Balance might be the best word to describe Bas' artistry, and we just got his best example of that yet. Moreover, he just released his new album today– his first in five years– We Only Talk About Real S**t When We're F***ed Up. In it, the Sudanese-American MC from Queens discusses the heights of his career, the good times it's brought, the struggles with love he still faces, and the breadth of mental and emotional tolls that this life takes on a star– and that life takes on everyone. There's a lot to dissect from a sonic and lyrical standpoint here, with so many themes that are tackled with grace and vivid honesty over a wide variety of moods, soundscapes, and emotive pallets.
Fortunately, the Dreamville star spoke to us in this new interview about it all, and you'll find a lot of insight into his process here. In addition, he goes over the dynamics within his legendary label and his close friends, the spirit of live collaboration, the social and humanitarian issues plaguing his family's home of Sudan, and how he's grown, learned, and processed his emotions through his craft. Bas is by no means an easy rapper to box in, but this conversation yielded a strong sense of constance in every style and life aspect he faces. He enjoys it all with the same level of humility and passion, and that's a rare sight in today's world.
While stuck in heavy traffic in São Paulo for a performance, the 36-year-old still hopped on a call to discuss his new album, talk about his favorite movie of the year, and give us a compelling slice of his amazing career. Why persevere through it all as an industry artist and deal with all the deafening noise it brings? Well, because of the balance he found within it, which makes him fulfilled, happy, and free.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
HNHH: Bas, I wanted to dive right into We Only Talk About Real S**t When We're F***ed Up. I feel like this is very much a statement album from you, and one that really sums up a lot of your artistic values. How did the concept of the album come about, and what inspired some of the material, especially given the distance between this and Milky Way?
Bas: Probably the genesis of it was when I did "Risk" for FKJ. He kind of inspired me, for his project, he had some things he wanted to do that I found inspiration in. [Considering COVID-19], these careers have kind of grinded to a halt, like everyone else. Everyone's routine, their social life, everything was kind of disrupted, and I just found us having these conversations that we had never had before, you know? These are, like, guys I considered my friends for 20 plus years. Brothers, you know, like family, and they were expressing these things and I was expressing these things to them. I just was like, "Wow, this is just something meaningful, this is something relatable. This is something that I want to find a way to bring to an audience." While still kind of protecting people's identities, but it was more so the things that we're going through, the themes of the conversations, these moments we were going through. I wanted to find a way to approach every song kind of from that level.
Do you have a favorite song of yours from this time, whether it was in the writing process or in the recording process?
Oh, man... I don't know if there's one favorite. The last song I did was the intro, "Light Of My Soul," which is produced by Boi-1da. I think I was kind of chasing that [concept] chasing it self-consciously. So I think when that one came along, it just kind of let me know that I had tied that last ribbon and came full circle. Obviously, with the outro being "Wait On Me" and everything I'm discussing on that record, I just felt like it was the perfect bookend.
Speaking of "Light Of My Soul," I did want to ask you about a particular bar that I thought was really interesting off of the album, which was when you talk about "not blaming them boys anymore" after you mentioned that people were stealing from you and Cole. Does that resonate for you when you think about the album's wider themes and how you were thinking about each song?
It's funny, man, me and Boi-1da were having this same conversation. He made a statement that I just loved. He was like, "Sometimes, it's hard not to put on the Venom suit." You know, like, you try to be a stand up guy. You try to do as good as you can by others. But sometimes it's tempting to feel like you've been done wrong, and to put on the Venom suit and let go of all those... But, you know, it's important not to let them compromise you and yourself. Even that line, like, I'm not mad at those dudes. It's a shame, but that's just a weakness in people, you know what I mean?
This has been a really big year for you, Bas, whether it's artistically or personally. When you look back at some of your favorite memories that really defined this year for you, particularly around the creation of this album, which stands out to you?
I would just say there was a lot of live music that went into this album. I did some sessions with my boy, Linden Jay. He introduced me to Lydia– well, I actually knew Lydia, she's part of Jungle, I don't know if you're familiar with Jungle. They contributed a lot to this album. Lydia is on maybe five records and Linden producing, they have kind of a collective from London. We did a lot of sessions just going in and kind of doing jams. I'm writing songs in a voice note, and I'm just kind of watching them and all of what they do. It's like a refreshing departure from getting a beat and writing to it, or someone coming in the studio and making beats.
