go where they want it's not chattel slavery it's not the same thing um so it's just all this truth and knowledge and understanding and i go to johannisburg and i learn even more you know again a lot has to to do with women too and women bringing life into the world and how men are there to give identity and you know it just opened me up to so much and it made me proud even though a lot of it was painful but it also made me know like how much we have to keep the connection and the bridge from black America to Africa alive I don't know where I'm going with this because

I forgot the question but this was my trip It's so many words. What you're talking about this and so much of it is in the album. I'm thinking about specific lyrics and how this experience was direct kind of fuel for the album. I guess maybe get into then how this gets into the idea of counter-programming because it sounds like you've got a real education and then now bringing it into your music. Absolutely. That's one story I forgot.

Even how I got to broad this broadcast has been banned and counter-program. program is, you know, one of the trips we're taking in Ghana, five in the morning, we're going to see the Ashanti tribe, which is a five, six hour drive. That drive is crazy, too. Scary drive. But, you know, like, I'm present. I'm there. It's a beautiful sunrise. And this is a place I've been trying to get to and I'm here and the radio's playing and it's westernized gospel music. You know, It's like, this isn't what I would expect to hear in Africa. This isn't what I hear in Black America. Like, we even have our own sound of what gospel and worship sounds like. This is very co-opted to a European standard. I'm like, why is this on the radio? And it's station after station after station.

And it's like, this is what we listen to here. And my friend who came with me missed his flight, so he was on a different flight to me. But he's like, my whole plane was full of. people coming to build churches here. And I understand too how religion was used to control even the slaves. So now my mind is working. I'm like, okay, so we're in Africa

and now religion has been co-opted in Africa where I don't even hear it on the radio, like no station. There's even no diversity and this is where everybody's been listened to when people are coming here to build churches. And when I go to America, you know, I think about, again, the history of slavery in terms of religion and how religion was used, you know, to control people mentally. And then I'm thinking about, okay, the depiction of Jesus.

Right. It's very defined. And I'm like, well, I know where Bethlehem and all these places are. I don't think if that's where it happened, I don't see that. It doesn't make sense. I think it's been proven through science and, you know, all the things. So it's like we have to unlearn so much. A lot of counter-programming has to go into play.

And what I'm learning here, like, I have to bring you. I understand, again, like, what I'm creating is a snapshot of my life and what I'm experiencing. And I'm still unlearning and relearning. So I have to set you all free. If I'm getting free, I want you all to be free too. You know, and then it's just a wormhole of things. Now I'm thinking about hip hop. And, you know, I'm thinking about how hip hop has been infiltrated.

This beautiful culture, you know, that came from black and brown people, from a lack of not having art in the class and having a way to express themselves and putting turntables together. And now when a certain people see that this is profitable or the Chitlin Circuit, even what that was and keeping the black money, into the black community. And, you know, it's not being shared, but people want a piece of it. How they, by design, came and got a piece of it.

And we lost so much because of it. And I'm reading Sister Soldier's book, No Disrespect. It's one of my favorite books. I read it when I was 21 for the first time. And now I'm rereading it. And I'm more evolved, so I'm even reading things differently than when I did. And it's about the relationship between black men and black women. black and African men and women.

But in the book, like she talks about, you know, being in a suburban home with a mom and dad and her dad loses his job and everything just goes bad from there. And now they find themselves in the projects and the welfare system and the school systems are not as good as they are in the suburbs and they're underfunded.

And, you know, she's experiencing, you know, these welfare houses and, you know, she's seeing drugs, she's seeing guns. It's like, I just go from Africa to slavery and I go through this whole years and years and years of everything that's been done to us, to program us. And now I'm looking at hip hop. And I'm like, we got a band to broadcast. You know, like, we're in a time too. We're banning books and, you know, you know, truth is being rewritten and whitewashed and changed. And I'm like, DAG, if my albums were books,

they would be banned too because they're truth. Kendrick Lamar albums would be banned. Most deaf albums would be banned. Stevie Wonder albums would be banned. Marvin Gay albums would be banned. And that's where this broadcast has been banned. It's like, you know, this is the signal, the divine signal.

if you walk in an alignment with your purpose, with God, then they can try to ban it all they want in the same way they try to kill us and exterminate us and control us in slavery, but we steal the roads that grew through the concrete. Shout out to Tupac. So it's like, you know, I'm cutting through the signal. Truth is always going to find the light. That's one thing my mother told me like truth will always find the light. So that was the idea like, you know, this album, for the hour that I have you, I have broken through. And I'm giving you all the codes and messages that I've learned in my life and my travels of Africa and what I've read. I'm giving everything to you. So in the event that this is ever banned and somebody finds it in the future, that you know truth.

You know, like whatever they've told you, and it may be 3,065, but you have this recorded, you know. And that's how I approached it and counterprogramming. It's like, Like, you know, we got to unplug, you know, we got to get naked. We got to relearn. And that was the approach. Yeah. I made that very long. No, it's beautiful.

Well, it gets me right into, I think, track two or the first song for your mind. You frame the album as counter programming. And, you know, the next logical step is unlearning this act of freeing your mind of the things that you've learned, but also opening your mind, clearing your mind, cleansing your mind so that the light could enter to be a vessel of, I think, how you're framing it as a vessel of God. Absolutely. Is that the idea behind that track? Yeah, absolutely. And it's crazy me and Danan approach it from two different perspectives because free your mind and, you. there was in no way were the first beats that he made before we went to Africa.

Okay. So I went to see him one time before we went to Africa. And I'm sending him playlist songs and pictures just to put him in the mind frame of where I'm at. So when he approached it, he had just lost his brother. And he was going through a grieving stage. So he's talking about like going through a human experience of grief and how do I free my mind from that. I'm in a whole different space. You know, like, again, I told you I'm reading the book.

I've come off of my own healing. I am free, you know. So I'm approaching it. Like, I have a newfound relationship with God. You know, I have a better knowing of who I am. Freedom like Frederick, I turn them chains to a necklace. Like, you know, you can't lock my mind. You can lock my body, but you can't lock my mind.

And, you know, those, those chains that we're still in feeling the effects of slavery still to this day. Like, our community is still feeling that to this day. Like, you know, I'm broken free from that. I don't turn it into something else. Like, I wear that differently. That was free of mind. Like, you know, I talked about it. Like, I'm in the act of doing it, though I've already gone there because I wanted to speak to people directly.

Right. You know, I wanted to meet people where they were. I wanted to sit in them like, you know, it looked different when God across you. You know, it's like, how do I bring us all back to ourselves, you know, and this is how I did it. And this is how I got free. So let me share that with you. Like, this is where we have to start before we can go anywhere else on this journey that I'm about to take you on. Like, I need you to come into this and approach it with an open and free,

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's also gets out the idea of these hands from the joy of me sharing my message. Yeah. Believe I got time. No throwing me up every binds.

My free will and me got a bond. What's written by law. Yeah, fish me a lot. Yeah. It also gets out the idea of can't change the world to change yourself. That part. You know? Yep.

So I like that even just in the sequencing, we get, you know, free your mind begins it. And then, yeah, just have to get into like the first verse is so beautiful. You say, my wall is too tall. I put too much on me and not enough on God. Shadows haunt me. I need more days that come before Monday, the Sundays. So walls and the shadow.

Founding the light. Neat in the light and the contrasting with Monday and Sunday and God and responsibility. And then you say, want to know light, the scripture, want to live the writings of Invictus. I am unconquerable What I thought was really cool about this. Invictus is Latin for Unconquerable, but there's also the poem which thematically parallels what you're talking about in the first first that I just wrote, I'll just recite the opening line of the poem by William Ernest Henley.

