Name: Denzel Curry
Nationality: American
Occupation: Rapper
Current Release: Denzel Curry's Melt My Eyez See Your Future is out via PH. He also features on Dot Da Genius's "Talk about me" alongside Kid Cudi and JID.

If you enjoyed this interview with Denzel Curry, visit his official website for more information. He is also on Instagram, twitter, and Soundcloud. We also recommend our earlier Denzel Curry interview about Death, Creativity, and Luke Skywalker.



What were your goals for this project in terms of the lyrics?

I wanted to make sure that there was no bar that was lacking on this project. And I wanted to make sure that everybody gets it and is like: “Oh, my God, this is amazing.”

With my past stuff, I was still immature. But with this new album, I was doing things for growing and evolving.

How do you see the relationship between the lyrics and the music?

The way the process works is that I sit with my producers. We do sessions together, we hang out. And they all start playing me beats until one comes along that I feel the most. And that's the one I need to write to.

Regardless if it makes it on a project or not. I just know that's the one I'm filming. That's the one I got to do.

The interesting thing is that if you if you were to read some of the lyrics you would often never imagine what the beat would be. It's like they're on two separate planes.

Yeah, because it just channelled something inside of me.

The music sparks endorphins in you. When you listen to a beat it puts you somewhere and, likewise, I wanted to transport you somewhere that you haven't probably seen in a long time. Or it might be reminiscing.

When it comes down to like a track like “Troubles” I wanted it to be a big beat because it's kind of dark thematically, but I also wanted something that people could just sing along to. Like if a little kid hears a song, and they remember the melody. I want to create a song that people can sing along to.

Where do these lyrical ideas come from?
 
I don't know where they come from, really. Maybe it just comes from past experiences. And when I tried to talk about it previously, it just never worked out. It just makes sense right now.

So it's underlining stuff, actually the  majority of the music that I've made was underlying stuff. I'll remember having health problems in my life and then I'll just write about it while Kenny was making a beat. As soon as I showed that to Kenny, he suggested to lay that down.

Despite all of these different lyrical themes, the entire album slots together like one long piece.

Yeah, it is one very long piece. Some of my fans ask me which side of the album I like better. And I'm like - there are no sides. They make up one whole, it's just a playthrough.

You know, this is happening in the course of me walking through my life.

To me, it can seem as though the power of the word get diluted sometimes because there are so many people writing out there. Do you still believe words can actually make a change?

The real power is in education. I only just found out where my ancestors came from by doing a DNA test. The majority of the black community doesn't even know where they came from. Most of them can't tell you if they were travelling from Africa and what what language their forefathers spoke.

I found out that my ancestors came from Burkina Faso and, on my mom's side, from Sierra Leone. But not everybody is going to go down deep, everything's based in ignorance. Ignorance is bliss.

And you don't accept that.

Once you are in a position like mine, you can't be ignorant anymore.

There's a line on the song “The Last”, which reads: “Your so-called revolution ain't nothing but a post.” Doesn't that also mean that at some point you have to stop talking and actually do something?

Absolutely. Because many people will think: “Oh, that's bad. I'm gonna post about it. Oh, I'm gonna put something about it in my bio.” But that ain't doing shit. That's not doing a fucking thing! You need to go out there and march, go out there and talk to people, go out there and educate your people about what the fuck is going on.

There's a lot of people that see exactly what's going on and don't say a word. So they actually know they're not ignorant, which makes it even more fucked up - when you're not ignorant, but you let it happen to somebody else that's less fortunate.

By saying something you can stand in the way of actually doing something. After all, you've “relieved your conscience”.

Yeah, and you're like, oh, yeah, I did my good deed for today. Well, you don't get a fucking medal. We're still fighting this battle.