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Hes now onto his seventh album,Folarin II, a sequel to his 2012 mixtapeFolarin.
(The rollout wasnt without its hiccups.
Later, Dearly Beloved traces a love connection coming undone over aclipof a performance fromThe Jamie Foxx Show.
Folarin IIhas been out for a week and the response among hip-hop fans has been positive.
Whats your personal metric for success in an album cycle?This era is just so busy.
I can feel when the mainstream loves the music.
The energy around this album seems super passionate: Man, this is an amazing project.
Man, Im so happy for you.
The first is the diehards that feel fulfilled.
The second is like, Yo, I reluctantly love this joint.
This feels like some of your best rapping.
Youre trying to tie a lot of ideas together and bridge the gap between classic sounds and new sounds.
Go-go is a polarizing genre.
It belongs to us.
You got to experience that shit for real to truly get it.
Its so hard, but its a passion project for me.
I write to a beat how I write to it.
[DJ] Money might be like, Bro, this verse crazy.
You was just writing to the bass.
And I wont know until he explains it to me.
You was writing to the guitar.
You was writing to the piano.
I just find something and lock in.
I really dont know.
And I think, in this small instance, ignorance is bliss.
I dont want to know what grabs me to make me write this way.
Part of me thinks it comes from mygreat-grandfather being a drummerand my family being into music.
I dont be knowing what makes me come up with the flows.
Im curious about your thoughts on the wave of African artists really charting in the States now.
This summer, I mustve heardWizkids Essenceevery day.Its a great feeling.
My very first time out wasAttention Deficit, and I had the My Sweetie joint.
To see the evolution of it is crazy.
Dancehall had a chokehold on our childhood.
Now, theres so many diaspora kids thats grown.
There are rappers, club promoters, DJs, artists, athletes, so they got the culture.
Im really, really, really full of pride when it comes to that.
Theres a lyric in Fluctuate where you say, My worst drug has been loyalty.
Can you elaborate on what you meant by that?You want to be loyal.
You want to be with your people.
You want to be with who you love.
But that shitll hurt you too.
Blind loyalty, dumb loyalty however you want to word it that shitll fuck you up.
And that shit felt like … Its like a drug.
Kanyesaid something similarabout his label situation last year.
We all have our teams, lawyers or whatever.
Ive signed bad partnerships and endorsements.
Music, not so much.
But with endorsements and creative and stuff like that, that shit happens all the time with me.
It makes me angry for real.
We be on the phone talking, laughing all the time.
Thats the person that I feel like if we do a joint project, well fuck it up.
Because we have the same bang out of sense of humor.
We both doing film now.
We both been counted out.
I just wish people really, really knew what it is.
So thats why its not on the album, for the record.
But thats my dog.
There are some songs that are in litigation.
But I will say that what I was able to do, Im proud of.
You gotta look at guys like Rance from 1500 Or Nothin, hes a closer.
There was one record thats on the album that we couldnt clear a sample.
Him and Young Guru tapped in and freaked the beat and made it something else.
We werent as fortunate with other records, though.
Its so much music thats coming out.
Everything is going crazy.
You could drop a record and that motherfucker go Top 50 on the Hot 100 the first week.
I remember when I dropped On Chill [in 2019].
First, second, third, fourth week, that shit was not on the Hot 100.
So many songs get on for one week and fall off.
On Chill got on there and just stayed there.
It was at least three-fourths of a year.
This whole shit right now, the way its set up, is all over the place.
What is the upward trajectory in this space right now?
I dont really feel like we really know for real.
Its such a weird spot for the culture right now.
How does it pan out in two, three years?
The rules changed really quickly.
Theres not a reasonable sense of what success looks like.
People are measuring against Taylor Swift, Drake, Adele, whoevers smashing records.
If youre not doing that, people say, It came and went.
Im almost not even mad about IPs and ideas being recycled in this era anymore.
Times are terrible, and people want distractions.
What was they thinking about around that time?
They were just trying to make something timeless.
Were going to do nine songs.
Thats what its going to be.
What the fuck is the equivalent of that in 2022, moving forward?