He says, out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pull. I think whatever God may be for my unconquerable soul. Yeah. Which is like so beautiful, but then just the wordplay of you even incorporating Invictus, just the writing is really, really well done there. Thank you. Yeah, I revisited that poem while I was writing this. You know, and I was like, this is exactly it. You got to free yourself.

You got to believe in something higher than you. I truly believe that. And I remember like just trying to carry it all. Sometimes you got to let it go into someone else's hands. I don't think God has hands like these. But you know what I'm saying. From a speech. Right, right.

But it's like you get your power back. So it's just like I have agency over myself. Again, I create the experience I want to have. Like, you don't hold anything over me. I am in control of me. Like, I am free. That is, that's what freedom feels like to me. And that was the best way that I could explain it too.

And that poem was such And to me, that's how associated with when Mandela got free. You know, and I can only imagine what that felt like. Like these are all the things that I'm thinking about because at this time, everything is calling me back to Africa. You know, it could be the littest thing.

I'm on Instagram. I was like, oh, I like that outfit who did it. It's the South African designer. Like the smallest things. But it was just a calling, like a return. You got to go back home. You got to go back home to self, but you also physically have to go back to this home. And not just of me, but like of mankind.

You know, I'm riding through Ghana. I'm just looking around. I'm just like, this looks like definitely where the Garden of Eden would be. Africa has all the resources. I'm looking at all the different type of plants, all the animals. And like, I'm just having them on. I'm just so present. Yeah, but I'm wondering when you're writing that,

Is that something you're like, you're intentionally writing to that poem or are you writing that verse and be like this kind of reminds me of the poem? Like, how does that thought process happen? When I write, I'm just on a journey. Does it start with the opening line usually? The first line has, it's so important. I'll spend two days sometimes figuring out the best first line because, you know, I just learned in great writing like your first line. It sets the tone for everything. And once I got to, like, freedom like Frederick, I turned a chain to a necklace.

Like, I knew where I was going. But by the time I got there, like, sometimes I write nonstop and I'll be done. And sometimes I get to a place and I'm like, I got to stop because, like, before I'm just saying anything, like, I want to be intentional. Where am I at now? Like, what am I thinking? And I remember remembering parts of Invictus and being unconquerable. And I'm just like, let me go reread the poem.

I need more days that come before Monday, the Sundays. Like, Sunday comes before Monday, but I need more light. You know, I need to always wake up every day. My favorite thing is to live in the light, you know. And then I'm like, yo, let me go read Invictus. And I'm probably trying to catch a rhyme, too. Right. I'm going to be real with you, like,

what's my rhyme word? But how is it going to connect with what I'm saying? How is it going to tell the whole story? And then I see it. Now, I'm back there. I got it. So I'm got to talk myself through it. And I'm just like,

evictus. And I'm like, there's a poem called evictus. Let me go read it. And I'm like, got it. And a lot of times those things for me are so divine. Like, why would I say that word?

And I know there's a poem. And then to read the poem and it's exactly what I'm connecting. with and I'm just like it's got to be it then this is where we're at like those are the things when I'm riding that like god dang it like that's when I know I'm I'm in it right you know you ever seen biker boys no oh okay um so it's this is a part at the end of biker boys where this biker motorcycle movies racing his dad and right before the race starts he has his free flow his tunnel moment and it's like like everything out is blurry and you can only see forward that's how

I feel when I know I'm in my flow state, when I do things like that. That's the only way I could articulate it to y'all, but that's how I know, like, I'm in divine alignment and with whatever I'm feeling, whatever I'm supposed to say, because that's how I only see things from here. I don't see nothing else. And that's just what that was. Yeah. Well, it's beautiful, beautiful start to the album.

We get into No Way. South African Choir here. Yeah. I love the production on this. I love the combination of the more African percussion elements with like the deep, like Western bass. Like that harmony, that fusion of them sounds so great together. It's very intentional. Okay.

Yeah, I told that, like, I want to continue to shine light on Pan-Africanism again and making sure that connection between Africa and Black America is still there, you know, or anywhere, anywhere. Like, I think it's just important to be connected to the source. Zion you know what I'm saying so you know in my playlist

was Felakuti and that's where those drums were like I want the elements of what Felacuti feels like da da da da

and shout out to Adam Blackstone who brought that percussion all the way to life but that yeah that was very intentional

you're about to ask a question someone that you're asking oh no I was actually about to compliment the bass player in this song too. The bass player on this whole album, I don't know if it's the same person, but they killed it. It's like crazy. Different people. Yeah, yeah. Some little licks on there

and that's, but by this point in the album, you know, music has been already established as something divine, something sacred, and then no way feels like there, you're kind of positioning yourself as a guardian of that, sacred, you know, and almost like reminding folks that, no, this is, something that needs to be guarded, right? That seems like the theme of that song. It definitely is. Again, like, it's the beauty of the relationship between an artist and producer. Danam played the beat before we went to Africa.

And it already had the hook on it. Ain't no way, no way. No way. No way. And he's like, you can really get off, talk to your shit. Like, you know, ain't no way. And I just sat with it. And I didn't record it until I got to Johannesburg. But for me, like, it wasn't about me being braggadocious on that record.

It was so much bigger than that for me. I'm just like, what are the things that I'm in no shape, form of fashion allowing? You know? And the thing that I just kept coming back to was like culture vultures and how much we haven't protected the culture. And, you know, I'm scrow. I do them scroll like everybody else. And I see Vlad interviews and I see Twitter conversations even pertaining to that and these stories and who owns hip hop.

And again, I'm thinking about the Harvard report. And so I'm just like, man, for me, no matter if I get rewards, if I get financial gain or if I get fame of popularity, which was never a goal for me. and even thinking about when I first started, I'm sitting with Ninth One Day Young Gruber and they're like, before you get in the booth, you've got to define your line. What is your line that you were not going to compromise yourself for? Somebody put a check down in front of you for $10 million.

What would you say no to that check for? Like, they made me do that in 2010, 2009. And I've never forgotten it. Like, and so that's what it was. Like, my mantra used to be culture over everything. Like, you have to be brave enough to not be dangled fools gold and lose yourself for. And that's what it was. Ain't no way they're going to voucher my culture out.

Ain't a way to stop motion on what is about. Ain't no way they're going to voucher my culture out. Ain't no way to stop motion on what it's about. I don't need the, if I don't get the support, it's cool, we still on the path because I didn't do it for that. I would do this for free. You know, like, it's affirming and saying that and hoping that, you know, all of this was just like, how can I just plant seeds to even start conversation? You know, because it's easy to really get lost in everything and just be in it versus stepping out of it and looking at everything, how we do people. and observing.

So that's what that was. Why do we give it away to so many other people, you know, when it's used, it's just something, you know, to get off of. Let me get a piece. Again, let me get a piece of this. It don't really affect me. Don't affect my community, but it affects my community. It affects my brothers, my sisters, my friends, these kids.

It affects them. So I care about it different. It don't affect you the same way it affects us. So ain't no fucking way in the world. I'm putting a knee down for that. Like, that's what that record is. Yeah. You know.

Was there any, just knowing the way like modern media works, was there like trepidation around like actually saying specific names in that way? Or is that just part of like just standing on it? Just standing on it. Yeah. You know, like you're going to say it. Say it. You know, there's some things that you want to protect.

