Flying Lotus is being out-styled by his grandmother, Marilyn McLeod. The two are sitting next to each other at the Steinway piano in his Los Angeles home, recalling memories of the experimental electronic artist’s childhood. FlyLo, born Steven Ellison, looks effortlessly cool in a motorcycle jacket, but it’s the 80-year-old McLeod’s black-and-white blouse with a high-neck collar that has everyone—including photographers and Ellison’s friends— commenting. McLeod’s accolades far, far precede today’s look, though.

In the 1970s, she became part of the musical legacy of her hometown of Detroit as a Motown hitmaker, composing disco reconstructions like Diana Ross’ 1976 chart topper “Love Hangover,” and Freda Payne’s “I Get High (On Your Memory),” which New York rapper Styles P memorably sampled on his 2002 smokers’ anthem, “Good Times.” McLeod also co-wrote Marvin Gaye’s “The World Is Rated X,” a funk track about drugs, violence, and the neglected conditions of the impoverished with lyrics like “Dirty water we can’t drink/Dirty air, it’s so unfair” that are still relevant today.

Ellison’s living room walls are painted dark, and the space looks like a creative nerd’s paradise. There’s an internet-enabled arcade console that can host a ton of retro gaming system emulators; Afrofuturist art; a vintage rocking chair which he says reminds him of one that “Auntie used to have”—Auntie being McLeod’s sister, jazz and spiritual music legend Alice Coltrane—and other sundry oddities, from books on David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky to Aphex Twin merch and a replica Chucky doll.

Ellison and McLeod’s rapport goes beyond grandmother and grandson; the pair share a palpable musical camaraderie. In between stories about McLeod’s career or Ellison’s precocious interest in music, he noodles on his piano while she comments on his playing, as well as her own declining abilities. In 2011, McLeod suffered a stroke and she has since lived with some physical limitations. Throughout the interview, Ellison, whose sixth studio album, Flamagra, is out this week, goads her to touch the keys. It’s not evidence of any erstwhile brattiness but a glimpse at the devoted relationship they’ve built since he was a little boy, growing up in McLeod’s home in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley with his mom Tammy. He toiled over a lot of music there, including his debut album, 1983. At one point, Ellison turns on some old family videos digitized from VHS cassettes in his studio. “They were having crazy parties before I was born,” he says. “Every home movie is just them dancing at the house. It seemed so cool.”

At one point in the afternoon, Ellison pulls out his phone to play a recording of a song called “Lucky Baby,” which McLeod wrote only to play for him when he was a baby. It’s a fluttering pop-R&B track that renders the two beamingly nostalgic, singing along to the lyrics and sharing family secrets. When it’s over, Ellison tries to get McLeod to play the piano again. He has pulled her right arm onto the keys. “Smack it,” he says. McLeod plays a few notes.

“You gotta give me your powers now. You’ve had the powers way too long. Give them to me. Put them in my hands,” he says, half-joking, extending his hands to his grandmother. McLeod puts her hands in his. “You got it, baby.”