I aspire to be great.
I aspire to set trends.
I aspire to do things my way.
Im happy that my fans and my core love what I do.
But Im like,What is it?
I think we need different language to talk about charts.
Getting 30,000 people to buy copies of an album that doesnt run up streams can scan as a failure.
Who said theres a remix?
Like, bro, enjoy the music.
That took time to create.
Feels like music is so cheap now.
And it sucks because we really love this shit.
Theres a lower barrier to entry in rap right now.
I dont want to say names right now.
But right now, a lot of guys … Its in-and-out in real time right now.
Im like,Damn, its crazy that youre not going to be here next year.
Not even on no diss or shit.
Its just I see what it is.
Get your money, young n- - - -.
You know what I mean?
Theres less artist development now.
Theres less room to miss now.
Attention spans are flaky.Folks will go viral and get a record deal.
When they get a record deal, the labels like, Okay, now what?
And the artist is like, I dont know.
The virality is one aspect of a career, and I think its one that people over-account for.
Ive been watching her for a long, long, long, long, long time.
That girl is a unique and special artist.
In my opinion, shes everything that a pop artist should be now.
I wont deny that shes the total package.
Dance moves are elite, not of this Earth.
For better or for worse, she has a good handle on social media.
Lil Nas, too.
He know what he doing.
He know how to fucking get a rise out of people.
Maybe thats what the future of pop is.
Me and him used to talk a lot in DMs.
I was like, Youre a marketing genius.
He was into Reddit, that bang out of shit.
He know what hes doing.
You have to be ever-present to get on.
But after that, you could sort of throttle.
Would you, though?Hey, bro, if I could just go away …
I know I would do it.
I want to spread the word.
Theres a value that makes it useful.
you’re able to reach people.
it’s possible for you to straighten people out.
you could put important ideas out.
Im more to myself.
I could be by myself for days at a time.
I got to do that.
But if I didnt have to, I wouldnt at all.
I would be just like my brother Cole and my man Kendrick.
When Im about to come back out, yeah, I come back out.
But I know what I got to do.
You have a dedicated audience.
But you want to reach people.I disagree.
But Im going to think on that for a little bit.
Do I want to?
No, because Im very, very to myself.
Last year took effort to maintain a sense of community with venues and shows on pause.
How did you get through 2020?
What did you learn about yourself in all that isolation?I aint going to lie, bro.
I gained 25 pounds because I was binging.
I was just eating.
It was just comfort …
Comfort shows, comfort eating.
That was my lifestyle for a long time.
I was fucked up.
But from a mental standpoint, I started reading a lot of articles [and listening to] audiobooks.
I grew from that a lot.
Ive asked a lot of musicians about their experience of 2020, and its almost hard to talk about.
We were sidelined out of necessity, but cultural awakening happened that year.
I was in a bar in early March not long before the bars shut down.
I had spilled something and I was shook about touching the napkins required to clean it up.
They filmed in Toronto.
My agent is like, Yo, read these scripts.
Youre going to get this.
On Chill was the No.
1 song on radio at that point.
I dont want to go outside for three days.
The next day,Oklahoma was playing Utah.
I was on my couch.
The game got shut down.
Im thinking,Ive got what I was asking for.
I did not know what I was asking for.I did Michael Bays movieAmbulanceduring the height of the pandemic.
My bouts with anxiety and all of that heightened so crazy.
Michael Bay is intense!
So Im trying to figure it out.
Meanwhile, Im trying to make an album at the same time.
I learned to balance it all out.
I turned down two roles and did the Michael Bay joint because I seen who was in the movie.
Thats something to think about.
Were doing everything on hard mode right now.
When this dust settles eventually, hopefully we will have learned new ways to cope.
Do you watchDragon Ball Z?I never didDragon Ball Z.
They train for a big fight with weights on so they feel lighter and faster at their normal size.
Maybe when there are less constraints, stuff that seemed tough will feel like dancing.
I feel hopeful today for some reason.I dont know.
This shit is so unpredictable.
Every time I think that I know, something proves I dont know.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
