- The first town that I lived in growing up,
there was a huge forest behind where we lived.
So I spent a lot of time just tinkering
and exploring and observing nature,
and at a young age I realized how many similarities
there are to natural cycles in nature
and what human life is like.
All of the things that I observed
started coming out through song form.
I didn't know back then what anything really was yet.
I just knew that a lot of my thoughts came back out
in the form of melody.
♪ World feels like a war ♪
♪ Tell me what living's for ♪
♪ Baby, it's gotta be love ♪
♪ I'ma give mine to you ♪
♪ Call me anytime you want ♪
♪ Baby just call my bluff ♪
♪ I was just waiting on ♪
♪ Someone who recognized that ♪
♪ I needed a real one ♪
♪ Call me if you're on the run ♪
♪ You knew just what it was ♪
♪ And I knew just what it was ♪
♪ We knew that it was love ♪
♪ Be your rider ♪
♪ I wanna satisfy you ♪
♪ A little cush, I'm floating ♪
♪ I wanna push up on him, yeah ♪
♪ And that's true shit ♪
♪ I don't usually do this ♪
♪ Oh, but you light my fire ♪
♪ I wanna be your rider ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Your rider ♪
♪ Oooh, ride ♪
♪ The world feels like a weight ♪
♪ Enemy of the state ♪
♪ Devil try come around ♪
♪ And now he can't make a sound ♪
♪ Call me anytime you want ♪
♪ Baby just call my bluff ♪
♪ Now I know a thing or two ♪
♪ And all I say is stay true ♪
♪ All I say is stay true ♪
♪ Uh, call me if you're on the run ♪
♪ You knew just what it was ♪
♪ And I knew just what it was ♪
♪ We knew that it was love ♪
♪ Be your rider ♪
♪ I wanna satisfy you ♪
♪ A little cush, I'm floating ♪
♪ I wanna push up on him, yeah ♪
♪ And that's true shit ♪
♪ I don't usually do this ♪
♪ Oh, but you light my fire ♪
♪ I wanna be your baby ♪
♪ Your rider ♪
♪ I wanna satisfy you ♪
♪ A little cush, I'm floating ♪
♪ I wanna push up on him, yeah yeah ♪
♪ And that's true shit ♪
♪ I don't usually do this ♪
♪ Oh, but you light my fire ♪
♪ I wanna be your rider ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Ride ♪
♪ And that's true shit ♪
♪ I don't usually do this ♪
♪ Oh, but you light my fire ♪
♪ I wanna be your rider ♪
With "Rider," it's a love song.
Essentially it's saying to somebody
that you are getting to know
and that you feel yourself falling in love with.
Like you're explaining to them
that you have a complicated relationship with the world.
It's really challenging for me to just write
a pure love song that doesn't touch on the fact that
love is quite revolutionary
in the world that we live in now.
There aren't a lot of lyrics in the song,
but I do feel like it's kind of,
it's just a potent message of
I hope that this love can sort of
be a refuge for us in this world,
that is extremely complicated,
and a lot of times super depressing.
Stripping stuff down to just guitar again,
now, with the space that I'm in as an artist now,
is kind of like finding my way back home sort of thing.
That's where I started,
and a lot of things have evolved from that,
but that's still my home, like home base
is just playing my songs on guitar.
When I was just starting to write,
I was searching for who I was.
I was trying to fill in the blanks of what my identity was
and who I was.
It's like that coming of age time in life
where you don't really know who you are.
So, the first few times that I shared
those inner most parts of myself
and people responded to them in a positive way,
I started kind of piecing together
that maybe a lot of us have issues being vulnerable
(laughing) to people.
I think vulnerability in our society
is not super encouraged.
Being hyper vulnerable in my music
and then sharing it and seeing the way
that it connected to people
that probably also struggle
with sharing their innermost thoughts,
it gave me a purpose.
It helped me break my boundaries down
that I had towards the world.
♪ Bet my bottom dollar that ♪
♪ You would make my father go mad like ♪
♪ Seeing double, he'd say your name ♪
♪ Then he'd call you trouble, oh ♪
♪ Don't you worry love ♪
♪ You're so clean but they'd do you dirty ♪
♪ I'm mad for being flirty with you ♪
♪ Heard from a bird that you ♪
♪ You're nothing but trouble ♪
♪ Trouble ♪
♪ Heard from a bird that you ♪
♪ You're nothing but trouble ♪
♪ Trouble ♪
♪ I like how low you lay ♪
♪ I let you into my days ♪
♪ 'Cause I like the way you call me baby ♪
♪ Heard from a bird that you ♪
♪ You're nothing but ♪
♪ And I'm still picking up the rubble from my last quake ♪
♪ And I was sitting on the shadow coming from my last break ♪
♪ Had to take a second look, then a third, then et cetera ♪
♪ He said don't let your eyes get ahead of ya ♪
♪ He called me out ♪
♪ I was blushing like Russians up in the snow ♪
♪ Said I'm sorry made my way to the do' ♪
♪ He said no ♪
♪ You fly love, I'm gonna call you my thug ♪
♪ You gon' call me yo man ♪
♪ They gon' call me that thug ♪
♪ But hook line and sinker we would meet every week or two ♪
♪ Light up the reefer, tinted window, two seater, woo ♪
♪ I like his meaner demeanor ♪
♪ It doesn't mean our ♪
♪ Worlds can't collide right place right time, right ♪
♪ I bet my dollar you'd be hated by my father but ♪
♪ Loved by a daughter you could father ♪
♪ I said too much ♪
♪ Mmm ♪
♪ A birdie said you was rough ♪
♪ Might break me up like I was what you put in the dutch but ♪
♪ I like how low you lay ♪
♪ I let you into my days ♪
♪ I like the way you call me baby ♪
♪ I heard from a bird that you ♪
♪ You're nothing but trouble ♪
♪ Oh, I, I, I ♪
♪ But I like how low you lay ♪
♪ And I let you into my days ♪
♪ 'Cause I like the way you call me baby ♪
♪ Heard from a bird that you ♪
♪ You're nothing but ♪
♪ Bet my bottom dollar that ♪
♪ Bet, bet my bottom dollar that ♪
"Bet" was born a while ago.
