WORDSPJ Some
ESTRELLA DE PORTADA - Prettyboy DO
DIRECTORES CREATIVOS - Derrick Odafi y Jessica Rushforth
PRODUCTORES CREATIVOS - Jessica Rushforth & Derrick Odafi
FOTÓGRAFO - Barbara Premo
DIRECTOR VISUAL - John Serunjogi
ESTILISTA - Malcolm Yaeng
ASISTENTE DE ESTILISTA - Gloria Iyare
DISEÑADORA DE ESCENARIO - Jessica Rushforth
MUA - Bendición Kambanga
ESTUDIO - Estudio para tomar más fotos
New Wave: Hi 6LACK! Thank you so much for joining us. How have you been? How is touring going?
6LACK: It’s been really, really good. I’ve wrapped up the European tour now and since then I’ve been designated some time off. But at that time, I started to think about the album anniversary coming up. So, we just ended up doing some surprise pop up shows in New York and Atlanta. The goal of the shows was to strip everything back down to the live music mainly and just to expose ourselves in that way, be nervous again, not really knowing what we were doing on stage and figuring out what the next era of performances might look like for us. I’m constantly just thinking about what I might want to create next.
Are you planning any other shows for the anniversary at all?
6LACK: So, we did that last week in Atlanta, I can’t remember which day of the week. And then we did the New York show a few days before that, so those two are already out of the way. Now, I’m just more so thinking about what I might want to do for L.A, if we do it somewhere else. I would like to keep the theme of the show that we just did alive.
We were able to catch you at your London show and the crowd was going crazy. What would you say incorporates your signature 6LACK sound that makes it instantly recognisable?
6LACK: For me, it’s the lyrics more than anything. I believe for most people who enjoy my music, they enjoy the content. I think that with music there are a lot of distractions sometimes from the words, especially these days. But for me specifically, the stories that I tell, the things that people can relate to, the things that I’ve been through, how much I’ve grown and the content of the lyrics is what people resonate with the most. So, if you hear me kind of walking through a personal story, I think those are moments where people kind of turn around and I say, ‘oh yeah, that must be a 6LACK song’, or ‘you must be listening a 6LACK album’. If you see somebody in a specific vibe while they’re listening to music and they’re kind of engulfed in it, I think those are things that kind of give away the fact that they might be listening to me.
El estrellato de Prettyboy DO se difunde
Como 'Wildfire' en el número IX
Cuando piensas en Afrobeats, es probable que los artistas nigerianos sean la imagen de adónde te lleva tu mente, que sabemos que cuentan con una gran cantidad de nombres poderosos e influyentes. La personalidad pionera Prettyboy DO es una que no puede faltar en la lista actual de artistas influyentes de la potencia de la música africana. Este innovador artista nacido en Nueva Jersey ofrece un sonido vibrante y animado que no te deja quedarte quieto. Estos sonidos combinan a la perfección con su estilo excéntrico, desde su interpretación de 'Jungle Justice' en COLORS y otros sencillos de gran éxito como 'Same Energy' y 'Chop Elbow' se puede ver claramente el reflejo de esta creatividad. Prettyboy DO es un artista que camina por la cuerda floja de los comentarios sociales y la música experimental, acreditando su entorno e influencias personales por estos rasgos de carácter. Prettyboy es tan interesante en persona como en su música, con individuos como Dennis Rodman y Sisqo como influencias, su estilo personal y energía son distintos de la cabeza a los pies, desde su cabello colorido hasta su expresivo sentido del estilo.
Tras el reciente lanzamiento de su último proyecto, un EP titulado 'Wildfire' que se inspiró en el Libro de las Revelaciones en la Biblia; Prettyboy DO ha podido divergir entre Afro-Pop y Rap mostrando su versatilidad que lo separa del resto. Al ser nombrado rey de la escena Alte, no sorprende que su influencia se esté extendiendo con música que crea una atmósfera fascinante. Continuando con su viaje, parece que el cantante / rapero tiene un objetivo claro de ser el mejor e inspirar a las personas en el camino, allanando su propio camino.
