Where did you grow up? What was your upbringing like?

ADVERTISEMENT

I was born and raised in Philly. My whole family's from here. Growing up, I spent a lot of time in West Philly, Southwest, and Delaware County. I'm going to definitely move around, grab a couple spots in Atlanta, Los Angeles, in the future, but Philly is where where I work out of the most. That's where I'm the most comfortable. That's where my best work is done.

It was a little rough growing up, but we managed to get through everything. Family of five in one house. I got one sister, two brothers — I'm the youngest. I grew up with my mom, my dad. My family is truly blessed. We always stuck together. That's probably one of the main reasons why I'm still in Philly right now. I'm so close to my family. I graduated from Upper Darby High School. You can put that down. I played ball my freshman year. That's what I was doing before producing — playing ball in high school, and all my life.

I come from a working family. They see my brother working, they see my sister working. They see everybody working. They see me working but I'm staying in the house — they didn't really understand that. I was locking myself in my room, making beats. They explained to me a couple times like, "Listen. You going to have to do something. You can't just sit in the house." I didn't really listen. They wanted me to apply for jobs. That probably changed in the last year and a half — just now I'm starting to see [my vision] for real. I wouldn't say they wasn't believing in me, but they raised me not put all my eggs into one basket — but I was one of the types that’s like, I am going to put all my eggs in one basket. I'm not working for nobody. That's what I had to tell them. I didn't want to, but that’s what it was. It took a while for them to understand that. Now they really understand, I got 100% support from all my family. I don't have no problem with it because maybe they needed to see a [Russell] Westbrook commercial with my beat on there, or see me on TV in [Lil Uzi Vert] videos. I just kept doing me because I knew where I was going. I pray every night, I keep God close.

ADVERTISEMENT

Is your family musical at all? What did you grow up listening to?

I always had an ear for sound, I guess it came from my dad. He played trumpet in a jazz band. He graduated from West Philly High. I forget what the band is called, but they had a lot of tapes. They had a name out here. My mom, she loves music. I grew up listening to a lot of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, all the oldies. Later on, listening to Jay-Z. That's my favorite rapper. Then I got introduced to trap music, that's what I love the most right now. My brother introduced me to Gucci Mane. My first Gucci project I heard was probably Writing on the Wall. When I first heard him, I didn't really like it — it grew on me a lot. That whole mixtape crazy. All his mixtapes after that... a lot of them I could listen to straight through. My favorite Gucci mixtape was probably Trap God — the first one — and Trap Back.

What about trap music, or even Gucci in particular, really stuck out to you?

The beats. A producer that really caught my eye with the trap music is Lex Luger. He's probably part of the reason I'm producing now. He's so much of an influence to me. His bass — how it hits. His melodies. His hi-hats. His 808s. I think he came with a different approach with the trap sound. That's what really caught my attention. And then with Gucci Mane, you got to really sit down and listen to what he's saying. He really tells stories. That's my favorite trap rapper.