North Carolina artist Mindset is fresh off the release of his fifth single, the infectiously catchy “Purple Açai,” and is now gearing up to take his career to the next level with the release of an accompanying music video for the single and plans to release his first project in the near future. He took the time to talk with Music Mustard over Instagram Live about his first live performance, Mac Miller, his creative process, and everything in between. Below is our conversation, condensed for clarity.
Mindset shot by @jakepetronevideo
So how did you start making music? When did you start taking it seriously? Was it because of the pandemic?
“So yeah, it really was. I guess I kinda kicked into gear and started taking it more seriously last year, about this time. I was like, ‘alright, this is it.’ I started, you know, really recording and sending my stuff off to get mixed and mastered. I already had stuff recorded, but I just got some better equipment, a better mic, met up with some different people, and said I was gonna do this. I recorded ‘Empty Vial’ probably this time last year, but didn’t drop it until April. Really what got me serious about it, kinda was the pandemic. I just got the time on my hands and was able to reset my brain. It just really showed me it’s time, it was kinda now or never, and I wish I would’ve been more serious about it throughout college. It was just hard for me to make myself put in the work, but music has always been fun for me. I think I was 16 or 15, that’s really when I fell in love with ’90’s hip-hop, like Nas, Big L, and guys like that. That got me into really wanting to rap. I realized the power of the spoken word and the effect it can have on people. Then I just started thinking, you know, maybe I could do this. Me and my friends would always freestyle in high school, you know, sit around, smoke, mess around, put on a beat and freestyle. I was just always kind of naturally better than everyone, some of my friends would disagree, but I could think quick on my feet for whatever reason. Freestyling is how I got my show when I opened up for 21 Savage in 2017. I didn’t even have any songs out, I just freestyled for the show promoter, who I didn’t even know was the show promoter at the time, and ended up getting me on the stage.”
Can you tell me about that? How did that happen?
“Yeah, so we were here in Columbia, that’s where I am now, where I’ve graduated from the University of South Carolina, and I’m down here working now. But we were out at the bars at 5 Points here, it’s just a little street with all these bars on it. You know, we were drunk, we were freshmen, and out on the streets, this guy was handing out flyers for the 21 show that was coming to Columbia. At the time, he only had ‘No Heart’ out, before he did the album.”
2017, he wasn’t as big as back then.
“No, not as big. Not nearly as big as he is now, but he had ‘No Heart’ out, it was getting some traction. It was a sold out show in Columbia, it was 2500 people, but I was just walking down the street and especially even at that time, I was into more lyrical stuff as I am now. I do like 21 Savage now, but literally this is what happened. I’m not capping at all here; he tried to hand me a flyer and I was like ‘nah, I’m not going to that show’ and he was like ‘why?’ I said, verbatim, ‘I’m a better rapper than 21 Savage.’ I said that to the show promoter. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but he was like ‘oh shit, okay. For real? Let me hear something.’ So he pulls his phone out and starts taking a video, keep in mind I’m drunk right now and I just don’t know who this guy is, but I spit something for him, like acapella, for like 2 minutes or something, just off the top. I mean, it was okay, like looking back on it now, it was like a 5 out of 10, but it was good enough I guess. The next day, I looked and they had like 3,000 views on Instagram overnight, he had a lot of followers. That’s when I knew he was legit, and I went to meet him at this bar in the middle of the day, and he was like ‘yo, you’re dope and we need one more opener. We’re not gonna pay you, but if you wanna do it, here’s a couple free tickets.’ I was like ‘fuck yeah, awesome’ and a couple weeks later, I found myself being the last opener before 21. It was like two openers and then me, that was before I even had a rap name. I had no songs out.”
That’s really cool, man. Talking about diversity, you had to adapt to opening up for 21 Savage. Talk about your sound, you sing and you rap and do a combo of both very well. Can you talk about your sound? What influenced it and why do you incorporate both?
