![]() city, signaled a new era of long-form, autobiographical prestige rap in Los Angeles. Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 debut, good kid, m.A.A.d. rap at the beginning of the 2010s had begun to fizzle. This was shortly after jerkin’, which was the dominant style in L.A. (Each dropped on June 24, his son Darius’ birthday.) He had just moved into a house at the end of a quiet street in Burbank and was surrounded by whiteboards, soundproof foam, and a small cadre of friends and producers. The first time I interviewed Westside Boogie, in 2016, he’d just signed to Interscope off the strength of Thirst 48 and The Reach, his mixtapes from 2014 and ‘15, respectively. But for a rapper whose writing is so vivid and so economical - I think often of him recalling, on the subdued Superheroes cut “Ratchet Boog Interlude,” how he would wear “shirts oversized so my hunger don’t show.” From some artists, this would be an admission of thoughtlessness for a few, it would simply confirm what a listener could easily infer. The words themselves often come last, he says. He is fixated on sequencing, and on maintaining a dynamism of tone and pace even when working with familiar instrumentation. It’s like magic.”īoogie, who was born Anthony Dixson and raised in Compton California, describes his process as beginning from the non-lyrical elements of songs: their tempos, their cadences, and the melodies he hopes will snake through them. ![]() “I usually feel like I’m gonna have a concept before I even start but it never works out,” Boogie says. But for now, these efforts are embryonic. Less than six weeks removed from the release of his second studio album, June’s More Black Superheroes, the Compton native is trying to stick to an ambitious work regimen (a finished verse and hook for every recording session, “just so I can keep my sword sharp”). It’s an overcast weekday afternoon in August, and Westside Boogie is holed up in a recording studio just off Sunset Blvd.
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