In a sense, it was really refreshing to create in that environment. I think it pushed my artistry. There's a bunch of times we linked in L.A., we linked in London. We ended up doing "Diamonds;" that was me using the juxtaposition of their soulful sound with a Jersey bounce that my homie Depth did the drums on. So it was kind of fun to expand my sound in that sense. Obviously, a lot of people I work with, whether it's FKJ or Cole, T-Minus, Diesel, you know, we've had a rapport already. But I think every album, I'm looking for a new wrinkle, and they definitely helped provide that and inspired me and pushed me in a new direction.
The reason why I asked you is because HotNewHipHop is doing an Advent Calendar series where, leading up to Christmas, we're gonna do a retrospective on the year with a lot of different artists, interviews, lists, stuff like that. With that in mind, what's some of your favorite media from this year? I know you play a lot of video games, but it can be like an album, a movie, a good book... What were your media obsessions throughout the year that inspired you or you just had a lot of fun with?
Oh man, Oppenheimer. Loved Oppenheimer, that was a great cinematic experience. You know, I always draw a lot of inspiration from film. I mean, on Milky Way, I sampled a few movies. That's just like a headache to clear; I had to kind of learn that lesson. I feel like the way directors kind of build their worlds is something I've always admired and try to do the same when it comes to creating albums. I like to build these cohesive landscapes. Obviously, Christopher Nolan's a G when it comes to that, so I think Oppenheimer was definitely a very inspiring piece of media this year for me.
Gotcha. Did you do Barbenheimer by any chance?
Nah, I didn't, honestly. We were in London doing some press when it dropped. I caught, like, a 10AM ticket to see Oppenheimer. It was, like, the last seat so we just kind of lucked up.
You've also been doing a lot of performances around this time. You're in São Paulo right now, and you were recently in South Africa at the Rocking The Daisies festival with some familiar faces. What do you think is one thing about performing overseas for artists that other artists or the media don't talk about as much? Or something that maybe surprised you about the experience of switching between.
With doing Rocking The Daisies and going to South Africa, I think Africa as a whole is just really slept on from a live show perspective, you know? I think the fans there are just as rabid, if not more excited, to see us. They have a lot less access, you know, so I guess there's less entitlement to it. Or less, like, "seen it all before" kind of vibe that sometimes you might get in New York City or L.A., where you get to see all your favorite acts whenever you want, damn near. It's cool to get that energy out there and just build. That's why I brought a few of the homies last year and this year we brought JID and Denzel Curry and Westside Boogie, MixedByAli. It's cool to see, and to show even those artists that don't even understand their reach, that people have all that love out there waiting for them.
[This specific question and subsequent answer, via email, is from after the interview was recorded.] I’m curious about how “The Sound Of Tomorrow” came about, a collaboration with The Fiends and EngineEars to bring on other artists to perform and kick it at this festival. What was that experience like?
[Via email] We’ve long partnered with EngineEars on previous projects, such as the Seeing Sounds educational workshops. “The Sound of Tomorrow” was our chance to be a platform and bring aspiring artists to perform in South Africa, a country we’ve always valued for its high musical IQ and giant cultural footprint. Our partners at Rocking The Daisies festival shared our enthusiasm and dreams were made true.
I'm glad you brought up those tight-knit personal connections. A lighter question I wanted to ask you is about a "call for help" that you put out in June to wrangle J. Cole back inside, you wrote, "by the dreads, if you must" because he was running up five-figure bar tabs and stuff like that. How does the Dreamville crew balance out this "work hard, play hard" mentality? You all seem so close going through these journeys together and as lifelong friends.
Yeah, the "play hard" part of it, it leads to a lot of inspiration, obviously. Our music kind of runs the gamut: you might hear us do something introspective and more vulnerable, then you might hear something like "Passport Bros." That probably would've never happened if me and Cole weren't in London and Barcelona and Miami on benders, you know what I mean? So I think, with anything, our music is always going to reflect our life, and it's always going to be honest in that regard. You want to be well-balanced in that effect. It's a blessing to travel the world with your homies and be well-received in all these cities and just have a blast. Like, these are the moments we're gonna remember forever, so we got to immortalize them in the music.
That sense of balance is something I've been thinking about a lot with this new album. You do such a great job of not just balancing things out topically, but also in the production. You mentioned Jersey, there are a lot of Afrobeat influences on here, you have your classic boom-bap cuts, you have your more dreamy Jungle-inspired stuff. Did you expect to tackle all of these genres in this way? You've always been very versatile, but did you expect to tackle something like a Jersey beat or something like "Passport Bros," something like "Diamonds"?
