Lento literally means slow.
To me, it's more so a lifestyle.
Take it easy and relax.
The song itself has somewhere between a Latin beat and a slow Samba.
Which coincides nicely with the idea of lento because lento means slow, not only in Portuguese
but it means slow in Spanish.
It means slow in Italian.
I'm half Brazilian, half Italian, so it encompasses my heritage just in that one word.
I stopped thinking in terms of the reception of the song and I started thinking in terms
of, what's going to make me feel good?
And in order to do that, I needed to get out of my head, so it directly correlated to making
the song.
I was talking to my girlfriend, Maia Mitchell She made a very valid point about something
that was happening between us and I was thinking about it as I was making the song.
I just keep replaying what she said because I was.
So this song wrote itself.
We all have tribulations of the mundane, daily life.
Some days are more interesting than other days.
I think we can all relate to having those moments where we're like, "I just don't want
to do anything."
'They', is all of the outside pressures, including myself because I'm telling myself every single
day, "You have to do something different and outstanding, and important."
It's okay to not have the wheels turning all the time.
That's where I like to be when I'm stressed.
The day lento was made, I was in Miami.
We have this amazing kind of Latin energy and culture.
It felt like we were slapped in the middle of Mexico.
I've been to Monterey and it reminded me of the vibe that I felt when I was there.
I think very, very quickly.
So, to compensate, I sometimes move a little slow.
I grew up with my father who is very punctual and respected people's time, and was very
good at time management.
And then, my mother was the opposite end, was, she put personal first and then time
management, second.
That's a very Brazilian thing too.
The Carioca culture.
They move slow, with style.
It's easier to enjoy life when you're not rushing.
There was a little bit of a bilingual word play going on for sure.
So low in English, meaning I feel so down, and in Spanish or Portuguese, or Italian,
solo, means alone.
You notice in the song, the vocals are just a bit behind the beat and the drums are just
a bit late, and that feels good.
I'm feeling that lento lifestyle.
That energy.
And it's not wrong, and it's not inefficient.
It just is.
So, it's finding that balance.
"They say you're number one.
Got to run, got to run."
It's pretty vicious.
It's just reminding myself that if all this isn't enjoyable, what's the point?
I enjoy listening to somebody speak, when they take their time, versus, "Yeah,
went to the coffee shop and I gotta get coffee, and I saw, oh, I saw, uh, what did I see?
What did I see?
Brad Pitt.
I saw Brad Pitt and I was like, oh my God.
I got to have a picture, a pic.
And then, I went to do this and now I got.
I have to go the studio and after the studio, I have to go my mom's house and oh my gosh,
she called me four times.
I have to call."
It's like, what the hell are you talking about man?
Take your time.
Take your time, versus somebody who sits you down, says, "Don't worry about where you have
to go.
Right now, I need five minutes to tell you a story."
Rather than rushing to be in somebody else's time or space, let me consider my time and
space first.
Not a lifestyle that I could abide by all the time.
In fact, I almost never get to abide by this lifestyle but when I do, it's beautiful.
when I travel to a South American country like Brazil, Rio specifically or when I go
to Europe, to visit my family in Italy, or somewhere else.
I was just in Stockholm or Russia.
Any of these places that get me out of this zone, I abide by the lento lifestyle.
The irony is that, when I'm in the lento state, I'm very creative.
Sometimes allows me to be way more creative than when I'm in the hustle.