It was his 2016 track "What They Want" that introduced most to Russ, but dig a little deeper and you'll discover the 24 year-old rapper has already dropped a staggering 11 albums via his SoundCloud page. With an Australian tour booked in for April, we spoke to Russ about navigating rap's generation gap, fixing the Knicks and his message of self-belief.
Let’s start by talking about the first hip-hop records you ever heard. I read that it was like the G-Unit era.
Yea all the G-Unit stuff, 50 and all that. I don't know how I like initially discovered, I think I saw a video on MTV. I was like 7 or 8.
So G-Unit and Eminem are like the gateway for you. But I don't feel – and, correct me if I'm wrong – but I don't feel when I'm listening to your music, I don't hear that Eminem or G-Unit influence.
That's good. A lot of people would say otherwise, so that's good that you don't hear that. Not that I don't want you to hear it but it's cool to have a different perception.
Having said that, what artists do you feel did have an influence on you?
I don't know. I think that my stuff is such a melting pot of everything. I wasn't listening to hip-hop first, I was listening to whatever my parents were listening to in the house, which was 70s music, The Mamas and the Papas, Earth, Wind and Fire, Bee-Gees ... classic rock bands like Journey. That's where I think a lot of the melodies come from. That's why it was an easy segue into G-Unit because it was very melodic. I can't even put a finger on what really did it. It was a cluster fuck of everything.
It’s an interesting concept; a rapper that kind of missed the 90s completely. Recently at Complex Con we saw DJ Mustard and Vince Staples talking to Raekwon and Pete Rock about the rap generation gap. What do you feel is the advantage for yourself of having missed that period?
I don't know about missing that period, I think it's a matter of awareness. Just cos you weren't there for it doesn't mean you can't go back and listen to it and still draw from influences. I love 2Pac; the cadences of 2Pac. I don't feel like I missed it, as far as when it comes to it having a role in my music making, cos I still went back and listened.
It's funny because rap is still a reasonably young genre. So these older fans and older rappers are still relevant enough to wield influence. It seems like, a young rock fan wouldn’t feel pressure to go back and listen to Led Zeppelin, but these old rap heads kind of force people to check for the 90s acts.
What's crazy though is that you can be successful without it. That's the discrepancy and that's where the issue comes up. That's the issue that people have with. I think that's really where the issue stems from, is that a lot of these new rappers are super successful without knowing any of the old stuff. So then old people 'wait a second, how is that possible?' That's the issue I think.
You're a self-contained artist; writing, producing, mixing. Do you feel like there's going to be more and more artists like yourself?
Yea, for sure. I feel like that's naturally where technology is going. You need to call anyone to make a song anymore. You can figure it all out and sit in your basement and do it. That's what I did.
What were you using when you started?
When I first started like 10 years ago, I was using Garage Band.
And when was the moment you were using Garage Band and thought to yourself, 'I might spend some money here'?
It was a natural thing. When I was making beats, I don't remember thinking about doing it as a career, I just remember that every day I wanted to do it. It's like playing basketball, it was just like, I had fun playing basketball so you're gonna go buy some new shoes at some point.
Speaking of basketball, I saw you said you had a -
Top two jumper in the country [laughs]
And you have the high basketball IQ
Super high basketball IQ
We went to MSG the other night and watched the Knicks play, it was embarrassing. What would you do to fix the Knicks?
I'm not even following basketball now cos I'm on tour; who do they have now?
Melo, Noah, Rose ... it's like they put together the 2012 dream team in 2016.
Yea but like, a lot of those players... it's a team game. You can have a bunch of individually good players but, it doesn't matter. You gotta learn to play like a team. That's what I would say.
So you had 11 albums before Sound Cloud. That's amazing. When was the first one released? Were you like 15 or something?
No the first one when I was 19, it was December 2011.
You've made 11 albums in 5 years, that's unbelievable.
I was putting out a song a week on Sound Cloud so what is that, 52 songs a year. I used to do that exact thing, that amount of music was not new to me, I used to do that just with albums. I would put out 3 albums a year. It ended up being the same amount of songs.
So when you say you did an album, is this something that like a collection of songs that perhaps people in your neighbourhood or something would have somewhere?
It's still available. It's still online. I could take it down, but you can literally go hear my first eight songs ever. And to me, I could take it down in an attempt to like, clean up perception and make people's perception of me be like, only this new shit. But I leave it up cos it's inspiring. It's inspiring to me, I go back and listen to my first eight songs all the time. To like get perspective on how epic everything is right now.
Do you think it would inspire other people as well?
Yea for sure
I feel like, when we look at things like Chance and the level he's got to. He didn't take that traditional rap route of being an open mic guy or a battle rap guy, he was just a home studio guy, and look where he's got. I feel like it's the same–
Well I don't know what his process was, but I don't know if me and him did the exact same thing
So you think it’s a different thing?
Like a nine-album different thing.
You've got a lot of songs, and a lot of diversity in ideas, themes, topics. What would you want your overarching theme to be?
Self-belief. For sure. I started playing instruments before I started making beats, and I was never the best guitarist or the best pianist or the best drummer. And when I started making beats I was not the best beatmaker, and when I started making hooks, I was not the best vocal melody person, when I first started rapping I wasn't the best rapper at all. It was all like, pretty below-average. But I just busted my ass and believed in myself. That's what I would want people to get.