That's a great question. No, honestly, I think when it began, it was much more of just a slow burn. You know, the "Diamonds," the "Risk," the "Wait On Me." I knew that I wanted to give it some tempo, some bounce, just just some sonic curveballs. So when I started doing the more Afrobeat-type records, and that tempo kind of opened up the space to do the Jersey bounce, to do the amapiano, it just felt like a way to get there and still remain cohesive, you know? I have songs like "The Jackie" that could've been on the album, but they just felt like they didn't belong. I wanted to find a way to still bring energy and vary the sonic landscape. Everything kind of was built brick by brick, but I think in the beginning, it was just all those slow burn records.
Do you think that came about more from you talking with producers, or it was just sounds that were presented to you naturally? That you were, like, "Oh, actually, I could probably do that."
Yeah, nah, I think the first one was "U-Turn" with my brother DJ Mo, who produced it with his partner Guy. Obviously, "U-Turn" is still super vibey like a lot of the album, but it kind of introduced the Afrobeat element. Once we had that, we were able to grow that into "Testify," which is the amapiano production. I did that with Loma as well and the homie Herc from South Africa, from Johannesburg, and Sha Sha. They're all part of the ecosystem of the Stay Low record label, the guys I do the festival with out there. So everything kind of happened naturally in that regard. Then once we had that, I was like, "Alright, well, let's kind of build this section out a little more." Obviously, I'm from New York, and I've been inspired by what's going on on the East Coast with the Jersey bounce. I had this Jungle sample, and I'm like, "Well, if I did it, how would I make it my way?"
So I had the Jungle sample that they sent me. They sent me to loop and I went to the homie and I'm like, "Man, throw a Jersey bounce on this, let's see what it sounds like." It was cool, honestly. I would say "U-Turn" was the beginning of that whole up-tempo section. Then we built it out. I like to think of albums in acts, you know? I think that act of that album is super important. It kind of gives you that space in the middle that's kind of a curveball without taking you out of the sound of the album. Then the last act is probably personally my favorite. That starts with "Paper Cuts" and goes into "Diamonds" and "Yao Ming" and "Wait On Me" and "Dr. O'Blivion." Those are the mission statements of the album, those last five, six songs, you know?
I like that you get introduced to what it's doing, you get taken on this ride, and then there's that sobering moment at the end. It's also kind of akin to how these convos happen, you know? Like, "Passport Bros" is kind of like that 2AM, 3AM moment where we're lost in the good times. Everyone's getting lit and we haven't reached that point where we make it back to the hotel suite. It's five, six in the morning, we're sitting on the balcony with whatever we got left to drink. That's when the real s**t, that's when the real conversations really come out of us, you know? I think the album kind of mirrors that art of how those nights happen.
One thing that's always impressed me about your music is your balance of melodic, buttery performances and rapid-fire, personal, and braggadocious verses. "Diamonds" stood out to me as a particularly good example of this. Is there any difference for you in the creative and recording process for melody and for verses, or do they both come from a similar headspace in terms of writing?
I think with melody, I don't worry about the words as much at first. It's about just finding the right melody that complements the music and the instrumentation. Then I can kind of devise my words from there, Opposed to something like "Light Of My Soul," where there's something I clearly want to say and get across, that's going to probably be much more pensive in writing. But I think with melody a lot of times, if you're just trying to be on your phone or in your notepad, you can miss the magic, you know? Sometimes you just want to throw the headphones on, turn them up, cut the mic on, and just kind of go with what you feel. At the end of the day, especially when it's melody, you really want the audience to feel whatever it is you're feeling. You want to evoke that emotion. Once you have that emotion that you're going for, whatever emotion the music is giving you, then the words are usually not too far behind. I think the most important part is getting that melody that just feels right.
Would you say that for this album, the melodic elements came about once you had the music laid down, or did you try to plan everything out beforehand?
No, I would say all of them came from the music. I think that first things first is what the producer does, or what the musicians do. That's why I had such a good time recording with Lydia and Linden and that whole U.K. collective of multi-instrumentalists. I can just sit there while they're jamming out, pull out my phone, and just voice note some melodies, you know? That way, everybody can keep jamming. I don't have to stop the session, like, I was just doing a lot of that on my phone. And then I'll kind of deep dive into it after.
