Pitchfork: When did you know you wanted to make music?

Lil Tjay: Since I was young. I used to just watch Justin Bieber videos and be like, “Damn, this is going to be me.” I never thought about how I was going to get there, but I knew it would happen.

Did Bieber inspire your melodic style of rapping?

I don’t think it was that direct. It might’ve been a combination of Bieber and the old R&B my mom would play, like MJ, R. Kelly, and Usher. I would sing them all the time, and that’s when I knew my voice was special. But yo, do you know what else was lit? The Disney kids. I just liked the vibe.

Really?

Yeah. I’m not going to lie, I was really into some childish shit. I got friends that were watching Disney, but they would never tell you. It wasn’t just Disney. [Nickelodeon shows] “Big Time Rush,” “iCarly,” and “Victorious” were fire. Ariana Grande, that’s my wife! [covers his huge grin with his hand] The street shit felt forced upon me. The real me was at home watching all of that shit.

Lil Tjay: “None of Your Love” (via SoundCloud)

That sort of thing shows in your songs about relationships and crushes—you even have a song that samples Bieber’s “Baby.”

Man, people started calling me the Bronx Justin Bieber on Facebook and everything. That sample is crazy, but what I really want to sample next is that “One Less Lonely Girl.” Females is just what I think about. I never really had a relationship, but I wish I did. I had feelings, but never committed, and in my songs I just write about what I feel. Like, who really going to love me for the person I am besides just being Lil Tjay?

Why did you never commit?

I was in and out of jail, and was never too sure what I was looking for. I was cooling, having fun, not getting connected, and now I need that one girl that I can tell everything to. I can’t tell dudes everything, they don’t get it sometimes.

Has trying to have relationships changed since you got more popular?

Yeah, and I tell all of that to my friends too. But they’re always just like, “Yo, if you’re worried about a girl not liking you for you, find one that has more than you.” But for my age, that’s not really likely. My situation is unique, and if a girl my age got more than me she has probably had it her whole life. So we not the same, that’s not what I’m looking for. I need someone like me, but not really. Because I been through things. I got feelings for somebody right now, though, a regular girl from the Bronx. She from the block actually, no celebrity, not rich.

Why don’t you commit to her?

Because it didn’t start till after [I got popular]. Like bro, we didn’t have this before, and there’s something in the back of my mind that tells me that. But she’s easy to talk to about regular shit. I make sure she doing her homework, she gonna graduate soon. I should’ve been about to graduate too, but she keeps me on my grind.

I got a lot of experience for my age. Some artists might take a line or two from a bunch of songs and snip it together and make something, but everything I say I do. The only experiences I talk about are mine and nobody else’s, and people listen to it knowing that Lil Tjay is real.