WORDSPJ Some
封面明星 - Prettyboy 做
創意總監 - Derrick Odafi & Jessica Rushforth
創意製作人 - Jessica Rushforth 和 Derrick Odafi
攝影師 - 芭芭拉普雷莫
視覺總監 - John Serunjogi
造型師 - Malcolm Yaeng
造型師助理 - Gloria Iyare
佈景設計師 - 傑西卡·拉什福斯
MUA - 祝福 Kambanga
STUDIO - 拍攝更多照片工作室
Destroy Lonely doesn’t give a f*ck whether you like him or not. He doesn’t care whether you hate the music he makes and he doesn’t care if he’s not on your top five rappers of all time list. At the end of the day, all he wants is to be a vessel for his raw vulnerability. His jagged and spectral sonics feed into horror, like claws to flesh scraping through a brash lifestyle that he follows unapologetically, with the music bleeding through him into the world, seeking out those who ache in the same places who crave beauty laced with chaos.
Born from the shadows of Opium, the cult label formed by innovator Playboi Carti, Destroy Lonely exists within a new order of rap, trap, punk and hyperpop where peril reigns champion. Alongside his labelmates Ken Carson and HOMIXIDE GANG, he rides the edge between fantasy and fear, feeding his fanbase obsessed with destruction, gore and thrill. Together, a gothic underworld is formed where there are no rules and no order.
With his rise shaped by moments and experiences that he’s had through his life, he was given the chance to walk in Milan for Matthew Williams’ brand 1017 ALYX 9SM after the designer discovered his song ‘1017 ALYX’ from being friends with mutuals. Since then, the two have remained close and an abundance of opportunities have come Lonely’s way such as being inspired to create motorsport-style merch that reflects his strong connection with Alpinestars, collaborations with Marc Jacobs and making music with some of music’s biggest names right now. He cherishes every collaboration and every chance to extend his world into a new medium. Whilst surrounding himself with people who move like him in a quiet, focused and magnetic way, he shapes his identity into something deeper and darker that allows him to live out every fantasy that flickers in the back of his mind.
Prettyboy DO 的星光熠熠
就像第九期的“野火”一樣
WORDS Shenead Poroosotum
“音樂讓我成為一個男人。我一直熱愛音樂，即使是在孩提時代，但更喜歡音樂的時尚方面。大吉、馬斯、圖帕克…… ”
您對於倫敦的觀點是？
P：我經常來這裡，這次因為音樂而不同，我們現在起床了。我愛倫敦，我愛那裡的人，對我來說，這似乎很非洲。從某種意義上說，它就像家一樣。
倫敦和拉各斯有很好的聯繫，你覺得它是什麼？
P：首先，我們這裡有很多自己的人，這裡有很多非洲人。這裡有一種類似於拉各斯的整體氛圍，因為它非常繁忙，非常喧囂。但這裡是一個更高的層次，還有鬥爭。我愛倫敦，但與此同時，這裡的鬥爭很瘋狂，因為他們在這裡什麼都不說，只是內部的。
你在紐約也有經驗，那也是一個你真的必須努力才能做到的地方。
P：我想我所過的生活，我學到的一件事是你不能真的後悔。如果我有某種職位，我不能浪費它。倫敦很忙，就像地鐵一樣，你真的沒有空間，紐約就是這樣，就像 x2 不干淨，比倫敦更堅韌不拔。
回到音樂上來，你是說音樂找到了你還是你找到了音樂？
普：那很深。音樂讓我成為一個男人。我一直熱愛音樂，即使是在孩提時代，但更喜歡音樂的時尚方面。 Biggie、Mase、Tupac……我喜歡 Tupac，我什至有一個像他一樣的紋身。時尚在我的腦海裡一直很重要，同時也是音樂，但我從來沒有把自己看作一個說唱歌手，我把它看作是一種生活方式，所以我到處跳舞、振動、模仿。它的文化，尤其是它的時尚。當我年輕的時候，我可能想成為一名設計師。問題是，在高中時，我曾經寫過很多，詩歌等，陳詞濫調，但總是奏效。在大學裡，他們讓我用英語寫一首詩，我寫得很快，他們讓我把它讀出來，而且很長，每個人都喜歡哇。那個時候我腦子裡真的沒有音樂，但是那個時候 Drake 出來了，Rocky 出來了。我在學校表現不佳，我只是失去了我的女孩和心碎。然後我開始進入錄音室，但直到我覺得它很好而且那是在 2012 年我才發布任何東西，我沒有回頭。
這有點注定，這是一個過程，但你不知道這個過程是什麼。
P：是的，你不知道在遇到人的過程中會發現什麼。事情變大了。是上帝。這是上帝和工作。
除了音樂，你還會做哪些有創意的事情？
P：電影，我導演了很多音樂視頻。我可能會進入電影，這取決於我去那裡的雄心和意願。我真的很想現在開始。
你有造型師嗎？如果不是，它從哪裡來？
P：我只是在 Instagram 上，保存東西然後混合起來。
我們最喜歡你的項目之一是你的 2018 項目，你最喜歡創造它的時刻是什麼。
P：當我回到拉各斯時，我去了伯明翰和洛杉磯，那一次我決定放棄一個項目。然後我和我的表弟進行了一次談話，他告訴我“你必須放棄一個項目，放棄一些東西並了解你的聲音，就像你的單身人士正在流行一樣，你很興奮，但需要了解你的聲音”。太好了，一旦他說我很酷，讓我們走吧，讓我們開始吧。我有一堆我已經錄製好的音樂，去倫敦錄製 2 首歌。去拉各斯，開始和我的孩子們一起錄音，雨果，然後我們有兩個。現在我們可以舉辦一場表演了……我很生氣，我討厭行業政治，如果我們努力工作，你就能努力工作，讓我們去吧，讓我們抓住這個機會。我和我一起去參加一個表演行業 n****s tryna f**K 我很生氣。但演出結束後，我很生氣，我去了他的工作室，告訴他給我演奏一些東西，那個節拍讓我感到最快樂。拉起
With Love Lasts Forever and since the release of the big singles like ‘No Stylist’ and ‘If Looks Could Kill’, how do you feel like you’ve grown musically and in general?