WORDS Shenead Porosootum
“La música me hizo un hombre. Siempre he estado enamorado de la música, incluso cuando era niño, pero más aún del lado de la moda de la música. Biggie, Mase, Tupac ... "
Full Look , LEO PROTHMANN
Silver Chocker, CHANEL
¿Cuál es tu opinión de Londres?
P: He venido aquí a menudo, esta vez es diferente por la música y ya estamos levantados. Amo Londres, amo a la gente, me parece muy africano. Parece estar en casa de alguna manera.
Londres y Lagos tienen una gran conexión, ¿cómo crees que es?
P: En primer lugar, tenemos mucha gente nuestra aquí, muchos africanos aquí. Aquí hay toda una vibra que es similar a Lagos porque está muy ajetreado, muy ajetreado. Pero aquí es un nivel más alto, todavía hay lucha. Me encanta Londres, pero al mismo tiempo, la lucha aquí es una locura porque aquí no dicen nada, es solo interna.
También tienes experiencia en Nueva York, y ese es también un lugar donde realmente tienes que esforzarte para salir adelante.
P: Creo que la vida que he vivido, una cosa que he aprendido es que realmente no puedes arrepentirte. Y si tengo algún tipo de puesto, no puedo desperdiciarlo. Londres está lleno, como el metro, realmente no tienes espacio y Nueva York es así, y es como si x2 no estuviera limpio, es más arenoso que Londres.
Y volviendo también a la música, ¿dirías que la música te encontró o tú la encontraste?
P: Eso es profundo. La música me hizo hombre. Siempre he estado enamorado de la música, incluso cuando era niño, pero más aún del lado de la moda de la música. Biggie, Mase, Tupac… Me encanta Tupac, incluso tengo un tatuaje como él. La moda siempre estuvo muy presente en mi cabeza, al mismo tiempo lo era la música, pero nunca me vi a mí mismo como un rapero, lo veo como un estilo de vida, así que en todas partes estoy bailando, vibrando, imitando. Su cultura, especialmente su moda. Cuando era más joven probablemente quería ser diseñador. El caso es que en la secundaria solía escribir mucho, poemas, etc., mierda cursi pero siempre funcionaba. En la universidad, me dijeron que escribiera un poema en inglés y lo hice tan rápido que me dijeron que lo leyera en voz alta y era tan largo y todos estaban como wow. En ese momento realmente no tenía música en mi cabeza, pero en ese momento sale Drake, sale Rocky. No me estaba yendo bien en la escuela, solo perdí a mi chica y el corazón roto. Luego comencé a ir al estudio, pero no lancé nada hasta que sentí que era bueno y eso fue en 2012 y no he mirado atrás.
Estaba un poco destinado, era un proceso, pero no sabes cuál fue el proceso.
P: Sí, no sabe lo que encontrará en la forma en que conoce gente. La cosa se agranda. Es dios. Es Dios y el trabajo.
¿Qué otras cosas creativas haces fuera de la música?
P: Cine, dirijo muchos de mis videos musicales. Probablemente entraré en el cine dependiendo de cuán ambicioso y dispuesto esté a hacerlo. Realmente quiero empezar ahora.
¿Tienes estilista? Si no es así, ¿de dónde viene?
P: Solo estoy en Instagram, guardo las cosas y luego las mezclo.
Uno de nuestros proyectos favoritos es su proyecto de 2018, ¿cuáles fueron sus momentos favoritos para crearlo?
P: Cuando volví a Lagos, había ido a Birmingham y Los Ángeles, y esa vez decidí dejar un proyecto. Luego tuve una conversación con mi primo quien me dijo “tienes que dejar un proyecto, dejar algo y conocer tu sonido, como si tus singles estuvieran explotando, eres tonto pero necesitas conocer tu sonido”. Así que boom, una vez que dijo que era genial, vamos, vamos a hacer estallar. Tenía un montón de música que ya había grabado, llegar a Londres para grabar 2 canciones. Vete a Lagos, empieza a grabar con mis chicos, Hugo, y luego tenemos 2 en la bolsa. Ahora podemos tener un espectáculo ... un nigga me cabrea, odio la política de la industria, si trabajamos duro, tú puedes trabajar duro, vamos, aprovechemos esta oportunidad. Voy a por una industria del espectáculo, los niggas intentan joder conmigo.Estoy cabreado como el infierno. Pero después del show, estoy molesto. Voy a su estudio y le digo que me toque algo y ese ritmo me hizo más feliz que me sentí. Levantar
So many big artists have come from Atlanta. Were you inspired much by your neighbourhood and surroundings to create music, or was it something that was more home-grown in the household?
