"Living in the South often means slipping out of temporal joint, a peculiar phenomenon that I find both nourishes and wounds. To identify a person as a southerner suggests not only that her history is inescapable and formative but that it is also impossibly present.
Southerners live uneasily at the nexus between myth and reality, watching the mishmash amalgam of sor-row, humility, honor, graciousness, and renegade defiance play out against a backdrop of profligate physical beauty."
– Sally Mann, Deep South
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Gum: So, this is my second time interviewing somebody ever. I'm 2 for 2 on interviewing other black Southern people. I say all that to say this — in my previous interview with another black Southern individual, the starting point was religion. A lot of people think I’m religious for some reason, but I grew up in a super agnostic household. The only reason I went to church is 'cause I wanted to play on the church league basketball team.
454: That's crazy! But with that though, did you learn anything [about Christianity]? I guess you had to.
Gum: We had bible study class and I was a good student before anything else. I gotta be a good student. My mom wasn’t tolerating anything else.
Within this context of Christianity, though, what was your experience like growing up in the South?
454: Growing up, my grandma and all her sisters were in church. So, I went with her on Sundays, Easter, New Year's Eve – stuff like that. I had these two brothers who I skated with. They were older than me, and they were really good at skating so I looked up to 'em. I was 18, and they had ended up getting into Christianity really heavy. Through that, I just started looking into it.They would just come to me as like a younger homie and be like, “Yo, you should check this out.”
So, I started checking it out and then I also got into it heavily. Started going to church on my own and just memorizing scriptures and quoting them every night and morning, bro. It had got serious, but that was 2014 or 2015. When I got [to NYC] in 2017 I got exposed to a little bit more life. My girlfriend, she kind of opened me up a little bit and my relationship to Christianity changed a bit. I’m not saying I lost that, but I just wasn't as extreme on myself. I used to carry myself a certain way, and I felt like I still had a shell. I wasn't really social, so I was still to myself a lot. But yeah, I had gotten into it for real. I stopped listening to certain music and everything.
Gum: What caused the most friction with me with Christianity was that it has always been framed to Black people as like a punishment-oriented relationship. As a STEM kid growing up, it was hard for me, on top of the racialized aspect, to deal with things I couldn’t “prove” with science and already didn’t believe in. The idea of being punished for certain things didn’t sit well with me either. I always had more alternative interests and more radical politics. That being said, it's amazing to see that this piousness and devotion came to you through skateboarding. How'd you start skateboarding?
454: Bro, so in 5th grade I moved to the suburbs. My parents got a crib that was maybe 15 or 20 minutes from Orlando. It's like a little suburban area. My cousin had a skateboard. It was like an old school skateboard. I took it around the neighborhood and I saw these kids – they had a ramp though! I was like, “Damn!” They skated, but they were a little bit more elevated than me. So I went over to 'em and I was like, “Damn bro, I think I want to try this.” So I tried to drop in, bro, and I fell – got smoked! But I just kept trying it. I was like, “Man, I really like this!” After that it was a wrap.
Gum: I think I started probably around the same age. This is another important question. Did you have four wheelers and dirt bikes growing up?
454: Sure did, bro. We had a four wheeler. I didn't have a dirt bike, but I had a Pocket Bike.
Gum: Yes, the red joints!
454: Exactly.
Gum: What's your favorite skate video? It could be a short one, a part, or it could be a full video.
454: Baker 3. That stuck with me a long time, but as I got older, I realized there were a lot of older videos that I just didn't see until I either moved [to NYC], or they were just pushed more towards me based on the algorithm on YouTube. I like Girl Mouse. What else? It's Official. The DGK video. I'm gonna say one more. Fully Flared was like the first video I had seen! At the skate park they had a little fake premiere. They just were like, “Yeah, it's a new video. We’re just gonna play it.” That was one of my top videos for a long time.
Gum: I’m glad to hear some DGK love!
454: DGK was killing it! When they were in their prime, skating was in a different era then. They were going crazy. What about you, what’s your favorite?
Gum: The Supreme Cherry video, and Palasonic.
454: Facts. [Cherry] was one that brought something else to skating, you know. Everybody realized. Like, “Yo, this shit is insane!”
Gum: I had that shit on my NYU Google Drive so I could watch it in class while I was in my art lectures, bro. I was tuning into that shit weekly.
When I was in college, I think that was the time where I wasn’t necessarily skating the most ever, but it was a time where I was skating the most at a decently high level. I came to college and I was skating everywhere. I was at Tompkin’s religiously.