Just by telling my story and getting deeper into who I am. I feel like I’m sharpening my pen a bit and I feel like I can explain things a lot better than I could have in the past, or even word it differently. Like with what I was saying earlier; convey a different emotion, translate it in better ways… Just really even becoming more transparent with my fans through the audio of it, whether it be on the internet or trying to talk on the phone, Tweets or Instagram or whatever, just really trying to share more of who I know I am as a person and how I want people to understand me through the music and just making sure that, as I was telling you earlier, every time I make a song, I’m always putting a real piece of me in it so people can take that and do whatever.
It comes out in the lyrics. You have a line that says, “This ain’t a lifestyle, this is just life”. What’s the difference to you between a lifestyle and just life?
Style changes, style is trends. Style could be today and not tomorrow. The style could be tomorrow and not today, but life is forever, until it ends. So, change is what we’re doing right now, what we’re doing for the fun of it, what we’re doing because it’s cool. This is who we are. N*ggas was doing this before and n*ggas gonna do it after. Like I was saying, I was trying to be this when I was 14 and I’m probably going to try and be this til I die. This is me.
How do you feel like you create balance? You’re a very stylish person and you’re in the know of what’s going on in style, culture and fashion. You have your own life and your own experiences, so how do you feel like you try to merge the two or bring both to the forefront?
I’m always just expressing a piece of me through everything, whether it’s sonically, whether it’s through the clothes I wear, a f*cking picture I want to take for social media, the way I’m talking to y’all, expressing myself through an interview. It just all comes down to just showing people who I am or who I even think I am at the time. We all go through motions and moments. I wouldn’t even call them phases because I feel like they’re all just different versions of myself, but phase is kind of like a style or a trend. But it’s just always, even with the clothes, just expressing that this is who I think I am, this is what I want to look like. And I don’t really give a f*ck what, what anybody thinks.
Setting trends rather than following them as well because you just live your life as well.
Yeah, definitely.
If there was a particular era or time frame that you are plugged into, what would that be? Would it be the past or would it be the future that resonates with you the most?
It would be right now. I’m always gonna be right now. Whether it’s in the past, in the future, I always existed, but I’m here right now.
What keeps you in the now all the time and not thinking about things you probably did before, or things you might be doing in the future?
I think that’s what keeps me here. I’m always constantly thinking about the past and the future. I don’t know how healthy that is, but those two thoughts remind me to always stay right now, because I can’t tell you what’s gonna happen in the future, and I can’t change the past so, I just got to stay right now.
You’ve previously said, in relation to the internet and the concept of the internet, that you don’t really understand it as much or anymore. If you could change one thing about the internet, what would it be?
You know, I wouldn’t change anything because the internet is right now. I feel like if I were to change it, it’d be a contradiction to how I just said I even feel about myself and I can even thank the internet for playing a part in some of my career. So, I can’t really act like, “Oh, f*ck the internet, everybody needs to put their phones down and everybody’s brainwashed” But I feel like people could use it a little healthier, even myself. [laughs]
You’ve said your creativity comes from real life so, what’s happening in your life right now that’s influencing what you’re creating, music or otherwise?