6LACK: For sure inspired by my neighbourhood and my surroundings. I think there might have been a portion of time where I was mentally was trying to tell myself, ‘alright can you stop shouting out your neighbourhood like every few bars and just give it a rest for a second?’ But I grew up outside so, it was natural for that to just be a part of my music. If it wasn’t a school day, I pretty much spent sunup to sundown and past that on my bike riding in two different neighbourhoods on the other side of town with people telling my mom they saw me on it in a completely different part of town that I couldn’t have been in. But it was just a way of life to wake up and go, and there’s just so many different things to pull from. If you get into some trouble, you can get into some music, you can just be in the neighbourhood and just do kid s*it like basketball.
There were tons of different things to get into, followed by a soundtrack to actually live to. We had dance music and snap music and trap music and R&B music, and it was just a pool of inspiration for me and I pull from as much as I could possibly pull from. So, the good and the bad. Atlanta definitely is a thing that, even to this day, I don’t think there’s been a project or I haven’t said something about the city.
The number six is something very significant to you, considering you were raised in Atlanta’s Zone Six, your daughter is called Syx… So, is the whole like six thing purely to rep Atlanta?
6LACK: Oh no, it’s for a lot of different reasons. When I was a kid, I didn’t know much about the zoning of Atlanta. The number six was already my favourite number. I was born in June; the sixth month and it was just a reoccurring thing. Anytime something pops up in my life, I try to put meaning to it. So, if I’m looking at the clock at 6:00 and or the sixth person in line at school and all these things are just showing themselves to me. For me it’s just like, okay, well, what can that mean? Is that my favourite number? And then as I got older, as I got into numerology and life path numbers and I realised that six is my number, you know, in that realm. And it just kept taking on new meaning as I got older and then like I said, zone six, my daughter being named Syx, it just kept showing itself. So, I just ended up owning it.
Have you ever tried to work out your life path number?
6LACK: Oh yeah, for sure. I had gone to it before I did the calculator. I went to six first and I read it and I was like, ‘oh yeah, that’s definitely me’. And then I did the calculator and it obviously ended up being six.
Since I Have A Lover, is the first solo album you’ve done since East Atlanta Love Letter from 2018. Music has evolved quite a lot since then so, how did you adapt to these sorts of changes that were happening around in and around the music space with Since I Have A Lover?
6LACK: I didn’t at all, I just did my own thing. There was not much for me to reference or adapt as far as how outside things go. For me, it was more of a personal journey. And this album was a journal entry for me, it was where I’m at. The last two albums have been markers of where I was during that time, how I felt and how I thought. So, for this album being in a different space and not coming from a place of depression or deep confusion for me, this one was about realising my potential as a human being and realising how much more space I had to grow, seeing how far I had come and trying to figure out what the sonics of that sound like.
The title track was a moment where I was just like ‘what does an ideal day sound like for me?’ and not necessarily thinking about the confines of is this R&B enough? or is it hip-hop enough? or is this old 6LACK enough? It was just like, what and how do I feel right now? Is it more alternative leaning? Is it pop? How do I feel and how do I put it in song form? So, we went with that goal for the first track, the title track, and then from there, I just started to build upon the idea of that. It was just more and more moments of how do I make an audio version that describes me in the flow of life and a really, really good flow of life, figuring it out type of flow.
Are there any standout tracks from the album that hold like a really special significance at all?