It's a true story.
So like I have a pretty strict African father.
So, I was dating a drug dealer.
And I was basically saying
I know my dad wouldn't like you, but I like you.
And it's a story.
I think that it is one of my more,
I guess you could say, folk songs.
It's not really super metaphorical.
It's not really some grand message
that I'm trying to give or anything.
It's literally just talking about
me falling for this person who on paper is a bad guy,
but it also is like touching on in my community
there's a lot of reasons why people
don't necessarily have the abilities to have
a proper good job and go into corporate America
and do this and that.
A lot of people do jobs that
would not be looked at positively by mainstream society,
white America, whatever.
It's also believing in somebody
and believing in the goodness in somebody
that on paper is no good.
I love the Acoustasonic.
It has an amazing acoustic sound.
I've been just playing "Bet."
If I perform it I just play it on my Tele,
but it does give it something a little bit different,
that richness and that woody feeling to it.
Traveling around with an acoustic guitar and micing it is,
it's a challenge.
So that flexibility and the options that I have
with the Acoustasonic are really cool.
I think Fender just represents a certain level
of quality and ease of expression with their instruments
that has supported just so many years of amazing artists.
And it feels like you're kinda inserted into,
again, kind of an arc of composers and artists
that have made timeless music.
Having a baby,
I think it just works in the whole circle of life thing
of I felt like when I was losing my inner child,
I was losing touch with that person,
he's teaching me how to get back in touch
with those feelings of wonder and just excitement
to be here and to see what's next.
But it definitely also reminds me of music
and my relationship to music,
because it's just a very free flowing
sort of divine alignment sort of thing.
I think a lot of artists end up
searching for those feelings when you've been in it.
Like you're not brand new to it,
and you've been on the journey
and you've maybe dabbled in the industry
and how weird that can get,
and you're like, okay, why did I start doing this?
Why did I make music to begin with?
And it kinda goes back to that wonder
and that excitement and that just pure feeling
that goes behind making something that you love.
♪ Oh, look around, look around you now ♪
♪ I feel a world away from where I was before ♪
♪ Oh and I'm not the same ♪
♪ Oh, no I'm not the same now ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Fell in the traps that they set for us ♪
♪ Mmm ♪
♪ Kept us tired, chasing a dime, waiting on lunch ♪
♪ Oh, but we're not the same ♪
♪ Oh, no we're not the same ♪
♪ Oh, 'cause a lot has changed ♪
♪ Oh and it's not a game now ♪
♪ Present ♪
♪ Now I could never forget it ♪
♪ Light shining on quiet city ♪
♪ Like a lighthouse in a blackout ♪
♪ Why, why ♪
♪ I don't really know, I don't really know ♪
♪ I don't know, know why ♪
♪ I still believe in gold, I still believe in gold ♪
♪ Believe in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold ♪
♪ I believe in gold ♪
♪ Ooh I ♪
♪ Oh I ♪
♪ Ooh I ♪
♪ Oh I ♪
♪ Oh look around, look around you now ♪
♪ Heart's too young for dying, caught an early train ♪
♪ Oh 'cause it's not the same ♪
♪ Oh, no it's not the same ♪
♪ Oh, they don't got no shame ♪
♪ Oh, now we're saying names ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Oh present ♪
♪ Now I could never forget it ♪
♪ Light shining on quiet city ♪
♪ Like a lighthouse in a blackout ♪
♪ Why, why ♪
♪ I don't really know, I don't really know ♪
♪ I don't know, know why ♪
♪ I still believe in gold, I still believe in gold ♪
♪ Believe in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold ♪
♪ Believe in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Believe in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold ♪
♪ I believe in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold ♪
♪ Believe in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold, in gold ♪
♪ I believe in gold ♪
♪ Ooh I ♪
♪ Oh I ♪
♪ Ooh I ♪
♪ Oh I ♪
♪ I believe in gold ♪
I wrote "Go(l)d" on that Tele
right when I got it, actually.
That's probably the first song that I wrote on it.
The brightness,
the kind of just really assured classic tone of it,
the sound of it ended up informing me
to write a song that was a little different for me.
"Go(l)d" is a lot about like inner child work.
It's about just, again,
how revolutionary that can kind of be in a very micro level
to still believe in something good
and be walking towards that.
L is in parenthesis because without the L it's God,
and I'm basically saying, I still believe in God.
I've been in environments where people have very little,
and I see the gold in them. I see the God in them.
I see the light in them.
However it manifests in each individual life,
I do think that there is beauty within each life here.
To me the meaning of life, I guess,
is just literally feeling alive with people
that you've let into your heart and trusting in the moment
and trusting in the people around you.
If you're human and you're existing
and you're just honest in your creativity,
there's gonna be people that connect to it,
'cause it's like, there's only so much we're all doing here.
That always just humbles me
and reminds me that it's really not that serious.
And it really doesn't matter if people
view as the most serious and professional
and amazing artist, that it,
it just doesn't matter.
(gentle guitar music)