Interview By: Rob Lucchesi
We sat down with Waylin Flaza, an up-and-coming experimental rapper to discuss new releases, the importance of a strong social media presence, the song writing process and more.
Rob: Well you're fresh off of "INVOLVED" which is the fourth single off of the Swindler's Love Body which included "GET IT", "SOULMATE (I ain't never met you)", and "THANG". So, what's the process been like for an album this deep and personal?
Waylin: It's gone through like, three different versions honestly. I started it right after the PRIMO98 album dropped two years ago and it was about my old relationship, it was pretty much just about getting cheated on, and exploring myself as a person, as well as exploring relationships. The entire thing was just pretty much influenced by the breakup, it was called “Swindler's Love” and it was named after my ex because she "swindled our relationship" and I thought that was very creative. As time went on I was like you know I was not the best person in my own relationship and there were probably reasons I got cheated on. As much as it sucks to get cheated on and as much as it hurts I was probably doing stuff on my own time. I wanted to give both sides of the relationship, we were both in love at one point and we both made our own mistakes. It then transitions into my new relationship, and i don't know where the album's gonna go after that.
Rob: Is “GLOW UP” going to be the kind of the culmination of this whole story?
Waylin: Kinda actually, ``GLOW UP'' is a part of this mixtape "Confess" and I worked on that around the same time I was working on PRIMO98, it's just some songs I never got around to releasing. I wanted it to be a growing up project about my life but as time went on I kind of grew up myself and kind of learned to forgive people I was talking about in the album, so I was like I'd rather them not hear some of this stuff. The mixtape is really just a rap project, I wanted to show people that I can rap because the last project i dropped where i was rapping like hardcore was PRIMO98 and I only really like four of the songs off of that album.
Rob: Yeah that was my first introduction to you, I remember you dropped the video for HANDBACKS and I was like "this is gonna be the next big thing to come out of California for sure."
Waylin: Yeah, the videographer for that hit me up and was like "I have a camera and i like your music and i like the way you perform" because we met at a performance and he was like "let's do like two shots" and then we just did two quick shots in a little neighborhood, awkward as fuck.
Rob: It's such a good video still, it's so much fun, and it's full of all this character. It's an amazing starting point and it's gotten nothing but better since then too. Moving on to the next question, what have you been listening to recently, what's on the playlist?
Waylin: Vince staples comes up a lot, whenever I'm at work and I have nothing to play I always just put on the summertime '06 album, and Alphaville, their album forever young is a perfect album front to back. Corbin's new album, "Ghost with Skin", Stevie Wonder,
yeah that's pretty much it. A lot of the time I'm just listening to my own projects, just jotting down notes that I can give to my engineer because he does pretty much everything now. I kind of just come to him with an idea and then he brings it to life.
Rob: So, we got Swindler's love then we got Confess now, you've got those two projects finishing up and on the way but I gotta ask what happened to impress?
Waylin: I forgot about that shit, wow um I mashed confess and impress together so like half of the songs the structure kind of got fucked up. I realized some songs just worked better at the end, but yeah I mashed the songs together. The first half was supposed to be me growing up and then the last half was supposed to be me building my confidence up but now it's just a mixtape and you can hear the structure and stuff but it's not as structured as it was in the beginning. It starts off with a song with Censored Dialogue and Chloe Hotline and then it goes to another feature and after that I feel like the story kind of builds, it starts off with confidence and then it goes back into like, "oh i don't like myself, my parents don't like me".
Rob: It's all part of the process in general you can't always be sunshines and rainbows every day of the week. I think that from a creative and a storytelling standpoint you gotta have those ups and downs throughout the album.
Waylin: That's really true, and the ups and downs are hectic because the four month periods between each of my singles is like my downs. The first month pretty much when I have a single out I'm like "oh this is great i feel cool i feel like an artist i'm doing stuff people like me i'm getting compliments" so I'm feeling like i'm doing something. I want to say I'm an artist off screen and on screen but truthfully I'm also just Waylin, and I go to work, and I clean dishes, that's what it is like. I start seeing my mutuals and all these people doing great on twitter and as much as i'm proud of them i'm like "I've got stuff too I wanna do shit!".
Rob: Maybe the next step would be putting more stuff out on soundcloud and just keeping that flow going.
Waylin: Yeah I really want to start putting more out, like just little short songs. Something that Chloe always does that kind of ] inspired me was how often she drops music, she makes music like no other though so it's like a whole different story. I really want to release more stuff on soundcloud and become more personal. I want to have little things for people to connect to because it's too often that I feel like people don't know what I'm doing because I don't put all the stuff I'm doing out. I like to work on one thing at a time now rather than before. It was like I'm gonna start a new song every single week, and then think of a new project and never get these other projects done. This is the first time I've finished two projects in a whole year and just focused on one studio album which is "Swindler's Love" and I go into the studio every two weeks and I just try to finish it and up until summer. It's almost done. I have like three songs to record but yeah it's a long process.
Rob: You know what they say, you've gotta start three projects to finish one. Let me ask you, what's it been like working with Chloe Hotline now that she's becoming a much bigger name?
Waylin: Chloe's cool we don't talk as much as i'd like to but whenever we do get the chance to talk she's just really chill both of them are like i love talking to Jazz me and Jazz are on the same fucking wavelength. I don't know, it feels like a family dynamic like I really consider Jazz like a sister. I'm not the closest to Chloe but I love her music, I love her work ethic and I love the way she records music which is really just freestyling, which I think is the hardest shit. The first track off of confess she's the hook and she has a verse on it and she doesn't like that she's the chorus because i made her the prime of the song but she's just catchy, like she's really talented. Jazz, man she's the best, she has a really great work ethic too she focuses on one album at a time.
Rob: You've always been huge on your internet presence, it's always been a key factor, what goes into that?
Waylin: That's a hard question, i don't know how i build my presence honestly, i see like Jazz and Chloe tweeting and i'm like fuck maybe i should be tweeting more. With posting music videos I always like to make it really collaborative, I always go in with a base idea, like with the GET IT music video i was like, "i want to be riding a red bike" and then they're like "okay... go on'' and i'm like "uh-huh". I watch a lot of WWE and I really relate to the presence of pro wrestlers like how they carry themselves in front of the crowd compared to when they are behind the curtain, that's how I feel like I carry myself on stage, or in front of a camera. When I'm on stage I feel like I am giving it my all, but when I'm on twitter I feel like I don't share as much of myself. One thing about myself is that I focus a lot on numbers, like if something isn't performing well it'll start to really get to me, it's a good thing and a bad thing because it pushes me to go harder.
Rob: Well that is all I had for you today, what's next for waylin coming up in the future?
Waylin: I'm not sure if i have any shows coming up right now because the pandemic is fucking crazy. Hopefully more performances in the near future. I'm working on my album that will be out so hopefully i'll have performances for my album, after that i'll be doing a collab project with either Censored Dialogue or ev aragon.
Waylin Flaza:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waylinflaza/?hl=en
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/07yS50wC2y4DcylK7AkxRD
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