454: I didn’t even know you were out here around then. It makes so much sense now.
Gum: Take me all the way back. The context I'm interested in the most with Florida is this budding culture war. When I look at Florida with all the book bans and, obviously, the murder of Trayvon Martin — Florida even kind of has that meme reputation. It's like, “Yo, Florida niggas crazy!” Ostensibly, there’s always some crazy shit going on in Florida. I'm wondering about your experience as a youth and as an adult. How did navigating these subcultures brush up against the rest of the insidious conservative Floridian miasma that's everywhere else. What is it like to be a skateboarder and what is it like to be a Black Christian in Florida under all these conflicts?
454: Coming up, I didn't really see how crazy it was. When I moved to a new neighborhood, there were some things going down back then that were kind of weird, that white people were doing to us, but I was too young to really know what the fuck was going on.
Gum: Did to you physically and verbally?
454: Yeah. I didn’t realize a lot of it until I got older. Being a Christian too, bro. It's just a part of our history in a certain way. I started thinking how fucked up it is the way Christianity was brought to [Black people]. Being in New York, I look back on Florida and there's just certain shit that just… Even going back, there's a certain energy, but it's weird because Florida is so diverse. It feels like something’s happening…
Gum: Something that shouldn’t be happening?
454: Y’know? It's super weird, bro. And I really don't get it. But maybe that's because it's a red state, and I think it's because it's a lot of people there with money too.
Gum: The retirees.
454: Yeah.
Gum: What was your school experience like?
454: School was cool! Middle school, I was skating. I wasn’t always a “loner”, but as I got older, I started to just like, go deeper – deeper into just wanting to be by myself. Especially when I started making beats and trying to figure that out, and then balance it with skating. Not that I didn't really care to have friends, but if I had friends, it was because we were skating together. I didn't really have friends in school who didn't skate or were into music. And wish I did!
High school. We moved to Tampa for like a year. I started ninth grade in Tampa, and then we moved in 10th grade back to the area where we were living before, closer to Orlando. It was kind of weird, bro. I ended up doing virtual school for maybe a year and it didn't work out. I finished up school at this charter school. It was like, you go for four or five hours and you just do your shit and you can go home, do whatever. So I just finished out school that way. Then, I was just skating heavy and making music!
Gum: Are we the same age? I’m 26.
454: I just turned 27! Yeah, school was calm. I was a shy kid coming up, but I still had my homies and friends and whatnot. School wasn't where I was thriving though.
Gum: Did you do music in the church at all?
454: Nah, and that's my thing. I really wish I did. With the church, I wish I did – wish I was just able to have that discipline of sitting down and getting that done.
Gum: Some real mentors.
454: Right. Learning from somebody who has their own technique.
Gum: Who's been in your corner the most as far as music? It doesn't necessarily have to be a “most” thing. Who are a couple people or a specific person who's really pushed you further along in music?
454: Honestly, a lot of homies. With putting out beats on YouTube that came from just, you know, SoundCloud culture. Just wanting people to hear my shit, trying to get heard. Through that there was a couple underground heads who just tried to support 'cause they fuck with me. But since I've been up here, really trying to put out my own songs? Really bro, Niontay. My sister Pig (the Gemini). My homeboy Marc. That's really it, as far as like, from the get go.
I feel like me and Niontay – he's the first person that I feel like really put out tracks to production that we either did together or just random beats I sent him. Just from that I'm like, “Damn, I really fuck with that!” Because I already know how it goes. I'm a person who – we [454 and Gum] even been through this shit! – where I just take my time. I feel like a lot of rappers do shit kind of quick, and he's one of those rappers. He'll send you back a track that you just sent him. I'm completely the opposite.
My homie Marc, he sent me some beats and we got songs we put up together. Me and Pig, you know. She's the rapper, so I can build off her. I feel like my mind is just trying to produce and arrange, but she's the rapper. It helps me push myself.
Gum: Saying like, “Now niggas gotta really rap!”
454: Niontay too. Yeah. Both of them niggas, man.
Gum: Are you and Pig the same age?
454: Nah, she's a couple years younger than me. A year and a half.
Gum: Y’all always been close?
454: Yeah, it was just me and her for a long time.
Gum: You mean household-wise? Or do you mean in music?
454: Household wise. Yeah. It was just us two for the longest, and then my mom had my other little sister, when we were 12. What about you?
Gum: I’m an only child.
454: How is that?
Gum: I mean, honestly, I can't lie. It's fire.
454: You had close cousins?