“Yeah, like I said, I fell in love with ’90’s hip-hop and that’s what got me into it. I was always, for the longest time, like ‘you gotta have bars.’ If it’s not barred the fuck up, like you gotta have hoodie on, head down, that was the thing, which I still abide by some of the OG underground hip-hop rules, but I just started getting into more influential bleeding edge alternative hip-hop. I guess to go back even further, my first love in music was Punk, like Greenday. That’s what really got me, when I was a young kid in middle school, I was listening to a lot of punk, like Pierce the Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, rock bands like that. I think that they’re signing is a lot like Lil Peep.. I’m a big Lil Peep fan too, which he did a good job of morphing punk and hip-hop together. I think what influenced the singing was, you know, I just liked singing. I don’t think that I’m a great singer, but it’s something Mac says in one of his songs off his live album, The Space Migration, this quote kinda got me to start singing. He said, ‘I’m not a good singer, but I like to do it.’ That quote just made me kinda think, man, you can do it. Post Malone says himself that he’s not a good singer. I think most importantly, I write a lot. I write all of my own stuff, and I can write hooks, choruses, and come up with these cadences and melodies really good, but I can’t always hit the notes that I hear in my head. I think just my writing style is fit for more melodic stuff, and I like to have that full range. I don’t wanna be in a box of just rapping or singing.”
I like that, man. You do a great job of mixing both, and you can’t really put you in a box because you do it all. You’re a big Mac Miller fan?
“Yeah, definitely. He was actually the first live show I ever went to; the Macadelic tour. I think I was 13, in the eight grade, and I had just really started getting into hip-hop when I was 12, probably. My friend’s girlfriend at the time, her mom got us tickets for her birthday, and took us to the show. It was the UNC Charlotte basketball arena; pretty small crowd, I don’t know, maybe a couple hundred people there and he just killed that show. I had already been listening to Mac at that time, so I was excited to see him, but that really got me into him. First of all, R.I.P. to him. He grew up with us kind of, with our generation. We evolved with him. He grew so much as an artist from K.I.D.S. to Circles.”
Man, yeah, his evolution as an artist was one of the craziest that we’ve ever gotten to experience. I mean, he went from that frat boy rap on K.I.D.S. to Circles at the end, which is just a project that you don’t even have to be a hip-hop fan to enjoy. It’s just great music, you know what I mean?
“Yeah. People always tell me I sound like him, which you know, he’s definitely one of my biggest inspirations, so I guess in some instances, I just can’t help it, it’s subliminal. I take it as a compliment, but I’m my own artist, you know? I still take it as a compliment, but I don’t know.”
Yeah, I get that for sure. I guess, obviously it’s in good intentions when people make comparisons like that, but I can understand wanting to be your own artist. Can you talk about your “Purple Açai” song? It’s your newest song, obviously you just put out the video this morning, I’m curious to know how this one came about. It’s a hit, man.
“Thank you, first off. It’s been getting a lot of good feedback. The song itself, I mean, I recorded it, I wanna say in May. I have a lot of unreleased stuff coming out soon, and I wasn’t even gonna drop it next. I love the song, like people are saying it’s their favourite song of mine, but I just actually sent it off to this guy I’ve been working with, Ned at Leeds Entertainment, who’s been helping me to do some of my promotion. I sent him a couple songs and he was like, ‘this is the one, we need to drop this next.’ Everyone I’ve showed it to really liked it, so I was like, cool. At the time, the song was actually called ‘Take Me Away’ and then I came up with the whole ‘Purple Açai' theme. I wrote it and recorded it same day, probably in like two hours or something. It kinda came about quickly, but the song is kind of about taking a negative and turning it to a positive, or seeing the silver lining. When I say, ‘purple açai, without you, more for me.’ That’s kinda seeing through that. The first line of the song, it says ‘I’m sad when I write, but I’m happy when I sing.’ That’s just really how I approach my writing. Music’s such an outlet for me. Some of the stuff I write is more somber, just about girls, heartbreak, this and that. When I’m writing it, I’m happy, but it’s like I’m getting everything out. It feels good, and then to get to the point where I’m behind the mic, and then on the computer, out of the speaker, it’s just great. It just feels so good to see the evolution of a song from my head to the page to the speakers.”
That’s a special thing, man.
“Yeah, it definitely is.”
You mentioned the opening bar, I was gonna bring it up, but that’s a good transition into your creative process. Obviously you write everything yourself and like you said, it goes from your head to the speakers at the end of the day. Can you walk through what your process is like? Or is it different every time?