You know, I'm not saying like, But for me, I felt in that moment, because I've done records where I've talked about things and I haven't called out specific individuals, but at this season of life and particularly this moment and what I was feeling in that song, it's just like, no, I'm going to just say it. Right. Nobody's going to die. Right. It's just a conversation. And that's not to say people are necessarily inherently bad people. Sometimes you've got to put a mirror up for people to allow them to see and understand it. exactly what you're saying or be a window for people to see through, like, you know, I have to give

you the perspective. I have to start the conversation. At the end of the day, we all operate in free will, do as you may. But this is how I'm feeling and this is what I want to talk about. And I'm a big fan of a soldier. Like, I'm also listening to all her old interviews. And she just set it to your face directly. And I'm like, Dad, we don't really have spaces where we necessarily do that anymore, you know? So just say it. Right. It's okay.

The tone doesn't seem like... It's bigger than... There's so much bigger than that. But for some people to even understand it, you got to meet them at that. you got to meet them at that place. Right. Let me put it on a ground level for you to get before you can even get your wings to fly and look at it from a bird's view, you know, of, yeah, you hear in it, but when you go to

this floor, you can see how much it spreads. It's just a microcosm. Hip-hop is just a microcosm of the world we live in. This ain't necessarily about Vlad and no jumper. It's so much bigger than that. that has been done to hip-hop and then you zoom out, it's been done to the black community, you zoom out, and it's worldwide now.

You know what I'm saying? Like, that's what it is. Yeah, the tone, I mean, the tone strikes me, I mean, it's similar to pick aside, and it reminds me a lot of it, like Kendrick's energy during the battle, like where the battle felt like, you know, at least the way it crystallized over time,

you say pick aside you know there did seem to shed light on a certain you know I feel like Kendrick is also that feeling like that guardian instinct over this thing that he cares so deeply for and I felt like it was that same type of

energy it's like I love this thing so much it's so important to me and my community like we can't someone's got to say it someone's got to say it and I'm going to say it because I was giving the mic and the

platform to say it. You know, this thing has a lot of power. It has done more for the world sometimes than anything else. Like, this music has made the world smaller. We don't even have to speak the same language, you know, to spread a message. Like, that's how powerful it is. So when you understand that, it makes how you approach it differently. You know, not to say there's not room for everybody's thoughts, ideas, truth, perspectives,

but there is a lot of power that comes with it. And yeah, for me, it's just like, I'm a truth teller. That's who I am. That's who I want to show up as. I think Kendrick is the same. He's a truth teller fearlessly, you know. And when you know yourself, you can definitely walk free and fearlessly in it because you feel purposeful and divine in it, you know.

You know, yeah, like pick a side was, you know, again, like taking bits of no way and making it bigger, you know, like, no way was like, all right, here we are. Let me meet you where you at is where we, we're on Twitter talking, you know, pick aside. It's like, nah, we like, we on the big channels. Talking way different. Keep it in mind of these seasons don't love us. Capitalism ain't free of none of us.

Look around at that. It's like, made you think message and music was lame. You calling us boring. That's part of they game, my nigga. It's like, are you picking you? Are you picking capitalism? You know? And that's how I like to frame it.

Am I picking my true authentic self? Because I don't want to alienate anybody's truth. You know, I have my experiences. I have my truth. But that's not to say, too. That's somebody, for example, that grows up in a challenging situation. and place and they got to wake up every day and how they feel to survive,

approach it in a certain way that their truth doesn't matter. As long as your truth is your truth, walk in that, but don't change who you are or your message or try to be something because that's what's going to get you the rewards or success. That was the grand message of it. like don't let this idea of capitalism in this invisible hand, you know, the odds, the bigger person controlling Oz behind the curtain.

Like, don't be controlled in that way. Don't walk in fear in that way and lack in that way. That's what it's about. And two, like, whatever your truth is, it's like, say it, share it, walk it. But if it's not something that makes you feel good or that evolves you or that's in the light, how are we growing from it versus just staying there and continue to repeatedly do this thing over and over again. That's not really good for anybody, especially when you know better. I went through this experience and I'm going through it or telling you that I'm living it and going through it, even though I'm something different. That's the message of it. Right.

You know. I want to highlight one of the bars in the song. You say, I know sinners I'd smoke for my brother's life. That's why I love hip-hop. The economy of words in this and like the amount of references that you're weaving into this one bar with the sinners, smoke stack. Stack, Brothers. Let me to wonder about like, so when you're watching a movie like sinners, just like your rapper brain, like are you logging like certain things or is it?

Okay. Absolutely. And I do. I've done that since day one. Even before I started rapping, I, when I did start writing, I knew I always wanted to write how the movie Primal Fear made me feel. I don't know if you've seen that. It's a movie that just you're watching it, and you're watching this character,

and he's on trial for this thing that he does. And you think you know this person because he's been consistently this person the whole time. And at the end, it flips. And I'm like, wow, that turned me on my head. And to me, when I heard reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt is the same thing to me. So that's when I knew it to be.

in like how influential films were to how I wrote. Every album I do I write like it's a movie. And this one's no difference. So whenever I could watch a movie, I could watch a show, I could just have a conversation with you. And I'm always clocking something that inspires me. I'll be in a movie and I'll pull out my phone. I never pull out my phone unless I'm like,

I need to remember this. I got an idea. That's a bar. You know, like that's the only thing about rapper, your brain never turns off. I can't watch a film ever and not try to see like, how is this going to inspire me in any way. That's definitely how my brain works. But it's anything going to an art museum and looking at artwork and how does it inspire me?

What I did does it give me? Like, it could be anything. Right. I mean, that's another thing I love about hip-hop because there's no really other genre where you could reference so many things. and then make like these time capsules, you know what I mean? Like you're stamping this song with sinners, which is related to a moment. And so you're just making all these connections like this, like it's like a mosaic of, you know, in a way that I don't think any other genre is able to do quite like hip hop.

It's really cool. Yeah, hip hop is so dense. It can be dense. It's art, it's poetry. Yeah. You know, like I love that hip hop is being told. taught in universities and studied and decoded, it's no different than the Odyssey or Homer or anything like that.

Like, it's beautiful, like you say, work that you could take two bars and teach a whole class on, just two bars, because it can be so layered in the meaning of it. Or even the poetic devices. Yeah. You know, I'm with you in terms of, that was one of the reasons why I started the show and specifically started

focusing on hip-hop because I went to school for composition and music theory and like we studied all dead European white composers and I'm just like that does some great amazing music but like

there's so much other example that we can add to this. There's other music specifically in hip-hop like we can learn so much about this moment and then historical things like there's just the density of specifically hip-hop is I feel like unrivaled because there's not, the thing I always say about hip hop is like,

there's no other genre in history where you could say so many words in one song or one album. Yeah. And from a storytelling perspective, from a truth-telling perspective, you're just able to communicate so much within it, you know? Yeah. And even past words,

like sonically samples. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's a whole other layer. Yeah. Yeah, where you can connect generation and like, yeah. Hip hop is crazy in that way.

It makes me think of that film or the scene in sinners where he goes through the history of music. It's one of the greatest scenes ever done. Yeah. Like Ryan Coogler is, he's a genius for that. I like to shed a tear when I saw that. And the idea of like showing that in that way, it was absolutely brilliant. When we talk about the influence of black music on all. genres. Yeah, to study music in America is to study black music. Exactly. Like, it was

Ryan Cooler, my God. Yeah. We went to the same college, shot out Sacramento State. Okay, so Apple Juice. Okay, amazing song. So, this was part of what I'm talking about, like, a newfound confidence. Because when I heard Apple Juice, I was like, I went through your entire catalog, skimming through it, it would be like, is there a song where she is just singing? Like, maybe I missed it, but I don't think there is. Nope. And so when I heard this, I was like, okay, like, this is something different.