Gum: Yep! My younger cousin is like a sister to me, she’s 22. I'm super close with her. I also grew up in a family of mostly women. No grandpas. Just my dad and a few other cousins. My dad’s great! He was just in jail for a brief period, and in the streets for a while. I say all of that to say this, I'm so grateful that no matter what I've done, I've always had healthy platonic relationships with women. I think that has taken me – both in my politics and in my general behavior – a long way. House full of girls really got me right. I wouldn't change it for the world, literally.
454: Literally dog. I feel that. I didn't have any brothers growing up. So it was just me, Pig and my younger sister. Then my mom had another girl. Her last child, she had a boy. I had one uncle who was around at the time.
Gum: How do you think your relationship to masculinity has changed since then?
454: Growing up I wasn't really getting girls or like, trying to make that a thing. I wanted to skate. All through high school, dog, I was just skating. Right before I graduated, I started dating this girl and it just wasn't the relationship that I wanted it to be. It just didn't pan out. So after that, I was for sure like, “Oh hell no. I'm definitely scared.”
When I met my [current] girl, bro, that definitely evolved me as a person – as a man. I just realized where I was, even if I didn't think I had masculinity. I realized all that when I got into a healthy relationship.
Growing up, the men in my life – I was just not taught. At that time it was just, you know, you gotta be tough. You gotta hold a certain, I don't know, a dominance. That's what I got from my uncles and from my dad and from just being in that era. Really up until I met my girl – that changed a lot for me.
Gum: Nice. How long have y'all been together?
454: About to be seven years, at the end of this year.
Gum: Nice, congratulations!
454: So it's been a minute, dog. We met when I was 20. It was a crazy time to get myself right.
Gum: I think that's also something that comes through in the music. I was trying to articulate how I felt about the music, but I think – just that question. It wraps it up for me, I think. And for why other like-minded guys are attracted to the music. Even if it's not explicitly said — and it does explicitly come across in the lyrics sometimes — it's just from an earnest and a genuine perspective. I think people resonate with that. I definitely resonate with that. I feel what you said about masculinity, and about dominance.
454: That's the only thing I could really think of when I think about masculinity around that time, and what was taught to me. It's fucked up. Seeing what my cousin went through, how they were treated when they came out as trans, it was just fucked up in a sense to where I didn't wanna be that type of person, you know? I didn't wanna live my life like that.
Gum: I don't know why I had that kind of conflict with what I thought was masculinity either. I have such a strong mom. So, I knew that I didn't necessarily have to be this super tough angry guy, but then I also really looked up to my dad. I love my dad, and he’s not in the streets anymore. He’s been a barber for 10+ years at this point. We have a great relationship. Growing up, I thought he was the toughest guy around.
I came to New York with a big chip on my shoulder, and I thought I had to be tough as the out-of-towner trying to make his way. I'm acting out doing this, that, and the third. I'm being somebody–not that I wasn't –I was being a part of me that should have stayed a part of me, but I wanted it to be my whole thing.
454: That’s crazy though, bro. I had the same chip. Niggas shot my dad, he lived.
Gum: Right, so we’re thinking, “Oh, we up! We tough!”
454: I feel that. That’s real life.
Gum: Back to what we were saying earlier about the music and why people will resonate with it. This earnestness definitely contributes to this virality around your music. That's one thing I noticed when I read any other writing about you. They're always talking about you going viral all the time. Obviously, that's an important part of your career and how you've been received to larger audiences. I wanna hear how you feel about it because things going viral makes me paranoid. I freak myself out about surveillance and people knowing a lot of stuff about me. How are you navigating that? Does it freak you out? Do you plot and plan for viral moments, or any crazy Marceting scheme that's going on? Is it just all random?
454: Honestly, all random! It’s weird because I don't understand how shit travels. Just how even people who are outside my circle or outside of people who I knew in Orlando or New York are even hearing the music. That was mind blowing because I never knew how people would react to hearing my voice versus just the beats. Not saying it was never meant to happen, but I never wanted to be a rapper. I wanted to just produce and skate. I wanted to go pro at skating, but when I got older, I realized that wasn't something where my head was at. I just didn't have it in me. I just wanted other things out of life.
It's still weird seeing certain shit and seeing people come to my profile and see who I am. Sometimes they just hear my voice and don't even know how I look. That's kind of weird. It's really funny. I laugh every day!
Gum: Have you always been an active internet user?
454: In a sense, for sure. I got in when my cousins put me on MySpace. From MySpace to YouTube. But to be honest, not really. Because I wasn't really on Tumblr.