"Yeah, I get asked that a lot, and I don’t really have a set process. I’ll either write to silence and kinda build a beat in my head, or have a tempo in my head, or sometimes I just write poetry. I just write, sometimes I just need to get it out. I’ll do it in my phone notes most of the time, sometimes I’l hit pen and paper. I’ll either write to silence and then find a beat to fit the lyrics to, or I think with ‘Purple Açai,’ I got the beat first. I just kinda played the beat, let it loop and just started writing, kinda caught some pockets. I know the first line, what I do a lot, is I turn a song on and start freestyling. That’s how I’ll catch the cadence, catch the rhythm, catch my flow. Sometimes when I start freestyling, I might say something really cool to start it off. That’s what happened with ‘Purple Açai.’ It was the first thing I said, so I was like ‘fuck it, that’s dope.’ I put it on the page and just built it from there. Sometimes I’ll write something to another song, and then take it, put it on another song, and just fill in stuff on the other song. I don’t know, sometimes I’ll steal bars and maybe even trash that other song. It really depends for me, but writing in general, I just have to feel inspired to make myself write. I’ll do it sometimes, but you can’t force it. It’s something that just has to come about, feeling a type of way, or just be really inspired by something, and it just kinda comes out.”
I wanted to ask about whether or not there’s a project in the works?
“Yeah, honestly, before I released ‘Empty Vial,’ I have another project that I made throughout college, that’s like seven songs, but I have to go back and rework them. It’s so hard as an artist because when I make a song, it may be a year or eight months until it gets released. Sometimes it gets to the point where you don’t wanna release it anymore, because it’s not you, it was in the moment. But it is a representation of yourself, you know, like eight months ago or whatever. I think that’s something I struggle with, but I think it’s important. Even with 'I Still Use Ur Netflix’ and ‘Purple Açai,’ I say some stuff that’s kinda like, you know, coming at a specific person, and I don’t feel that same animosity anymore towards her. I still thought it was very important to release the songs, just because at the time, that was me and how I felt. Other than that, my only project is ‘Venice Beach Blues,’ but I mean I have a lot of unreleased stuff. I actually went out to Venice like two months ago, went out to L.A. and stayed in Venice Beach. I made the song before I even went. It’s such a happy, nice place, but then it’s about having a balance with the happy, but then feeling sad in the same spot. That’s how some of my songs are, it’s just a mix and a balance that takes you up, takes you down. You’ll see on the album, it portrays that even more.
So that trip is obviously what inspired the project?
“Yeah, yeah. It’s a beautiful place, it’s really inspiring. I had never been to L.A. before, so I went up there to meet with some other artists and talk to some people, and it just really inspired me. I think just the aesthetic of Venice Beach is really cool. I was just sitting out there, I spent a full day out at the beach, just smoking, sitting on the beach, writing songs, listening to music and just watching everything. It was just beautiful with the beach and the mountains up there. It really just made me wanna do this with the project. Blue is also my favourite colour, and it’s just a nice blue aesthetic that’s gonna be on the cover art too.”
That’s amazing. That song sounds like it’ll be a good intro as well.
“Yeah, we put some waves in the beginning that kinda bring you into it. My thing with the album, I want it to be cinematic. Not just a collection of songs, but more an experience. I want it to flow through. I’m a music lover and the way you’re supposed to listen to an album is the first track to last track, take in the whole thing. I’m even still making cuts to the album, it’s more songs now than I want it to be. I just want it to be the same vibe flowing into each song, because I do make a bunch of different kinds of songs, and this is gonna be dedicated more to songs like ‘Hotel Hell’ or ‘I Still Use Ur Netflix.’
That’s really cool to hear that as an artist, you still wanna put that much effort into an album. Audiences now, when new albums drop, I feel like too many people just go to the most popular song and try to find “the one.” Nobody really takes the time to sit down and listen to an album anymore, which is sad. It’s just cool to hear you say that. You said it was gonna be like seven or eight tracks, right?
“Yeah, something like that. I wanna keep it minimal, so it’s easily palatable. You can sit down and listen to it. I’m not putting any of these throwaway tracks on here. I like when artists release a big album, but if it’s 20 tracks and like 10 of them are just not that strong, you’re just covering up the hits. I just want it to be seven strong songs that flow into each other, and create a whole message and theme. I just want it to be something that kind of intrigues people and incentivizes them to listen to it the whole way through.”
