Two years ago I was making fake Genius interviews on my own with a shitty green screen, and
horrible audio quality, just pretending I'd actually be here. To actually be here, it's crazy.
I had like the worst writers block ever, I was trying to finish up my album. 'Voice Memos'
out now. All of a sudden I get a notification for an email. It's this guy, his name's Michael
Bow, he's like, "New beats for Quadeca." I click on it and the first beat I hear I'm
like," Damn, this is what my album's been missing." This beat just has fuck you energy,
so I was like I'm not trying to do anything profound. I'm not trying to like solve racism
or anything. I'm just trying to exude some fuck you energy, you know?
I'm 18, I'm a senior. I just ... Right when I was writing this I had just finished the
college process. I'm applying to all these schools, so that's something that was very
ingrained in my head. I was thinking I may not have worked and studied for four years
to get a degree in marine biology but I got a PHD in this flow. If any Ivy league colleges
if you're watching this Genius interview right here I'm not saying "fuck you" to you. My
fuck you energy does not go to you. Yeah, feel free to hit me up on my business email.
Being independent is great. I'm on my Russ shit. I'm doing my mix and master
and all that. And this line it's sort of extending beyond sort of the business aspect. Obviously
being independent is lit because you can keep all your money. It sort of gives me a freedom
to just be as creative and weird as I want because I have nobody who I have to keep happy.
It's only myself.
I haven't really ever turned down a rapper being my friend and been like "no, you're
my rival." But I just thought that was sort of like even if we are friends and we get
on the track I’m still going to try to body you on the track.
This bar was sort of just making fun of the people that you'll never please, so I'd sort
of take it to an extreme example of being like "I've put my blood, sweat and tears into
this," and somebody else looking at you and saying "well, that's not sanitary." Just that
annoying voice, and we all have somebody like that in our lives.
The external, the jeans like what you can see like the genes inside. It's hereditary.
All of the stuff that you see me, that I give off and all the energy I give out is really
stuff that's just within.
So for this chorus there's nothing that profound or any good bars or anything, but it's more
the feeling of the "danananananana, a-ha", instead of me telling you that I have fuck
you energy, I'd rather show it. Show, don't tell. We learn that in elementary school,
so I still like to implement that into my music.
That was a great "fuck you" bar. Like that's a clip, you know what I'm saying? Obviously
not you, the viewers watching, you don't live your lives like clips, you live your lives
like movies, too. I was talking to a different you, you know like you. You over there.
For the fans out there, if you ever want a photo, I will not charge you. I thought that
was funny. And I knew when I said it it would be good for the music video. I had my little
sister being the fan coming to take a picture with me and then she's like "oh, thanks for
the photo," and I'm like "not so fast.
The "did a lot but I'm not even twenty one," that's my favorite bar on the song.
I don't know how much I should explain it, 'cause I was telling it to somebody who knew
hip hop and I was like "did a lot, but I'm not even twenty one," and they were like "what?",
and I was like "A Lot", by 21 Savage, and they were like "oh," so I wanted to make sure
that they get it.
I thought it was taking it a step further 'cause venison is the meat on a deer. So in
the headlights you're not just a deer, you're like the dead meat of the deer.
This bar is sort of an odd flex because I'm sort of flexing that I have zero co-signs,
which is basically like nobody likes me. My album, it hit number two on the iTunes charts
and it was the only album on the charts that wasn't on the front page of iTunes. That's
just 'cause I didn't pay for it. Some would say that I'm bad at marketing my music, others
would say that that's organic.
It's just in my nature. When I feature, I always have to give it my best and that's
part of the reason that I don't do a lot of features. It's because I never wanna waste
a bar, and whenever I'm on a track I always want mine to be the best. I always wanna make
the song feel like it's mine.
You know how white neighbors are. You move in, they come to your door with a basket of
bread. If there's a hater I'll come to their door with open arms and just ask 'em what's up.
I just thought it'd be funny if I had a conversation with my ad libs. In the studio, I am all alone,
so I have no one else to be the other character, so I gotta be the other character. I thought
that was sort of a new way to just have a little flex in there.
I feel like that was a clever way of sort of leading into the next bar, like, "If life's
a road I'll cop a convertible." I'm ready for whatever. If the sun's out, I'll drop
the roof. If there's rain, I'll put it back up.
I guess this bar's a little bit different from other rappers talking about like, "I
made my name pop." This one is a very Internet Age way of saying that. "I made my name searchable."
Connecting back to all my YouTube, internet antics.
If I become successful or popular or anything like that, I always want it to be on my own
terms. I'm always thinking about the repercussions that everything I do will have. I'm still
trying to figure out what my purpose is. I thought was nice way of just sort of closing
out the track.