A lot of people are still connecting me to Smoovie Baby. “I want people to listen to it with an open ear, because it’s a lot of new sounds coming from me. He and Sofasound are continuing their collaboration for Carriér’s forthcoming album, Gumbo & Prerolls - a nod to his Creole heritage, by way of his grandparents, who are from Louisiana. “We were basically curating a new sound for my album,” Carriér said. ![]() The producer extracted a processed, chant-like vocal sample from the uptempo club beat of the original song and slowed it down to create a dark, brooding track with suspenseful, shadowy synth lines that underscore the emotional turmoil of a failing relationship, which Carriér details in his lyrics. For instance, the beat for “All I Know” contains a sample from Beyoncé’s “End of Time,” from her album 4. Sofasound’s pared-down production features subtle details and unexpected twists, which add to the album’s complexity. He and Carriér found each other through SoundCloud and have been collaborating remotely, though Carriér said that working together has been going so well that Sofasound is considering moving out to the Bay Area so that they can collaborate further. Sofasound, a relatively unknown and young producer from Florida, architected the majority of the beats on There’s Been a Change of Plans. With artists like Drake and Bryson Tiller paving the way for male rappers and R&B singers to move away from the alpha-male personae of years past, the project feels aligned with the current moment in hip-hop.Īn important part of carving out a new niche for himself was finding new producers to work with, Carriér explained. He said he wanted to put something out quickly, to introduce the world to his new artistic identity, but that There’s Been a Change of Plans is a more thought-out project - and is more representative of his new, R&B-influenced direction. “I was like, ‘You know what, I need to go in a direction where I can be taken more seriously, and then I can also change the conversation with the stuff that I’m saying.'”Īfter changing his stage name, Carriér dropped Let That Marinate at the end of 2015, a more bass-heavy, danceable mixtape than There’s Been a Change of Plans. “When I was there, I just had a weird energy when I was introducing myself to people,” he explained, adding that Smoovie Baby no longer felt representative of who he was, especially when meeting prominent industry figures at the fest. A revelation at South by Southwest last year prompted him to make the switch. Still, he rose to considerable regional acclaim, and even nabbed a coveted spot on the rap blog ‘s then-annual Bay Area Freshman list in 2012 (Thizzler discontinued its Freshman list in 2014).īut Carriér said that, eventually, he felt like he wasn’t quite being true to himself, so he made the tough decision to start anew. These made for fun party music, but they weren’t quite distinct enough to set him apart from the other members of the collective. With IAMSU, Sage, and P-Lo - another prominent HBK Gang rapper and producer - handling much of his production, Smoovie Baby’s early work consisted mostly of hyphy-influenced club bangers. ![]() Sage eventually joined IAMSU’s music collective, HBK Gang, and the group’s influence was palpable in Carriér’s music as Smoovie Baby. Bay Area rap star Sage the Gemini is from the same town, and the two of them started collaborating early on. He was born in San Francisco and raised in Fairfield, a Solano County suburb north of Vallejo. This lyrical depth is a marked departure from Carriér’s work in earlier stages of his career. “Decisions,” a duet with R&B singer Khyenci Tienne, is rife with poignant observations about how trust issues can break a relationship: They say when you love someone / You ‘posed to take all their flaws and embrace ’em / So many memories, I’m talkin’ terabytes / Why you so quick to erase ’em? On “Focused,” a hustling anthem, he shares candid reflections on raising a daughter with autism. Self-reflective yet confident and sometimes cocky, Carriér’s confessional, stream-of-consciousness raps touch upon a variety of autobiographical subjects. ![]() “I was putting out raunchy material just to see what people would say, whereas now I want to share my experiences in life,” he explained. ![]() He added that as he got older, he began to draw more from his personal life for his lyrics as opposed to relying on shock value. “My music was extremely misogynistic, one hundred percent,” he said, explaining the thought process behind his recent reinvention.
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