![]() ![]() Tell me about the creative dynamic you two share and what you feel she brings to your music. You’ve been working extensively with Jhené Aiko for years now. I don’t believe in forcing anything either, so I had to get into the spirit of it. Not one simile, I just want to speak,” and that was so hard for me to do. I was like, “I don’t want no metaphors in this. “When it feels like hell, heaven’s around the corner.” That was the hardest record to make, and it’s so important because that’s probably the most simplified. It was a conversation with myself.Īnother record that stuck out to me in that regard was “Be Like That.” The song feels like you’re experiencing rock bottom, but also seeing the light simultaneously.Ībsolutely. I was trying to motivate me to be better. To be your best self, and that was me talking to myself. ![]() I want us to try to be better at all things. Like I said I was just taking production, and I wanted it to motivate. Sounwave brought me the record and I immediately was drawn to it. That’s one of the most organic songs I’ve ever made. On that note, we have to talk about “Do Better.” What do you hope that record will do for the legacy of Ab-Soul? Even before Ab-Soul was my name I wanted a Preemo beat. I respect his craft and what he’s brought to the culture. I had to do it about five or six times before he felt the frequency. I always wanted that and he made me work for it. Interestingly enough, you ended up working with Preemo on “Gotta Rap.” Like, who am I? Let me just focus and make sure I’m creating the best product I can create. Jackson Pollack was just throwing paint and he was f–king Jackson Pollack. Who am I to speak up on any young man out there trying to make something of himself?” I obviously cleared the air with him, but that was a moment where I was like: “Hold on. I think Preemo wanted to work with him or something, and I felt a need to speak up. He said something about passing on a Preemo beat. There was literally a moment with Lil Uzi Vert early, early on. Was there a moment in particular where you caught yourself being a critic? I really love Kembe X, and Doechii, Reason, to name a few. So I kind of came to this place of, “I ain’t got no gavel, who am I to judge?” Plus just being older now, we got a lot of new young artists that are amazingly talented and skilled and are bringing new flavor to the table. “A wise man knows he knows nothing.” But anyways, I found myself becoming a critic of the new artists coming in. When did that start to creep in, and have you been able to come to a place of acceptance around it? “Moonshooter” also feels like a pivotal moment on the album, because you seem to come clean and say “I don’t know what to think.” This unease feels like uncharted territory for Ab-Soul. So I took a year and a half off from my last album, and I went in saying, “I’m not gonna have a concept this time, I’m just gonna be pure, be open and just try to speak from within.” It was fuzzy at first, to be vulnerable, organic, but I tell everybody that once I made “Fallacy,” I felt like I was on the verge of something and that I had a direction. So this time around I just wanted it to feel good first, and I just wanted to be an instrument versus have it be about what I’m saying.Īt what point did Herbert and those ideas really start to come together? That wasn’t an album, that was an algorithm. I almost even confused myself with that one. It was challenging to simplify, and I wanted it to be an easy listen, because my last album in particular was very dense and very dark also. How did your approach to songwriting change with this album?įor me, it’s more difficult to be simple than it is to be complex. ![]() ![]() When I was listening back to Do What Thou Wilt versus Herbert, the first thing that struck me was how transparent and clear your songwriting has become. The process not only birthed some of Soul’s best music in a decade, it helped him let go of the steering wheel, and not get so caught up in the “absolute truth” idea. “I was asking my guys, ‘What do you want to hear me on?’ I was challenging myself in that regard,” Soul says. ![]()
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