A frank talk with the rapper about his long, fraught journey toDetroit 2.
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Detroit rapperBig Seansigned to Kanye Wests G.O.O.D.
What have you been up to?Honestly, Ive just been making sure Im happy with the music.
For some reason, time seems to be going faster than usual.
So [the album] has taken longer than I expected it to.
I dont know if I took too long or what the outcome may be.
My whole life shifted.
All our lives shifted.
I dont know what the consequence of that will be.
Maybe itll be great, maybe … Pandemic time does feel shorter.
It just seems like things have been going faster than I can even grasp.
But Ive learned to accept it and not always feel like Im trying to catch up.
Ive been making an effort to stay aggressively happy.
I meditate seven days a week, and that gives me a chance to connect with myself.
It feels like charging your phone.
Its like waking up with a full charge, as opposed to waking up with your phone dead.
Because if you dont, things start to blend in together.
I heard Albert Einstein did this too.
Trying to force creativity can create anxiety of its own.It was destroying me, too.
That jot down of mindset was destroying me, and I didnt even know.
It was making me wake up with so much anxiety, so much heaviness.
How are you going to attract something youre not putting out there?
Youre trying to listen to 92.3, but your station is on 105.
You got to get on that frequency.
The rap game moves pretty quickly nowadays.
A lot of young artists are on a cycle of one or two releases per year.
I realized that Im on my own schedule in my own lane.
Im not a new artist.
I gotta treat things a little differently than they probably would.
I had a lot of living to catch up on.
But those are two different things being grateful and being happy.
But I wasnt enjoying it.
I had to sit down, talk through it, and do therapy.
Youtweetedsomething in July that stuck with me.
You said, DONT PRETEND TO BE OKAY WHEN YOURE NOT!
Have you had to unlearn some of that?Hell yeah.
Growing up, you had to be a man.
You couldnt be emotional all the time.
Thats looked down on.
My granddad was dry.
He was an amazing granddad, but he just didnt show that much emotion.
He was a stone-cold military man.
I dont know what he was going through.
He never talked about it.
He liked his TV shows, and he liked his food hot.
Its something that Im very proud of.
But when I tweeted dont pretend to be okay when youre not, I was tweeting at myself.
I went through another situation before that.
I go on there periodically, but I am a person who would easily get addicted to social media.
I get on there and go from one thing to the next.
Its a rabbit hole.
I just be looking up facts, random things.
It wasnt productive for me.
But for me, personally, I get distracted.
You also have a different situation with it than the average person.
But my thing is I just do what I feel.
[But the scrutiny] doesnt bother me as much as it used to.
I used to get really torn down by peoples critiques.
Would you say that there have been times where criticism drove you?
Does that push you to take your music further?I guess it has before.
But theyre not you.
[Criticism] isnt something I think about every day.
I dont feel like I have to prove myself.
Thats not what Im thinking about.
I needed a lot of inspiration in my life while I was making this album.
Thats why I took a lot of time off.
Thats why I did things and I lived life and went through experiences.
One of my goals is to give inspiration, to inspire people.
It has been since my first mixtape.
I have fun songs, but I always put some punch in of realness in it.
Even with a song like Bounce Back, I tried to put a hint of inspiration in it.
Ive heard my progression and the maturity in my voice, my delivery and times changing.
I appreciate it, though.
Im not embarrassed about it.
Its a step at a time.
You keep stepping it up.
Thats the goal, at least for me.
Kanye changed my life, for real.
Thats who saw me and saw my potential.
That opportunity and that chance he gave me, Ill never discount that.
Obviously, I respect Eminem.
The list goes on.
Is it hectic when rappers you respect are beefing?It aint hectic.
It is what it is.
People be having disagreements.
Were human beings, so I just let people handle it how they handle it.
Now we got rap beef.
[But remember that] this motherfucker [Trump] is trying to take our rights away.
This motherfucker is killing us.
Its different if somebody comes for your fucking family.
Thats a whole different thing.
I respected that yousquashedthe rumor that you hadbeef with Kendrick Lamar.
Stuff like that can get twisted on the internet and become something it wasnt.Thats what happened.
I didnt even know what the fuck it was.
We communicated to each other that it was all love.
Thats what youre supposed to do.
Are you following Kanyes political career?Yeah.
Who isnt following it?
I was there when he was in debt for millions.
He believed in himself, and now hes out of debt.
Hes one of few billionaires in hip-hop.
More than anything, more than a presidency, I just want my brother to be happy.
I dont feel comfortable talking about it because I want to respect her.
It wasnt a diss to her.
I truly made the song and played it for her.
She knew about it, and she liked it.
If I would have known something this tragic would have happened, I would have never made the song.
Were you ever considering dropping a project with the rest of G.O.O.D.
Music when they were doing the seven-track albums in summer 2018?
I was loving the projects, but I just couldnt get in the groove.
Thats just something you cant force.
I thoughtKids See Ghostswas crazy.
All the projects were very unique.
I was going through things in my head that I was still working out.
I wasnt ready to be creative right then.
It would start to get torturous.
I was still more in an observant point, living through experiences in my life.
I had to work my way back.
[Jhene Aiko is] amazing.
She definitely has helped a lot.
Things have drastically changed, so it definitely has helped ground me for sure.
I feel like my roots got even deeper.
Not only did I reconnect with myself, I reconnected with my passion and my hunger.
The music reminded me of theDetroitmixtape while I was making it.
I found myself doing some of the exact same things.
I got back to journaling.
I got back to not feeling restricted.
The city of Detroit is owed so much respect and honor.
Motown isnt an era to me.
Its almost like a genre of music.
I made it a point to make the whole city feel included.
Theres a song on there that just takes me back.
I used to do this radio show called Friday Night Cypher.
The whole city would come together and we would cypher it up thats real Detroit-style right there.
But I think people will be able to relate to [the album] wherever theyre from.
Detroit is an inclusive city.
A lot of people havent been, but Detroit is fun, man.
That shit is the best.
We real people from there.
Weve been through the worst.
Weve been dealt the bottom before.
Its cool whenever you meet people from the D. We know what its like to hustle.
We know what its like to be starving.
I think that does something to the character of a person.
Thats what I love about being from Detroit: Its like I had to really earn my way.
In spite of you having to rethink the timing, its good thatDetroit 2is hitting right now.
Im really talking about the things that lifted me up out of it.
It affected a lot of the music.
Im like, Ive been working on it for two years.
I was in the studio with Stevie Wonder playing him my album.
After this album, I dont think that Im going to be done again for a long time.
Im inspired to keep going.
Im not taking another three-year hiatus.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