That's an interesting process considering how easy it can be to share beats, studio sessions, verses that you record and send back, and two collaborators might not even be in the same room. You can really tell on this album when that live instrumentation is coming together because it feels like it's pulling from so many different places that it might be harder to materialize when you don't have that closeness.
Yeah, absolutely. It was all hands on deck. You know, some of the things I would do, they would add me into what I had heard, or counter-melodies, or just really help bring it all to life. They really helped center on my sounds and my artistry.
I wanted to mention one of your singles from the album, which I think is also among the most powerful songs. "Khartoum" is a song that you reflected on social media a couple of weeks ago on how it means a lot to you. You also mentioned that you were a little bit skeptical about whether or not the message was going to be able to cut through all the noise, which it definitely has for people. You reposted a lot of messages that you got after releasing that song, which speaks about the violence in Sudan, and about everything that's going on. That's unfortunately really within context with what's going on in Gaza and so many other places in the world right now. Why do you think that it can be so difficult for these humanistic messages to resonate with audiences these days, especially within the genres that you're playing in?
Man, that's a great question. I mean, I wish I knew, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm conscious of that, you know? That's where sometimes, you get to like, "Man, like, do people even want to hear this? You know what I mean? Are people even gonna care, can they relate? That's the biggest thing, because you're making music for people to relate to. But with that song, it just felt about a higher purpose. I had to speak for people who are voiceless at this time, and it just felt like something I had to do, you know. I didn't care about the metrics or anything of that nature. Like, we might usually pore over how did this stream first week, and anything you regularly would do with a single. None of those things really mattered. It was more for friends and family that are in that struggle. For my parents who wake up every day and deal with that depression of seeing their motherland torn apart. To my cousins, and everyone in the diaspora that feels the same way. It just felt like it was something I had to do.
Absolutely. I think it really resonated powerfully on the record. It starts off with a very melodic verse, very melodic chorus, and then you really get into the meat of things, ending off with the audio of a news report. Was that a main idea for you with that song structurally, in terms of wanting to ease people into that process? I just found it very interesting the way that you presented it by structuring out the song.
Yeah, to be honest, Adekunle Gold, who's on that record– he's from Nigeria, super dope artist– he came in the studio. This was, like, September, me and my guy Kel-P, we're doing some sessions. Kel-P has produced a few songs for me, including "Ho Chi Minh." [Adekunle] did the hook. Man, I just loved the hook, it brought so much emotion out of me. When I went to write my verse, I didn't necessarily know what I was going to write about. But again, you always let the music dictate the emotion. And then it just came to me. As soon as... I think "Carryin' everybody's ills" was the first bar. That was just months of pent-up frustration and depression about the situation back home.
Like I said, seeing seeing my elders in a way I'd never seen them, speaking to friends that were fleeing the country, family that were fleeing the country, hearing the horrors of what they were going through, and not having anyone to really speak to about it on my end. It's hard for people to relate to that, you know? So until I got to write it– I can't remember, maybe "Live For" on Too High To Riot was the only other time I've really shed tears writing something. I wrote it in a small writing room away from the homies, and I had to gather myself before I even went to record it. It was just such an emotional outpouring for me. It just all came out. I definitely salute my boy A.G. and all the producers that were involved with that. They really set the template that just really pulled those emotions out.
It's also something that the rest of the album does really well; you're very specific with how you relate to issues that can be very general. You know, coming up through struggle, love, a national issue of violence and poverty. I wanted to ask you about how you kind of reached that specificity. I think that it's through specifically learning about issues like what's going on with your home country of Sudan that actually helped folks reckon with some of the very different issues that might be going on for other communities. Through that specificity, you do end up kind of reaching something universal, and I just wanted to kind of get your thoughts on that and how you think that contributes to your art.
Yeah, I think that's why I named the album We Only Talk About Real S**t When We're F***ed Up. I wanted every subject to be able to tie back to it. Even if it's testified as more of like a sneaky link. Like you're drunk-texting at 3AM and you're trying to link with this girl, essentially. It's still one of those things that happens in those moments. Whether it's "Khartoum," where that one doesn't even speak to being f***ed up from a drug or alcohol-induced way. That's just being being f***ed up mentally, in your soul, in your spirit. Being down bad. I wanted every song to be able to tie back or speak from that perspective. Like you said, that is relatable. Then I wanted to make sure I varied the subjects because I wanted to really give the concept depth, you know what I mean?