So let's talk about the approach to Apple Juice and kind of maybe the confidence that it took to sing an entire song. That's definitely one where I knew, okay, you're still becoming and finding confidence in different arenas. That's something I was never confident in doing. I grew up listening to Luther Vandross and Whitney Houston and Shakkan and Patty the Bell, like Lauren Hill, all these phenomenal sangers. Right. Not singers, sangers. So I'm just like, if I ain't singing like that, then to me, you can't sing.

You know, if it don't sound like that, you can't see, don't even go over there. But I had to, again, even unlearn that. Like, it's all about what feels good, you know. and I for years, even when I was with Jamla, like I'd be at the studio singing, quote unquote. And, you know, somebody would like, hey, you can, I'll be like, no, don't even do it. Like, all the time. I was just like, no, if I'm not singing like, what are you talking about?

Don't even gas me up. Like, don't play with me. But like during that trip with Don't, he would always just, He talks about his gifts and talents, all of them producing, rapping, singing, building computers, whatever, the superpowers. And, you know, he had a moment where he was like, yo, you are great. Like, you have superpowers, not just one. Like, you have a lot of them. And you have to tap into them and use them all.

You know, he's like, I heard you sing a little bit. Like, you can sing. Like, I'm not saying you got to bit you can, you know. And I was like, okay. Like, okay, I receive it. You know, so I have this beat from groove and it's three in the morning and, you know, I have this deep crush for somebody and I'm listening to it. I'm hearing DeAngelo and I'm, I started writing all these rap verses. I'm just like, one, it doesn't feel right over this.

It just doesn't feel right. Two, your goal with every project is to grow. this doesn't feel like growth you know it's that too like free your mind felt like growth I can hear the growth in different ways this is a beat you know

a soulful beat but people know you to rap on like that's the core of who you are you're just going to approach it like you always approach it you know so I had to stop and I had to think about it's a love song you're writing about love and crush and being in love

and being nervous And at this time, like, in my playlist is like DeAngelo Voodoo songs, Stevie Wonder, print songs, Grace Jones, you know, I'm just listening to all these records. I'm thinking of call my name by Prince and how beautiful that's written. And I'm like, yo, when you write about yearning and desire, like take it back to writing about it in a poetic way, you know. And then I was like, how would they approach this? How would Stevie write this? How would DeAngelo write this? And again, what's the first line?

First line is always important. All this love inside, I'm hesitating, why? Because I'm actually writing somebody. This is like really how I feel. I got this crushing somebody. I'm scared to tell them about it. And, you know, you're working to, continuing to be more vulnerable.

And so it's like, I'm even writing it like, I'm not the one that's going to sing it. That's another thing too. I'm writing it like, I'm going to write it how I feel and I'm going to sing it. And I'm going to sing it. But I'm not going to sing it. Somebody else is going to sing it. So I'm thinking like, okay, who can I send this to when I'm done?

And I get up with my recording or engineer at 6, 7 in the morning. And I'm like, hey, I got this thing. I'm singing. Don't judge me. But let's record it. I'm going to send it to somebody else. That's exactly what I told him. And I sing the first.

two lines of verse and he was like rap like you sound good you need to keep it and then then dena wakes up and he's like no you're you are keeping it like it's not even a question you know and then i had to sit because i'm even listening to it and they love it but i'm still cringing a little bit because i'm just like it's not perfect like i would think it would be perfect it feels good but Jill scott could seem this better you know what I'm saying it ain't about that though and I had to remind I'm myself, like, sometimes it just got to, it has to feel good. Like, the most imperfect songs are the most perfect songs. All this love inside, I'm hesitating why.

I can't just reply and tell you how I feel. And, too, like, I'm like, I wrote it and I looked at how many words I had versus how many words I have of the rap song. And I'd be like, the R&B singers be having it's so easy. I'm also studying because I do want to become a better writer and I'm studying now like DeAngelo lyrics. Like I'm not listening to them. I'm reading it. I'm reading Stevie Wonder's songs in the key of life.

Like I'm reading the lyrics. I'm like, there's not a lot of lyrics here. But they're profound in that way. Another kind of difficult because you're more limited. So you have to be profound. So that's like what I'm working on too. And I'm like, man, they be having it what seems like easy, though it's not. It's not always easy to be profound, but I'd be like, yo, they said three words.

Then they said two more words. And they brought back to three words for the rest of the song and it's fire. That's where I was when I wrote that. But I definitely was very uncomfortable because it was so new, you know. But Dan was there to affirm like, it's good. And I had to learn enough. usually not comfortable too. It's not supposedly. Absolutely not. It reminds me of

the creator. There's a really definitive line in his discography in which he started to sing on like Flower Boy. He was riding his hooks for like trying to give him to like Justin Bieber. And he ended up just

one day. Actually he said it was Kendrick that inspired him to keep his own voice on the records. And since then you know most of his biggest songs are him singing, which is crazy because his voice, he admits it, not the greatest, you know, but like it's, there's an authenticity, there's a feeling behind it. It feels really good, you know. But once somebody sets you free and you get to see you from the ground,

you're on the ground level and I get to see up here. It's like, oh, now I can do anything. Feels like, yeah, maybe unlocked a new door going forward. Absolutely. Absolutely did. Okay, so God got a Afro title track. In contention for one of my favorite When I first heard it It was like the beat itself is just crazy That production is nuts It's probably my favorite beat of the year

The only other Actually I want to kind of sidebar question Because the only other song that Is in my kind of short list for Song of the Year Have you heard Daddy died My daddy died That's her eye

I prophesied Amazingly and homely eye It's dark where there's another My daddy died So I don't take no shit from niggers That song is phenomenal Her performance The visual

Just the song Like I'm in alignment Yeah I just wanted to see if you're familiar with it because it's incredible. And she has like three songs or something. Yes. I went back and listened to all of them.

It's all dope. That one, that one cut through. Yeah, I can't wait to see what. But that's the honesty of it. Yeah. You know, like.

So powerful. Even the way it's written is the way she keeps going back to the refrain. My Daddy died and all the different contexts. And the emotion she'll put it. My Daddy died. I probably would do it. A terrible interpretation of that. But yeah.

If you haven't heard Daddy died. Earth Sign shells. It's really incredible. Anyways, okay, but God Got Afro, incredible song. I'm wondering what your experience hearing that beat for the first time was. Nuts. That was the first beat that he worked on when we got to Johannesburg. That's why that hook is, because I'm fresh off the Ghana trip, and I'm fresh off everything from Ghana that I've experienced. And the radio thing is still very heavy on my mind. you know, how spirituality's co-opted. So that's the first beat.

And at the time, the drums weren't necessarily the same as what we have now. It was just a really light framework. And I'm like freestyle in the hook. You know, he's making a beat. And I'm just walking around the Airbnb just saying shit. You know, and it's just like, God, got to ask. He's like, we keep in that type joint. So he goes to sleep.

Like, I'm writing it. And he goes asleep. He's like, I'm going to finish in the morning. He wakes up in the morning. He says, I got it. He's like, I had a dream that I'm riding a car through Africa and I'm being chased by some red booty baboons. And that's the beat that was playing.