Just growing. Getting older. Becoming a real f*cking adult in this world but I’m still a f*cking kid. Learning from decisions I’ve made in my life and really getting a good feel for feeling like an underdog and being ready just to tell people what I’ve got to offer. I always feel like that. But right now, I feel like that’s a big focus of mine. I just want to continue to drop great music for people and continue to please my fans and just make everything about the music. I don’t even necessarily want to exist past my music anymore. I just want it to be DL and I’m just the audio.
You had an amazing show in London and the stage design was great. Talk to us about the stage design, how you put that together and what you were trying to convey to your audience with that.
Basically, my stage from my first leg was pretty much the same, it’s just a speaker tower. And the first leg I had LED lights around it with my video on behind it, but that wasn’t necessarily part of it. It was supposed to look more like how it looked in London at the European shows. Just minimalistic, how I was just saying about music. It’s just to portray and be looked at as just a great musical artist. I don’t even want it to go too far past that anymore. I just want it to be about music and eventually my stages will get crazier but this time I just wanted the speakers, myself and just the sound. Even with the DJ putting a backing track a little bit because I just wanted to simplify it and make it about throwing a really good show, and people having a good time. It feels like when you arrive at a rave or some sh*t.
You pour so much energy into it and into your performances and your music. When you step away from that, how do you recharge or how do you get re-inspired?
I’m a very still person. I move around a lot, I travel a lot and I’m always working but there are lots of periods and times where I find myself just sitting in my house doing absolutely nothing for days on end or just downloading from the world. Just constantly teaching myself and learning from the world instead of riding my own d*ck all the time. Listening to new music or watching new movies or listening to a whole new artist for a week straight.
“如果我還在做音樂，我認為自己是在尼日利亞從事音樂工作的山羊之一。”
我們看到您擁有很長的職業生涯並領導著新的藝術家。在接下來的 10 到 15 年裡，你在哪裡看到你自己和你的手藝？
P：10 年後我想在哪裡……該死，我會老[笑] 我看到不同的東西，但我認為自己是在尼日利亞在音樂上做這件事的山羊之一，如果我還在做音樂的話.如果我不是，我將擁有一位藝術家，但仍然是有史以來最偉大的藝術家之一。 10 年後我可能會拍電影。也許在我的腦海裡，我可能會試圖獲得奧斯卡獎。那時我認為自己是泰坦，一個家喻戶曉的名字——它甚至不會是我的藝名，而是我的真名。
令人驚嘆，希望製作能被世界記住的一代電影？
P：是的，只是想成為娛樂界的巨人。我不認為自己在商業上有什麼表現，但我會把手伸進去，我知道我會去拍電影。到那時，我認為我不會成為焦點，但我的電影會。
The collaboration you did with Alpinestars blends a lot of that energy with your own vibe. What drew you towards that silhouette and lane involving motorsports gear into your fits?
I pretty much had a real experience in my life. I went to a motorcycle trail, and we were just riding our bikes and I fell in love with it because I never really rode a four-wheeler dirt bike before. That sh*t kind of f*cked my head up because like I said, I’m really obsessive so I was just stuck on that for a while. I was wearing this sh*t as clothes. I recently just bought two bikes and I’m learning how to ride and wheelie and sh*t, going crazy. But like how I was saying earlier, that was something that came from a real part of my life that I just started expressing through the music. I just look at it like “F*ck, this sh*t hard!” I’m really good friends with Alpinestars.
The owner of the brand and his wife, Ms. Denise, they take care of me a lot. We always talk and chop it up about things that we could do together or what they could do with the brand. And they actually took me to F1 probably about a week or two ago. When I’m meeting or working with people or brands, it’s always stemming from another real part of my life. Whether it’s a relationship that I have with somebody or somebody that I truly believe in, or they truly believe in me, it’s always genuine and that’s important to me. Like, I don’t really f*ck with AI and that type of sh*t, I’m not into that.
Is there a particular reason why?
Specifically with AI. Computer generated art is cool, real people create that, but I don’t f*ck with AI because it’s not real art. Imagine if everybody’s like “wow, we really like this artist because they make all their music, this is real sh*t bro” and then the n*gga comes out one day and says “man, all these songs are AI”. That sh*t is fraud. It’s just disingenuous, I don’t f*ck with that.
You and the crew have been very successful with Love Lasts Forever, Music and MORE CHAOS. Do you guys feel like you’re changing the landscape of music?
Yeah, man. That’s why we’re here.
In this new era of music that you’re stepping into, you already have a lot of different aliases such as Look Killa, Top Floor Boss and Dark Lord. Which one are you channelling at this time for the next phase of your career?
I’m on some new Top Floor Boss sh*t, you know what I’m saying? I’m on some new Top Floor Boss sh*t! That’s all.
Dress, TRACY CUI.
Ring (Right Hand), KHIRY
Rings (Left Hand), AGMES
Nose Ring, ARTIST’S OWN.