Everything from "Light Of My Soul," which is me trying to maintain my better nature in the midst of continuously getting taken advantage of for my better nature. Or "Decent," which I'm learning as I grow that there are no perfect partners. Everyone has their ups and downs. You really just want to find someone who's decent at the end of the day, like someone who you can trust to be a decent person. All those themes and all those subjects have a root, and that's what the album title signifies. Even "Home Alone," where Cole is speaking on his childhood trauma of realizing at five years old that he's the man at a house because somebody's trying to break into his crib. I'm speaking on some of the things I went through in New York when I was running around in the streets and had an attempt on my life.
Those are really traumatizing moments, you know, for both of us. Those are convo that are almost impossible to have sober, you know what I mean? But they come out of us when our guard is down, when our inhibitions are down. When we feel safe enough or confident enough to speak on it. The majority of the subjects on the album were not easy to tackle at all, but they were incredibly fulfilling artistically.
I'm glad that you were able to find that fulfillment and work with people that, as you mentioned, really fueled that and inspired you to go in those lanes. I wanted to bring it all the way back to 2013, when you released your second mixtape, Quarter Water Raised Vol. 2. You also featured on Cole's Born Sinner along with 50 Cent. Looking back at those days when your career was taking off and you were finding these connections and these audiences that would be so important to you, what do you think has changed the most about you as a person and artist since then? What would you say is something that has remained very constant for these past 10 years?
I think what's changed the most is that I'm fully past my 10,000 hours. Then, I think, I had the benefit of guys like Cole, Ron Gilmore, and the producers that I was working with that had put in their 10,000 hours and were developing me as an artist. Therefore, they helped me kind of speed along in the process. Obviously, since then, my ability with my pen, my ability with my voice, my ability to implement my opinions into my sound, and being able in a sense to help produce my sound has grown. But I think what's remained the same is, even from my earliest mixtapes, I was rapping on Jamiroquai instrumentals. I was jumping on U.K. garage. In my soul, I was always building this very expansive sound that I'm thankfully looking now in retrospect at how it's kind of kept me out of a box.
It's helped me build the fanbase that respects and admires the risks that I take sonically. I see sometimes in my peers, that's not so much the case. Even if they're dope at something new, people don't even give them the chance because it's like, "Yo, this is the version of you we want, the version of you we've grown to love, and we don't want to hear nothing else." I almost feel bad for them, because that's so limiting for an artist. I think that's one thing that I'm thankful that I did from the beginning, just kind of opening up the sonic pallet.
Obviously, this is in a very different way than what you're doing as well, because you play with so many different genres and so many different styles and do them all in your very own way. But I can't help but ask if you're looking at all the really bad Twitter takes on the new André 3000 album and feeling that way.
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a perfect example. Even though like, man, to me, André is one of those guys who's been doing things left of center forever. So it's like, I'm not surprised, and he absolutely deserves to do this, you know what I mean? He absolutely deserves to do whatever he wants creatively, and I'm here for it. It's gonna get my attention, it's gonna get my play. Was this album for me? No, I can't say it was for me, necessarily. But that's what the guy wanted to do, and he deserves to do that. I don't know what the takes are on Twitter, so I'm not really sure what you're alluding to. But I played it. I definitely listened to it.
You can imagine the whole thing of like, "André, there are no bars, we wanted you to rap, blah, blah, blah." It's that kind of thing of expectations from the fanbase and everything. But I do agree that you've done a really good job of always presenting that genre shift. Just being very creative with it in a way that I think has pulled your fans in this really interesting way.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
I'd be remiss not to close off with celebrating hip-hop's 50th anniversary. What was the thing that got you into hip-hop, whether it's the music, the culture, or the history? What is something that you would show somebody who wants to get into this half a century run in 2023?
I would say, for me, Pharrell and The Neptunes. Growing up, I listened to a lot of music. I think one of the first albums I bought with my own money was Daft Punk's Discovery. So when I saw Pharrell in that world, and then The Neptunes in that world, and then how they built their sounds in the streets from almost an electronic sound, it heavily appealed to me. But then, you know, Get Rich Or Die Tryin', that was a big moment. I think that's what I would play for anybody. Like, if some aliens landed from Mars next week, and they were like, "Play me one hip-hop album," I'm putting on Get Rich Or Die Tryin' without a doubt.
That's a great answer, and I think those are two core strains that are essential to a lot of hip-hop today. Well, Bas, thank you so much for this! Is there anything else that you would like to add or shout out or speak about?
Nah, man, I appreciate you. Those were hella well-thought out. I'm glad, and the way you received this album got me even more excited to share it with the world.