And he makes the beat. And I'm just, I don't even know how to really express what I feel because it's old, is new, it's futuristic, it's all these things. Like, it's so familiar, but it's so new. And, you know, even some of the, things like when we were talking about making the album, I'd be like, yo,

I wanted to sound like this, but in the future. At one point when I was making this or in the world of making an album, I was in Japan first. I don't know why I was in Japan, but I was like, I was talking to S-1. It's before I really got into the album. I was like, hey, what would it sound like if I was sitting in a cafe in Japan in the year 30, 33? Like, what does the soundtrack to that? Like,

that's how I kind of approached it. So when I heard the beat, that's what it sounded like. It sounded like my deep love for hip hop and Afrofuturism, because Afrofuturism was big sound note for this album too. So he really took the essence of the culture, but put that shit in the future. And I was just floored. Like one, I never, I don't think I've ever rapped on anything like that.

So I was excited that I had something that felt like that, that I could rap on because I knew how I felt when I heard records like that like I want people to put some bass turn the bass up you know

you change your levels I want somebody put my record on turn the bass up like it made me feel good and I was like you I got up one street joint

something for the streets the beat was like it was everything man like that's how hip hop felt to me to the streets

dun dun dun dun Like, it was just raw. It was really about the drums. And that was a, we really wanted to focus on the drums. Yeah, there's not much harmonic stuff going on in the track. It's all percussive.

Yeah, like that's even intentional in the storytelling. Because the drums are so important to Africa. Again, I'm going to Ghana. They're doing drum patterns to talk to somebody in another village. Lion coming, do, however they do it. You know, whatever that pattern is. Like, but I know how much drums are important again to our culture. And it's like, yo, we got to tell that story.

And oh, my God. Like, it was perfect, man. Well, you met the moment with the verses too. Well, actually, let me talk, since you mentioned in the chorus, I was wondering if there, it sounds like maybe it was just kind of improv moment. But there's something interesting about saying God got to Afro in a, and that's the teasing melody when you're a kid. Yeah.

Nanny nanny boo-boo. Right. Was there any, like, significance there? Was that just more like... Yeah, yeah, we were super intentional about that. Like, I'm freestyling it. And then Danas like, yo, that choir that we're going to get for no way, we should have them sing it.

And they should sing it like on some like nanny, nanny. Like he said that intentionally. Like, you know, because it was kind of picking at like, you know, you frame this idea of spirituality and you kept us out of it, you know. But nanny nanny booboo jokes on you because we know who we are and who we can be and that, you know, like, you ain't going to put the banana in the tailpipe on us. You know, like it's really just making fun of it. That's the worst thing when a kid come and be like, nanny. Like that joke don't feel good, you know.

And I thought it was brilliant. Like, we wanted to make it innocent too in that way. Like, it just has so many layers to the intention of why we chose to do it. it like that way. Yeah, let's get into the verses a little bit. I love the line where you say 12, 12 homies by my side talking and then we hear like the clicking sounds. And then you say Mirama Kiba, how I ride for the click. And then I want to ask you specifically about, well, all this, but this line. So 64 Chavelle, trunk on me big thick, oil wells and my thighs shift on them like the clips.

What's the clips? What's the clips reference there? Is that the album cover reference? What, are they in the car? That's another layer that I didn't intend. Okay. Oils in my thighs shift on them like the clips. So I'm thinking that's my angelo poem where I walk like I got all whales in my thighs.

And you think about an oil well. I'm a visual person, so old wheels, they move like to me. So I compare that to a woman thick walking, you know what I'm saying? Shift on them like the clips, one come up, other come up. So when the oil wheel is shifting, one's coming up, one's coming up. But the clips, like, push has been holding it, and then malice comes up too. So that's, that was my interpretation. Like, you know, my brother coming up, I'm coming up with him.

But also how Orwells move and how somebody walks, like butt moving. You know, you got a little shake to it. Like, that was my intention with that bar. Twelve homies by my side going clink, clink, clink, like, that's, you know, again, playing with the whole story of Jesus in this way. Not necessarily God, but that was a Jesus bar where Jesus has these 12 disciples. So I'm bringing it into the future. Like, if we all made in the image of God, then instead of disciples, my 12 homies with me. And I'm in Africa.

They talk in Kosa. Like I want it, again, I always sprinkle Africa in where I could. Miriam Akiba, how I arrived for the clique. Miriam Kiba, it's like the mother of Africa is what she's known and sound. And, you know, she speaks in Kosa, which is a Klik. I'm probably doing it wrong. But, you know, you understand what I'm saying.

So it was like I arrive for my clique. I ride for my people. I ride for my brothers and arrived for my sisters. We call them. I click. but also like double entendre like kosa click and how much she wrote for who she was. She didn't co-opt herself to fit Western standards.

It was like this is my tradition, this is my language, this is my culture, this is my people. And I'm going to show up as that. I don't care if you understand it or not. Now you're exposed to it and you know it. Like those were the layers in those bars. Okay, so then I love this, I love when rappers do this too. So you kind of bring the verse full circle at the end of verse one.

You say finger waves going in circles like Isaac, which I love that going in circles is on Black Moses, which is tied right into everything. And then you end the verse saying, this is godly complexion like me and Kenny rhyme in rock the fro like diamonds in it. I'm shining. This old finger waves going in circles like Isaac, Cocoa butter on me brown skin like my eyes is. The cadence of I'm shining. The cadence of I'm shining, I think, is calling back to the clips. Absolutely. And then you wrapped on grinding.

You wrapped this song on grinding on your... It did a mashup. Yeah, which was so sick. Bees in my head going clink, clink, clink, picking out the fro, dripping afro, gene. Rollers in my crown. That was a brilliant idea by my good friend, and who also does my radio promo, Sam she was like

yo I want to hit the DJ because at the end you say shining like grinding and I think that would be a great match and that was super intentional and you know just adding that a little bit to it

yeah okay then I got to ask you though about you got so the pre-chorus I guess it's called the Dougie Fresh interpolation oh yeah where as we proceed given what you need

As we proceed to give you what you need. Was that Mr. Porter there? That's Mr. Porter. Yeah, okay. Or Danon. He goes by Danon Porter now. Denon Porter. Yeah, once I did the verses, we already had the God, got it after we had this open part.

And he's just such a genius, brilliant producer. And he knows how to make records. And he knows how to be intentional in storytelling. and how to say things. He was like, yo, like, I'm going to do like this called thing like they used to do back in the day as we proceed. Like, you know, and he always saw the visual of like being in the church. So that was like being in the church and the preachers talking to the congregation. You know.

Yeah, and that was the intention of that. I can't speak on whatever other intention he may have had. I don't know if it was just like, again, a. intentional nod to Dougie or just combining these layers of love to generations and connection. But I know definitely it was like visually, it was like this is a church and talking to the people. Okay. Yeah, I get that vibe. Well, that brings me to something I want to ask you about because the entire song is just so dense with references.

And it's almost like you're building a mosaic of all these, like of your lineage. I made a list, so I'm just going to rattle off all the references you make on the song. Dougie Fresh, Miram Akiba, Clips, Black Madonna, Isaac Hayes, Kendrick Lamar, Andre 3000, the Fugis. Janet Jackson, two-part, John Singleton with the Poetic Justice reference. Oh, I'm going to ask you about the flight of mum will be line in a second, but perhaps Mohammed Ali, DiAngelo, Kam and J. Dilla, Diana Ross. It's just like, I was wondering if that was, because you'd make all these, you'd make references all the time, but was it intentional to make it so dense in this particular song?

Yeah, because, you know, that's the title track and that influenced, like, kind of the heart of the album and story and what we were building from. And for me, it was like, I didn't want to give a face just mine. You know, I wanted to speak for the community, and I wanted to bring everybody into it with me. So, and this is a time too where I'm working on not doing that so much, not having, you know, these name drops. But I felt like it was perfect for this because all of these people are people that inspired me and, you know, they just represented something that I loved and respected. Like, we, a lot of this album, texture-wise, I wanted it to feel and I wanted you to hear it like the whiz looks to me on TV.