Gum: No forums?
454: Right, I wasn't really writing online.
Gum: Were you posting at all?
454: No, I wasn't though and that's my thing. It was just beats, you know. It was just beats and — I didn't miss [that era of the internet], but I kind of missed it. I was just skating. I got into it somehow a little later.
Gum: You dodged a bullet.
454: I didn’t though! I could've gotten exposed to things outside of my bubble.
Gum: You wanna talk about the shoes? How the hell did that happen?
454: They’re gonna be out Friday, bro. September 29th. So the homie Donny has this company called Dybbuk. I linked him maybe a year and a half, two years ago. He blessed me with some shoes and they were very good for skating, you know? They had like a dunk silhouette — he made his own dunk basically. I just skated so many pairs of those. He really fucked with my music and he's always constantly dropping new stuff. So he was like, “Yo, let's do something!” Like, “have you ever thought about making this or that?” I said, “Of course!” but I never really had the infrastructure or even thought it would be possible, at least right now in my life. He brought it to me, but I didn't wanna get my hopes up about anything. So, I just waited until he was bugging me about it. Not bugging me, but like, “We could really get this shit! Even just a sample.”
So we just made a couple models. My homie Tommy who did all my previous merch that we did ourselves through the site — He did the graphics for this, some of the logos that's on the shoe. We got everything back earlier this year. He was like, “Let's just get it rolling.”
I don't know what people are going to think about it, you know? It's shoes and I feel like a lot of people take shoes seriously. Me, I rock whatever. I have what I like, but at the same time I don't give my opinion about shit. I'm not very opinionated outside of my circle. I don't know what's gonna happen, but so far bro — at least the close homies — they really fuck with it.
Gum: Are they skateable is the real question!
454: Literally, I linked with him today. We got clips. They’re coming out. We got clips in them for sure.
Gum: That’s all I care about. I don’t even want the shoes — I want the clips. That's what's up man. A custom shoe is crazy. That's some basketball player shit.
What's the fastest you've ever finished and released something?
454: I would say the fastest I've done something was the Surf Gang EP, but that didn't come out for a while. Maybe Fast Trax 3 is the fastest one I did. Everything was recorded closer together. That's probably like the fastest project that I did. I was able to put it out like a couple days after I did all the songs. That got me boosted to try to just keep doing that, but I realized I go through spurts.
Gum: I love those days where I make like nine songs back to back, when I’m in rare form.
454: I don't know where that be coming from, so whenever I have that, I try to use that, capitalize and get one off. I'm so slow with music, bro. That's the thing too. I wanna just get better. The stuff that I put out [previously], I love it, but it's not what I could do now. But, I definitely appreciate it because people can see the growth.
I’m trying to get better at production. Production and mixing. I wanna be able to mix myself to where I could put stuff out and not have to go through another mixing engineer. Really just learning Ableton to where I could do everything. I record through Garage Band. I'll make a beat in Ableton or FL and then just record in Garage Band, 'cause I've learned how to use my plugins through Garage Band. I realize it is limiting, you know, it's only so much I could do. You can't do bus-ins or any of that. I fuck with Logic 'cause I dab sometimes when I have to get meticulous with a mix. All in all, I just wanna get crazy with Ableton.
Gum: That's something I've been trying to learn from Swami. He is the most skilled Ableton user that I've ever come across. I don't know anything about the actual routing that goes into making a clean mix. All I know is Swami gave me his mix chain. I know how every individual piece of the mix chain works. That's enough for me.
454: Coming from me, your music sounds great. I feel like I struggle with just hearing my own music, but when I hear other people's stuff I'm like, “Damn this, this sounds good to me!” I can appreciate how it sounds. Hearing your stuff, and Daze, y'all got it bro.
Gum: How do you feel about using your vocals lately?
454: That's my thing, bro. I don't know, it's just something about my voice that —not that I don't like it — I just always had something with it. The music, it’s been good and bad because I've seen certain [jokes and comments] about my voice that I'm just like, “Oh, yep. They damn sure are right!” My [voice] does sound like that. But then, I got people who fuck with it.
So there is a balance. It's a good balance. Putting music out has allowed me to just be grateful for my voice. I try to capitalize and use it now as an instrument, versus just rapping. I'm trying to make everything sound like one, if that makes sense. I want this shit to sound like, I don't even know —
Gum: More refined.
454: However I could do it. It's helped me just love my voice and my girl always tells me, “That's literally why I'm with you.” Like, that's part of the reason. If I'm ever down about anything, that helps me for sure. My thing is though, I wish I could sing. I can't really do what I want.
