Pitchfork: Your first instrument was the drums. When did you start?

AP: I didn't start playing drums until I was 12, for school band; they didn’t have any saxophones left. My step-pops had a kit at the house, and I had never done anything that I understood so quick, it was so natural. It was the most fun and consistent thing in my life. I remember my mom coming inside, and she was like, “Oh shit, you already know how to play!” and she was dancing. I never saw her dance before, and that really sparked something.

Then one time my god sister saw me playing a beat and told me I needed to come to church. It was one of the few Baptist black churches in the county, Evangelistic Baptist Church. And I get there, and the choir and everyone is shouting, and I was like, “This is sick.” I had never experienced anything like it. My mom was adopted, and her father was a preacher, but she never pushed it on us.I was just going for the music. At church, I was around some of the most amazing singers and musicians I could even imagine. That’s where I was exposed to a lot of singing and, subconsciously, I was absorbing all of it. When you hear my style now you can hear a lot of church in my music.

Pitchfork: You have a choir on the Malibu track "The Dreamer" right?

AP: Yeah, those are my nieces. I have four girl nieces and they all love to sing and I'm always looking for ways to get them in the studio.

Anderson .Paak: "The Dreamer" [ft. Talib Kweli and Timan Family Choir] (via SoundCloud)

Pitchfork: Your style reminds me of Dungeon Family-era Cee-Lo, is that just a coincidence or did he influence you?

AP: One of my favorite albums is [Goodie Mob’s] Soul Food, and I loved [OutKast’s] ATLiens, and I feel like that Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was one of the most influential albums ever. The Love Below showed me where hip-hop can go. That album really inspired the generation of R&B that's going out right now, and how people like Kanye West and Frank Ocean came to a level of hip-hop that’s outside of rapping.

Anderson .Paak: "The Season / Carry Me" (via SoundCloud)

Pitchfork: On “Carry Me” you rap, “I was sleeping on the floor, newborn baby boy/ Tryna get my money pot so wifey wouldn’t get deported.” What’s the full story behind those lines?

AP: My wife was born in Korea, and we met in music college; she was there for vocal, and I was there for drums. We hit it off. She went back to Korea and when she came back that's when she got pregnant. I had already been married when I was 21—a shotgun marriage—but we got an annulment right away and I vowed never to get married again. But my [current] wife never pressured me and always let me be who I am. I love it. She's a musician too, plays keys. I’d never been around anyone whose first language is not English, and just watching her grow and get better at that—she's just a genius. She came here with no family, and I was helping her with that. I saw her being so trustworthy. So when she got pregnant, I was like, “We'll make it work.” I was making pennies at the time and had no clue how I was going to muster up all these thousands of dollars to get her residency permit and try to take care of a kid. I was just a bum who only cared about having enough for our weed and that’s it. So that's when I started selling weed. I was eventually making $5000 every few days, in cash.

Pitchfork: That’s a lot.

AP: I never had that much money in my life. But as quick as it came, it was gone. I didn't know how to manage money. The [immigration] deadlines were getting close, and I didn't want to have to force her to get a job, because who would watch our son? But I was able to go through that process with her, pay for the kid, keep everyone together. By the time my son was born, I had stopped doing the whole weed thing and I was trying to get back into music, put out my tape, and get legit. I was playing with [“American Idol” contestant] Haley Reinhart and made one of my first big checks with that. And that's how I got a place for my fam. Then we went on tour and everything got better every year after that.