Like it has this texture to it, this color to it. Yeah, it's just all that. I just wanted to celebrate blackness, you know, in it. Yeah. Okay, I do have to ask you about the Flight of Bumblebee. What was the inspiration of doing the melody? Flight of Bumblebee? No, it's stinging to know the truth, know what God looked like me.

I don't know how did that come about That was one I'm honestly tell you like I forgot like the concrete meaning but I remember looking up the song Flight of the Bumblebee and it has a historical context

because when I read about it I was like oh this is perfect so I can say I don't remember why I did that in this moment I'm not even a lot to you it was like

I know I'm gonna put this in because it has a historical context that I need to revisit to remember why I put that in there. And I, because I remember when I did it, I was like, I know people are not going to understand why I did this. And the fact that I forgot is killing me. But, you know, after I figured out, it's like, you know, it's going to sting to know the truth. That was just how I connected it.

We'll figure that out later. Okay. So my reference and historical context for the line, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-fly to bumblebee. No one's thing to know the truth, know that God look like me. In the song, God got an Afro, it's not necessarily related to the song itself. But that song, or the idea of that song, or, you know, connecting black pilots in the military during that time with the bumblebee is correlated in the way that black pilots had to really fight to fly. as black people have had to fight to do a lot of things.

But, you know, they labeled black people as unintelligent. They said our brains were smaller. They weighed less. We didn't, we weren't coordinated, you know, a bunch of things to degrade us and demean us and our intelligence and our ability. And so the black pilots, especially the Tuskegee Airmen, would compare their fight with what they would say about bumblebees and bumblebees, their bodies are really, really big, but their wings are really, really small. And by theory, they shouldn't be able to fly.

Their wings shouldn't be able to lift their bodies. They should be clumsy, you know, the things. And they fly anyway. They fly very well. And so that's what the use of using the flight of the bumblebee was in relation to black pilots and racism. And, you know, again, just, making us lesser than wanting to remove us from the idea that we are great and that we can fly and we can do anything that anyone else can do in the same way that, you know, we're all made in the image of God and you can't exclude black people from that either. So that's the context. Because part of me was like, and this probably just reach, it sounds like, but you say it like

Danana, I thought it was a call to Danan. Oh, no. No, okay. I was like, oh, maybe, okay. However you receive it, though. All right. I'm going to take that as a personal challenge. I know Rimsie Korskov is the composer, but I can't remember why the historical context of that piece.

I remember vividly. I was in the Nottis basement looking up that joint. And, yeah. Was it a Muhammad Ali thing at all or no? No, I wasn't Muhammad Ali. I just thought, sting, you know, float like a butterfly. Seemed like a B. Yeah, yeah.

Well, speaking of the clips, let's jump to Black Love. Okay. Embrace silence, close my eyelids, and I meditated. Learn to breathe, grieve, let go of all the pain. My heart gave haven. Truth I face it. No matter how thin the ice, I'm still going to skate it. Some of the best writing, I think, on the entire project is on this song.

Thank you. The messaging on this song, I think is incredibly powerful. The chorus, specifically, incredibly powerful. Thank you. I just wanted to dig into some of the themes and the messaging there and kind of maybe expand on what you write because so verse one ends with what I assume is a true story about your cousin that spend time in prison.

And then in the chorus, you rap, saw for myself the effects of years behind wall. Let's discuss black pain, unfelt like aura gel, but everything else they bite from us. I feel pock, I feel Kodak, I feel the weight of being free ASAP. Can't turn my back on none of mine when you understand the history of that,

how we adapt when the phone was tapped. So could you maybe unpack some of that for us? Yeah. That goes back to what we were talking about, having empathy, right? I just finished No Disrespect. Like that song is directly a no disrespect. Call it out right out.

We'll get to that video. And it's the section in the book where she reads, realizes everybody's experience is different and they're not going to evolve or be as awakened as you based on the level of experience that they've had. She talks about like her relationship with men where her mom has his boyfriend who had come home from the Vietnam War and so mentally he's just somewhere else and he's a black man. So a black man who also has, you know, this anxiety and emotional toll from war is going to show up in the world

differently. You have people that feel like, you know, I'm trying to do my best, but every time I try to do something, the world finds a way to lock me up. Like, let's take parole, for instance. I got this curfew, but I'm also maybe trying to get my kid or I'm trying to get a job that I get off at nine. And if I miss parole and I'm back in jail, I can't win. So I'm going to go sell drugs. You know, like you learn to have empathy. She says, you know, I don't judge my people.

I love my people. I know my people and I don't judge my people. And that just really stuck with me. You know, we hear these songs and people like, you know, we shouldn't be talking about that, rapping about that. But if that's somebody's lived experience, I have to allow them to share their lived experience. You can't judge them for it. So, you know, that was it.

Like, I'm thinking about I'm in college and my cousin who is one of the biggest reasons I love hip hop the way I do. It gets locked up for 12 years. And he's calling, collect. He's writing letters, you know, like, hey, how are you doing? I'm proud of you in college. Send me some socks. And I'm sending him. And he gets out and I go pick him up from the halfway house.

And he's like, yo, take me to the mall. And he's walking in the mall. I'm a little bit behind. I'm just looking at how he walks and moves and everything. I'm just like, this looked like a Nause video from 94. You know, like he still got one leg up. Like, like L. L. Koujee, like how he approaches people, talk to people. And I'm just, what happens to us behind those walls.

And a lot of time, we're not even supposed to be there for some of the things we do. And the length of time, it's not for a rehabilitation, you know. it's about money. How can we make money? How can we legalize slavery? And again, the effect it has on people. So when I think about Kodak Black and probably how Kodak, I don't know his full story, but you know, you hear bits of it in his music.

And people judge him too if they don't really sit. He's a beautiful poet. I think he's a beautiful poet. And I listen to it. And I'm just like, I hear. you, you know, and he's in and out of jail, and you just, you learn to have empathy. I don't judge you. I see that you just, you're trying to get through this life and understand things, and it just looks different. Your walk looks a lot different than mine. So I don't judge you for that. I still love

you, you know, and that's what it's about, like, realizing, again, how much we still have to heal from and unlearn from and unplug from as a people, you know. That's why I can never judge you. Like, I'm reading this book of her and her experience in one project in Brooklyn. And now I have to multiply that on a bigger scale. And it's like, and this book was written in the 90s. This is 2026. It's like we go through these things that started over 400 years ago,

and it's just so compound and layered. How are you supposed to heal from that? how do you expect a people to heal from that? Like with a snap of, you can't. Yeah. Can't judge you for that. Like she does at that time a lot of community work. And she goes in this building, they got these welfare houses.

I might have talked about this early. I don't mind I repeat myself. And it's like, wow, I see this child. And she's here with her mother and her brother. And the dad can't be here because if the dad's there, then you can't get the welfare. assistance that you need because you can't get a job and all these things against you. So now you've broken up the black home. You have this building with all these people and children. Guns and

drugs have been funneled into our community. You got druggies. You got people being killed in front of these children. Some of these in these buildings getting molested. Some of them are getting raped. They're experiencing all these things at a young age. This is one building in Harlem or Brooklyn, just one, and they may have 15 of them. And this is Brooklyn. So how many they have in Harlem? How many are they have in Bronx? And outside of New York, how many in New Jersey? I'm in L.A. And like, I'm reading this book and I just feel sick on my stomach when you think about it. I can't judge you. There's no way. So it's like, how do we get back to love? Not judging, like, how do we show up for people and make space for people, you know, to be for themselves, but also, like, to help

peel them. You know what I'm saying? So that's what that song was about. Yeah, it's a important message, I feel especially now when we are living in time where it's like they're not even trying to hide the fact that they're trying to erase the history that led up to these circumstances.