Gum: What's your favorite song that you've written?
454: I would say “Late Night”. That was a song where I was like, “Yo, niggas gotta hear this!” I was super hyped. I just wanted it to be a certain way and I recorded it and made the beat all in the same day. It’s not necessarily written like a traditional song. It got a little hook, but it don't really got a hook. It is a very weird song, but I like how it's written. Since then, I’ve been trying to just be free. However I came up with that song, I want to be free with other tracks like that, and just let it flow naturally as opposed to overthinking. I would say “Heaven”, too. That’s the one that took me the longest on the project. I sat with that track for weeks, and just kept taking stuff out or putting stuff in.
Gum: Getting real granular with it.
454: Yeah, “Heaven” for sure.
Gum: First date I had with my girlfriend, I was driving back and “Pisces” came on. I was like, “This nigga is my favorite artist.” Because nobody's gonna understand how I'm feeling about this young lady until I show them this song! It’s very serious. I played that shit like 20 times that night.
454: That’s unbelievable. That’s great to hear.
Gum: I’ve had so many pleasant experiences to Fast Trax 3 and 4 Real. All of your projects really. I play them on loop and just go drive somewhere.
I feel what you were saying, though, about trying to let go of traditional song structure. That’s something that Baile Funk is really helping me get out of.
454: That's what Fast Trax are, just a bunch of tracks that I felt like were unfinished but that I wanted to get heard. Thank you again bro, for even understanding.
Gum: If you think you ain't got no fans left in the world, I gotta be dead. I’m here, I’m tuned in!
What's your dream situation to make an album in? What would it take to make your ideal album?
454: One of my life goals is — the cliche — go to somewhere that's secluded, whether it's on the ocean or like in the mountains. Just go somewhere and have people come through and make whatever. It doesn't have to be for anything specific. I haven't done anything like that. I wanna see how that experience is for me and see how it would be for me to work with others in that environment. It would be dope to go to Jamaica.
Gum: Are you Jamaican?
454: My granddad is Jamaican, but I’m not out here like really representing Jamaica like that. My dad's father, I believe he was Jamaican. It would be dope to do something like that, or go to Electric Lady and make something. The homies, man, making music with friends. That's where I feel most comfortable.
Gum: How are you and your friends making commitments to each other outside of music?
454: As I get older, it means a lot. I started to realize, growing up, I wasn't using my friends for certain things, and we were only friends through either skating or music. When I moved up here, I had a couple homies who worked retail who didn't do music, and they didn't skate, but they shot photography. My homie Falcon is like that. He's from Long Island. He was way older than me. I was talking to him about my life and shit like that. Where we come from is totally different. Every day I was like, “Damn, this is kind of different than what I'm used to with my friends!” [My other friends and I] didn’t really speak about the shit that goes on in our homes or in our life necessarily. It was dope to just meet people up here and be able to just link with them, not because of music or because we like the same clothes. We were able to really be friends. And chat! I took that and applied it to my friends from Florida back home, who I only really skated with.
You gotta make sure we all got good head space because shit is crazy in the world. I think around quarantine, that helped me push all the hobbies and really connect with homies.
Gum: It’s gotten more intimate.
454: For sure. So I try to do that as much as I can allow myself to, if that makes sense. My homie Marc, he'll call me — he's The Caller — and I need that. I need somebody to call me and be like, “Yo, what's up?” I'm not that person.
Gum: I’m not that person either. I want to be so bad.
454: I wish I could be. But, he is the one, and I appreciate that.
Gum: I'm assuming it's been the same with you and your girl over the last couple years?
454: Exactly. She definitely helped me open up and be able to talk about what I'm going through, whether it's in my head or with friends or anything like that. I wasn't talking to my mom about anything. I didn't want to burden her. I'm just that type. I’m so to myself.
Gum: I’m the same, and I feel like my parents are, too. Some things I can’t squeeze out of them without a few drinks.
What do you see yourself doing this time next year?
454: We in September? I always hope to just go on a cool tour. It doesn't necessarily have to be with somebody who's music I really love. But if it could work for us both to travel together, then I'm so down for it. I'm just hoping for that. I love going on tour. That's really why I do it, aside from putting music out. It's dope to just go and see and meet people who like what you're doing. It's dope to play the shows, but I really enjoy meeting the people who come to the shows.
Gum: It makes everything visceral.
454: Real visceral, you know. Because this is still so unreal to me. [Meeting supporters] brings everything to the ground, for sure.