6LACK: For sure. You know, the easy answer is all of them, but more specifically, I would say ‘Inwood Hill Park’ has been one that continues to just make itself like a regular part of my day. If I’m on social media and I’m clicking through story notifications or anything like that, people are living to it. And of all the songs on the album, it is the one that I feel is the theme to my life the most right now. It has a hip-hop type of drum pattern to it and is very like, get up and go, as far as just how it feels when you listen to it. The chorus to that song, just talking about being dazed and under pressure and embracing the highs and lows of life, and how it might not be easy, but I keep it alive, and I do it as much as I can every single day. So, ‘Inwood Hill Park’ applies to me through every single walk in my life so far so I think that one stands out the most.
" Me veo siendo uno de los GOATS que alguna vez lo haya hecho musicalmente en Nigeria, si todavía sigo haciendo música ".
Vemos que tiene una carrera muy larga y que lidera una nueva carga de artistas. En los próximos 10 a 15 años, ¿dónde se ve a sí mismo y a su oficio?
P: ¿Dónde quiero estar dentro de 10 años ... Maldita sea, seré viejo [Risas] Veo cosas diferentes, pero me veo siendo una de las CABRAS que alguna vez lo haya hecho musicalmente en Nigeria, si todavía sigo haciendo música. . Si no lo soy, tendré un artista, pero aún seré uno de los grandes que lo haya hecho. Probablemente haré películas dentro de 10 años. Quizás en mi cabeza probablemente esté tratando de conseguir un Oscar. Me veo siendo un Titán para entonces, un nombre familiar. Ni siquiera será mi nombre artístico, será mi nombre real.
Increíble, con suerte, ¿hacer películas generacionales que sean recordadas en todo el mundo?
P: Sí, solo para ser un titán en el entretenimiento. No me veo a mí mismo ahí fuera como algo comercial, pero sumergiré mis manos en eso y sé que entraré en películas. En ese momento, no creo que esté en el centro de atención, pero mis películas lo estarán.
Does fatherhood at all play a role within creating your music as well?
6LACK: Absolutely. You know, I think that when realised that I was going to be a father, that was the moment where I felt like honesty was the biggest point that I needed to tackle in all of my music. Before I had a kid, there was a lot of deflection and a lot of insecurity and a lot of ‘I don’t know’, not necessarily being true and honest about my own part in certain situations… and once I knew I was going to have a kid, from there I was just like, okay, well, you have to clear up all of these grey areas and be a little bit more sure of yourself and be a lot more honest, because not only do you deserve it for yourself, but someone will be looking at you as an example. Maybe she doesn’t see it or notice it or hear it in the beginning, but eventually her ears and her understanding of everything will be very, very clear.
So, for me, it just pushed a lot more honesty into what I do. And I think that’s why we get to make albums like Since I Have A Lover where, I’m not creating from a bad space anymore. And that’s partially because of having a kid who needs to also feel happy and inspired and healthy and supported. And if I make music that does that for me, then I can only imagine that it’ll do the same thing for her.
You’ve collaborated with some huge British artists such as Gorillaz on the track ‘The Pink Phantom’ and featuring Elton John as well as yourself. Was there anything that you learned in the creative process from either of these artists?
6LACK: With the Gorillaz track specifically, I think that has been a lesson that I’ve learned throughout my whole entire career of making music, which is if I want to grow and if I want to do different things, I just have to continue to put myself in spaces where people might not be used to it. Or maybe the first time I try something with it, it might be uncomfortable or it might not be my favourite. And then over time, I figure out my space in those moments. And when I learn in those moments and when I create in those moments, I end up loving it. Then I can bring new tricks and new things back to my own music.
For this issue we’re focusing on the theme of resistance. So, would you be able to tell us what resistance within your art would mean to you?
6LACK: To me, that would mean continuing to just stand on purpose and serving a cause greater than myself. I think that with money, attention, distractions, social media and biases, there’s so many things that take us away from the core of why we are here and why we create. So, for me, resistance within my art just means sticking to what I know is right. Sticking to what I know actually helps people letting that just lead my whole entire career for as long as I can do it.
Dress, TRACY CUI.
Ring (Right Hand), KHIRY
Rings (Left Hand), AGMES
Nose Ring, ARTIST’S OWN.
" Me veo siendo uno de los GOATS que alguna vez lo haya hecho musicalmente en Nigeria, si todavía sigo haciendo música ".