I mean, you draw a direct line to the history of this country and, you know, Kodak Black is a product of America. You know what I mean? I always think about the Kendrick line. America's reflections of me, that's what a mirror does. That's what I mean. And even

you're evoking of Kodak reminds me of the way he was, I feel like, symbolically kind of used on the Moral album. Yeah. And how much that was about empathy and judgment and understanding the history behind someone like that and the circumstances that he was born into.

And just having empathy, you know, and it's rehabilitation through love and empathy, not reprimand, not just reprimand. You can condemn a knack, but not the Exactly. They're not the villains. That is not your villain. That is not your enemy. That's your community. That's your brother. As your sister. The enemy, the real enemies that put all this in the play are the ones that we have to collectively go against as a unified front. You know, each one teach one. You know. So that's what it is. That's why I name I go Kodak, ASAP Rocky. Everybody who faced like what my cousin going. went through, like, you know, that's what I wanted to speak on.

Incredible. What was your reaction hearing that verse for the first time? Floor. Like, I felt sick to my stomach in a good way. This flow is crazy. Like, I don't know if I've ever heard anyone do it that long, the way that he's, he doesn't ever overlap on the strong beat. It's like, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da. He just, it's like a chant almost.

Yeah, it gets hypnotic. Very much so. And it just sits you down and makes you sit there like a hypnotic. Chant. Still spill. Black blood. Feel like Flash flood. Uncle Tom.

Black Judge. Landslide. Black mud. O.J. Black gloves. Scott Free. Tyscore. Can't breathe.

George Floyd. America's. I saw. Nolan Wells. Ride for. Meloamite. Die for. They gone.

Live form. Can't just cry for him. Man to man. Yeah. I was like just perfect. Yeah. I've always appreciated his pen. Like both of them,

he and pusher of some of the best pins. I've known that since Lord Willing since day one. So, like, to have him, and Rock Nation is the one that I turned the album and it's like, yo, do you care if we send this a malice? And I was mad. I didn't think of

that idea. I'm like, dang. You know, when you think about not only his gift and his talent, but his walk through life, even in his own journey of finding himself in all of this and his relationship with God, I was like, oh, this is perfect. A million dollar check

for the concept with him leaving at the height of clips just because he was called to conflicted in a way and so like I'm just listening to the words and I'm just like he brought he just brought a new view of what I was already saying you know from a male's point of view to from being from Virginia from traveling the world like And it was just the perfect way to put a nail in that. It couldn't have been any better. Like the imagery that he wrote with too, like Flash Flood, what he said, Flash Flood, Red Blood, Grandma Can't Cry for Him. Like, there was just so much imagery.

Like, I saw everything that he said. I saw everything that he said. Yeah. Yeah. Like I got that verse. two weeks before the album came out. Like, I needed it. Is that why I didn't make like the Spotify version?

That's why it was so crazy. Yeah, because we have put up these presaves. So everybody had pre-saved this original version and then we get the Malice version. So technically, like, adding that, it was a thing. Even the vinyl's like, the people that pre-ordered vinyl, the Malice verse will not be up there to, you know, get the second back.

But I'm grateful. Like he just he spoke to it so beautifully. I mean, one of the most inspiring things about him is just him being an elder statesman in his mid-50s now. It's like we don't really see

rapper's age and be so I mean, he can return, but like he's at the top of his penmanship at this age. Like as a rapper who's approaching middle, middle age? Like, is that, like, inspiring to see someone like him, like, even get better?

Because, you know, the cliche is like, oh, music or hip hop is like a young person's thing. And it's like, there's not a lot of templates like a malice I don't feel like. And, like, it feels like, I don't know. And I think that's a narrative that we have to evolve out of, you know, hip hop is already a young genre. It's now 52 years old, 73, 53 years old. So there are rappers that are older than the genre itself when you think about it. So did it begin as a young person? Yes.

But we've grown and we've evolved and so many perspectives need to be told. Like, for Please Don't Cry, I was writing a record called 3,000 years. And I was specifically inspired by Andre 3000. And his thoughts of, like, hip hop being a young person's sport. though there should be space like if you're inspired be inspired if you're not if you're not like free will like do what is good to you but you know i just hate the idea that that's all that it is because we all are growing and are we not supposed to love hip hop anymore when we get 50 do we like at 55 60 as someone who grew up with hip hopp are you not supposed to have music that speaks to you and where you are as a hip hopper at 60 years old? It just doesn't make sense to me. That's not what hip hop is about.

Hip hop made space for everybody no matter how old you are. So it's inspiring to me that it pushes the genre and the narrative of what hip hop is when a JZ does a 4-44. And a malice comes back from a long crazy height. We didn't think we'd ever get him back. And it's at the top of his Pimmonship game that Buster Rhymes is still. putting out records. Who am I forgetting? It's like some of the best music now, even myself, you know,

but the best music now are the ones that are more wise in their walk. And I think it's beautiful because then you create so much exchange. Like, yeah, we still needed to be fresh, but, you know, the young kids still need to have something to aspire to and look to. It's like you won't be 22 forever, but you still get to share your experience at this stage and there's still going to be people that need it. I need to know, like, from whoever, like a Lauren or Queen or whoever, like, what is life like there? Like, how do I approach it? Or do you feel the same things I feel, you know, like JZ or 4444?

What does being in love and marriage look like? there ain't a marriage on this earth that can't relate to some of those emotions. You may not relate to all of them, but I don't know a marriage that's ever perfect. Like, it's just creating space of honesty. And I've had things where I've like, man, felt like another birthday, you know, am I going to age out? Why should anybody feel like that? When fans are growing at the same race, race that we are, like, you got, you mean, I remember Rock the Bells was popping real tough.

Like that joint used to sell out because people always need a soundtrack for life. And we don't want to have to turn hip hop off and then listen to, you know, what our parents did, though we still do. But I want to speak to things from my generation too. Yeah. So I think it's beautiful and it's important that a malice still creates and whoop an ass at it too. Yeah. So important. Okay.

so that maybe thematically gets us into you. I want to jump to the final song on the project. My mother's getting older. Her house smells like my grannie's used to. My mother's getting older. Turning silver because she put herself second to our knees.

My mother's getting older. She's moving slower, but she's wiser than me. My mother's getting older. Like, I can't listen to this song without crying now because, I mean, me and you are at the same age. And the thoughts that you express in this song is just exactly the thoughts I have about my own parents and like seeing them growing older.

It's such a beautiful piece. It's also like not really a song. Like it's like a art piece or something, the way that it kind of like, there's not like verses and choruses. I mean, there are, but it's like. Not traditionally. Yeah, it kind of just moves.

I don't know. I'm just wondering like the creative process behind putting this together and like, you know, I'll ask you about the themes, but how did you approach this song? It happened in pieces. So the first piece was the production for Bloodline, Dinah had.

And Danan was like, I really love Moonchild and I really want to work with Amber Navrin. I'm like, okay. So I'm listening to the beat. And even before I even got to that beat, I was writing to a Black Odyssey joint. And one of my favorite Little Wayne songs is this song called Bloodline. I got pimping in my blood. So I'm like, that's hard. And I'm thinking about my trip to Africa.