That’s really well said. As a listener myself, I personally prefer shorter albums, and even the little EP’s, because they’re just so much more concise. Like you said with long albums, often times, there’s too much filler content that doesn’t need to be there. If you can tell your story in seven songs and do it like that, then you’re on the right track.
“Yeah, that’s the plan. It’s kinda like what Kanye did with his rollout last year. That kinda inspired this a bit, with him, Pusha, Cudi, all doing the seven track, more is less theme, which is amazing. Everything just moves a little quicker and people just aren’t sitting down, but then, I know there’s the music lovers out there like you and I, that are gonna love an album that they can sit down and focus in on, kinda take you into a different world. Thats another thing with music, it can really take you into a whole other world, even if it’s just for two minutes. Whether it makes you feel sad or makes you feel good, no matter what it does, it takes you into a whole new world when you put those headphones on and really tune in. I just think music’s so powerful and I’m tryna really harness that, and put it out into the world.”
That’s amazing, man. So this project could possibly drop before the end of this year?
“Possibly, yeah, but there’s so much that goes into it, man. With my ear, stuff that I hear, not everyone hears. I’m just working on getting this perfect with the mixes, that’s the big thing. Having as much energy as I can with the vocal cuts, and then of course, when I have it actually completed, because it’s pretty much done, then setting up the promotion for it and the marketing. That’s gonna be huge, because I don’t wanna drop the album and not have it reach as many people as it could have. It’s looking more like 2021, but I’m gonna drop probably two more singles before the album. The next single coming out, I’m picking between two. I have kind of my two sides, a more ‘Hotel in Hell’/Lil Peep type vibe, and I have one that’s more like ‘Purple Açai’ in a way, and I really like both of them, so it’s tough.
I wanted to ask about the pandemic and how that’s affected your work..
“I think it kinda put me into overdrive to get more serious about it. We came back from Spring Break, schools all online from that point, so just having a lot more time and being a Senior in second semester, it was like I’d been through my partying phase. I’d done all that and just knew I really needed to focus. I had all this stuff in my head that I just needed to get out on the paper, and I think the pandemic just really gave me the time to sit down, do what I needed to do. I was just waking up in the morning, taking a shower, sitting at my desk, and just making songs. That’s when I recorded a lot of my songs that will be coming out, in April, June, May. Just waking up any day and spending the whole day making a song or two, like writing and recording it the same day. I think the pandemic, I don’t know what it is, but a lot of people broke up and got out of their relationships when the pandemic started, including me. I went through a breakup right at the beginning of the pandemic, and it gave me time and headspace.”
That must’ve inspired most of the music you were making?
“Oh yeah. ‘Hotel in Hell’ and 'Empty Vial’ were about the same girl. They’re about a relationship that I had two summers ago, so I wrote those songs this time last year. ‘I Still Use Ur Netflix,’ ‘Breakfast in Bed’ and ‘Purple Açai’ are all about the girl that I was in a relationship with my senior year, we broke up when quarantine started. It’s a lot of inspiration that it brings, a lot of emotions that come out. It’s something that I’m trying to steer away from, like I don’t feel the same animosity, the same emotions that I felt then, so I’m not as inspired to write about that, or about heartache as much anymore. I think that, simultaneously with having more time on my hands, really pushed me to where I needed to be.”
Well it’s cool to see your numbers going up and the video being released, hopefully you’re able to tour at some point, and put that album out! Is there anything else you wanna add or leave everyone with?
“Yeah, go check out the video! It’s in my bio, you can go on YouTube. I’ve got tons of unreleased music, stuff is coming out. I’m staying very patient and it’s tough, I really wanna release my stuff, but check on my SoundCloud too. Every once in a while, I'll go to one of my private songs and make it public for a day or two, so check up on there. I’ll give you a little easter egg, there’s a song on my SoundCloud right now that I never promoted, and haven’t turned it back to private yet. It’s called ‘Flower Girl,’ it’s unmixed and unmastered, but I really like that song. Go check that one out, but stay tuned. There’s plenty of more content, plenty of more music coming!"
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