So Bloodline, I just write from that perspective. Like we're connected. We have all these things that are in our DNA of who we are as a people and just shining a light on that and black community. Because you'll see like things that are really black. Like we got 100 plastic bags under the sink and everybody's like we all live in the same life as our culture. And then Danan knew like he had this other beat where he knew he wanted to morph these things together. So for the growing older beat, we're in the studio, and he's playing the beat, it's letting it loop, and he's like just talking through ideas of what it could be about. And me, again, like, I'm writing music as everything's a snapshot in my life.

And I'm at home, and my mom is doing reconstruction on the house. And I walk in and there's brown construction paper taped on the floor, so nobody messes up the carpet as they go to the back to her bathroom where she's having rails installed. because she was like, you know, me and your dad again older, we're going to eventually need help, like getting in and out of the shower. And this shower's a little too small. And, you know, like, she's thinking like that. And I'm just like, wow, you know, like this is what I'm sitting with. And in the morning, she's calling me and she's telling me how she wants to be buried.

Or I want to be cremated. And in another week, I want a mausoleum. And I'm just like, I hate having these conversations. but at the same time I understand it's very necessary. And I go home and she's like, this is where the wheels are. You need to get with your daddy and let him tell you. Or she'll call me, you are the beneficiary. Like, I put your name down, like, constantly, you know.

So I'm thinking like it's on her mind too, and now it's on mine. And then, you know, you walk in the house one day and you stop. And it's just like, it smell like my grandma house in here. Like, it smelled like old people. Like me and my brother talk about, you know, he'll go home. He's like, hey, we need a mama, air freshen, house. Like, old people. And it's like, man, like, they're getting up there in age.

Like, you just look at them at your parents and then you really stop and look at them. Yeah. And it's like, you're beautiful, but, you know, life is happening. Yeah. And so Danan is reeling off these ideas. And I'm like, hey, man, do you remember the first time, like, you realize your parents were getting old? And it was like, that's just where I wanted to sit and that's what the music made me feel like. And so I recorded that and it's crazy, you know, I recorded it and Vic, who's my engineer, he's the same engineer I have for Please Don't Cry.

I come in and they're playing a record and he was like, I told the non about this song that you did for Please Don't Cry that you didn't use. and it was a song called Tears Before Rainbow and the only reason I took that song off is because Kendrick put out the song Auntie Diaries and it was the same concept I was talking about my cousin who I was transgender

but in this song I wanted it to sonically feel like I wanted you to hear it like you heard him going through the transition from a man to a woman so it starts off in my voice. And then the second verse, it starts off.

I had him pitch my voice down and then pitch it up to sound like a woman. So he's like, I told Donan about that song you did. And he wants to do that with this. He wants you to sound like you're a young girl. You're in high school. You're in your present stage. And in the second verse, you get older at the end. So we wanted to sonically go through the stages of life in that record.

And that's so cool. That's so cool. It's so effective. She's been preparing homes, supportive things added on, like rails in the shower for when she needs support standing on. Her two feet, she tells me, arrangement she's thinking about. This week is my eyes and limbs. I don't tell much to talk about.

She tell me about wheels where daddy filed him. I know how important this is. I watch her sweep the dirt from the flow. Realizing how quick... The Rand Bannar was who I sent that record to, so I wanted him to originally do a hook for me, but he was crazy, busy. And I wanted him to have his space to, like, give.

But, you know, I kept the hook. And I think it was denied. I don't think it was me that came up with like, yo, you should have like a bunch of different voices just talking about their mom. I was like, okay. So I just hit people. And I was like, but I want to make this international. So I have a homie that is Peruvian.

And then I wanted to have, of course, somebody from South Africa and men and women just talk about their parents. because in the same way, you heard it and you thought about, like, I'm just like, this is what everybody's going to think about, and everybody has this thought, and it comes in different ways. This came out last Friday, how's your week been? I'm just like a roller coaster of emotion. This is the best feeling I've ever felt as far as putting out music and having it received the way it is. And, you know, feel like I put good vibrations into the world that are being received and that resonate with people.

It's also the toughest part of my life because things have gotten really scary with my dad. You know, so it's like now I got to feel it for real, for real. It's not just like my mom preparing. Like, I'm just like, oh, like, weak, like in it in real time. And, yeah, but it's as hard as it is, like, it's just life. And I always want to bring just real life to records, you know. Well, it's a beautiful tribute, I mean, and the way that you incorporate your personal family, your community, diaspora, like, even the way that first verse where you say, I know the rhythm, the footwork in Nola and Ghana, the second line. Second line in Nostradamus, then you say the second line in Nostradamus song.

You know, that's slick, I caught you there. But then even like saying something like I'm Nat Turner and Ilana, Foxy Brown, you know, just drawing those parallels between New Orleans and a Ghana and Nat Turner and Foxy Brown, you know. My mom, I'm home, I know the tone. I know the rhythm, the footwork in Nola and in Ghana. The second line is second line in Nostradamus. That song is like really, really powerful, like, crying emojis. I'm not turning ill, nana, it's bloodline, whooping ass in my blood, mama.

That song is like really, really powerful, like very beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, my notes here is just a crying emoji. It's crazy. I've gotten to watch, like, a couple reaction videos and people are crying. You know, like, I try to make anybody cry, but it's just like, you know. Well, it's a song you don't really hear a lot. like a lot you know in this vivid specific way of usually it's like someone dies and you know obviously

that's a beautiful tribute as well but like in the midst of growing older and then being middle age and I don't know if you feel this way I have kids so it's like I have young people behind me I've got old people in front of me and I'm right in the middle you know the second act of my life you know I don't know if that's why it's called act too but um that's how I've done. feel I'm in my second act, you know, where my parents are on their third and my children are in their first, you know. Yeah. We called the act too because tears for a rainbow is act one.

Okay. We wanted to give homage to like that idea of how we creatively approach it sonically. So it's like this came from inspiration from somewhere. So that's how we call the act too. Yeah. But I love your interpretation of it too. I'm in act two of my season of life. Like, it's crazy because these are conversations that are very, like, fresh too that me and you're having now.

It's just happening yesterday. And it's like, I still feel 28, you know. I'm sure you do too. I don't feel time is fasting. I see my niece and nephews growing up and going to college. But I just feel like time is kind of stopped in a way in a different kind of way. until sometimes, like, I look at the mirror, I'm like, oh, there's a gray right here. And I got a little more of a fine, defined line.

But I was like, that's weird, you know. But everybody around me is changing. Right. You know. So. Yeah, I was actually just talking about this on an episode. Like, I was talking about getting older and, like, you know, when you're 20 and you're looking at 30 and you're like, oh, man, that's so old. Or you put all these expectations on a number.

And then you get there and you're like looking around like, well, not so bad. I don't feel like I'm actually smarter than I've ever been. Yes. More accomplished, more confident. And then you're looking at 40 being like, oh, well, when I'm 40, I'm going to be really washed. Then you get to 40, I'm like, actually, this is the best. This is the best time. Like, I am having the best time in a season.

Free your mind, bring it full circle. You got to just let go of these arbitrary, the stories that we think, you know what I mean? Like, isn't when you look at our parents and like the life they're living in retirement. beautiful. It's beautiful to me. It's just they're all stages and they're all. It gets better and better. Yeah. I think that's exciting, even though it's scary at the same time, like, such a juxtaposition. Yeah. Like, you know, I'm getting closer to. Right. A different travel. Right. But dag, I'm enjoying every bit of it. Yeah. You know, so. Yeah. All right. Well, maybe that's a good place to stop.

Oh, man. Thank you so much for this. This is like very great conversation and a beautiful album, again, congratulations for making it and thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you. Thank you for sitting out and dissecting it with me. I could talk to you for two more hours, but I'm not going to hold you. Kids are hungry. Thank you so much.