Raury (Atlanta) talks personal and artistic growth, debut album, and Tom Morello

It’s not easy to overlook Raury. He certainly wouldn’t overlook you. The 19 year old musician seems to place an actual, genuine connection with his fans as one of his highest priorities, right alongside helping steer the young and impressionable – along with himself – away from the piles of negativity thrown at them everyday. It’s hard to find such a young artist with that much heart and vision; a creative who questions himself as often as he does everyone else, and actually puts that vulnerability and desire for continual growth in his music. That’s very rare in hip-hop.

While he was in Sydney for Optus RockCorps, as well as to promote his debut album All We Need – which is out in Australia as of tomorrow, Friday 16th October – I sat down with Raury to find out how he has grown as an artist since his debut mixtape, Indigo Child made waves last August. We also had a chat about the sound of his new album, his message, the dichotomy in his music, and just how the hell he managed to get Tom Morello on All We Need.

Raury’s first time to Australia was earlier this year with Laneway Festival, one of the few keeping the unique travelling-festival concept alive in this country. “That was really amongst my first extremely serious festivals”, Raury reflected, “and for it to be out here in Australia. That was so dope! I got to meet and get close to people like Vic Mensa and I saw [FKA] Twigs like 8 times”. Connections aren’t the only thing Laneway allowed Raury though, as he told me; “it helped me gain a lot of confidence as a performer and ever since then I feel like I’ve been better.”

It’s hard to picture Raury with even more confidence than he had at Laneway; his set was one of the most talked about of the tour, for not just me, but just about everyone who had the good sense to check him out; the most endearing thing being just how much presence and confidence he exuded on stage. “I’ve got a lot more control and the songs are ordered in a more effective way”, he ensured me, adding that when he gets to perform the material from the new album things will get even bigger – “the stuff that gets performed from there…oh man, just you wait and see”.

“I feel like the music I’m making now is leaps and bounds ahead of what I made back when I was 17 going on 18, recording out of a closet with very little resources.” Raury recalls the whole process he went through trying to get his mixtape out; “I was using like the last dollars of my manager’s paycheck. We made that project when I was struggling, we weren’t in the best position”. Things have obviously changed for him though – “now I have so many more resources and I’m much more of a confident person when it comes to writing and how I’m going to perform it.”

One such resource that he mentions is access to big name, veteran producers who want to work with him. Since putting out those seven songs and watching his own profile skyrocket from stages to social media, Raury has been able to work with the likes of Dangermouse, Jacknife Lee, Malay, and Daytrip, all of whom he described as “senseis”:

“When I made Indigo Child…doing shows and stuff like that…I didn’t know how I was going to do that! But now that I’ve done that not in the back of my mind anymore. And when it comes to making my music I’ve now had the help of like Dangermouse, Jacknife Lee, Malay, Daytrip…these people are like senseis which helped me solidify and crystalise all this creativity that I have. Helped me get close to mastering it.”

And it’s not just Raury’s undeniable talent as a musician that he is talking about. “You know, I feel like I’m just a kid with a lot of creativity. I don’t even limit myself to being a musical artist or anything like that; I’m just a person with a lot of creativity, and how I’m channeling or mastering it is up to me to figure out whether it be through music or any other art form or lifestyle.”

It’s clear that Raury likes to think well outside of the box when it comes to his talent and what he plans to do with it. Such thinking has kept him from constantly releasing music to capitalise on the success of Indigo Child. When the conversation steers towards Jay Electronica – another emcee on Raury’s list of dream collaborations – and his very scattered output, Raury discusses the age-old idea of value.

“When you’re an artist with a message it’s just a whole different ball game. You don’t just drop your song and show up in clubs and party and all that. There’s a whole ‘nother way of working it and making sure your stuff has value. I released Indigo Child last year and haven’t released a project since. That was my first seven songs, and seven songs have taken me from U.S to Europe to Australia and back. You know, you have to let it sit there and let it cook. My approach to releasing music and marketing it is a lot more personal and a lot more in line with the type of music I make.”

I told Raury that the thing that I find most impressive about his material – especially at his age – is how well he balances both style and substance, whereas in contemporary music you usually only get one or the other. The message and how he conveys it in his music are of equal importance so I wanted to be clear on what overall message he wants to get out with the new album. Raury responds:

“I’m trying to…man, there are so many kids like my age, 19, but also 18, 17, and 16 that are in this extremely transitional phase in their lives. And it’s so easy to find our identity in the wrong thing. I remember when I was 14, I was in a very dark place, but Kid Cudi’s Man on the Mood album helped me identify myself as a different person, a person who was okay with being different and being me. So It’s very easy and it’s very common for a lot of kids my age to identify ourselves in pain and in negativity. and once Cudi’s album affected my life like that, positively, I just wanted to affect other people like that! And we’re talking about the future, the era that we’re in. We’re the kids of the internet age. I’m going for that 12 year old, going for those 13 year olds who will be in a whole different game five years down the road. My goal is to let the kids know that they rule the world, and they really have the world at their fingertips with this whole new era that we’re in. You know, and that’s why I call us the Indigos or whatever you want to name us by. And we’re all finding each other; like Jaden and Willow of course, Tavi Gevinson, Malala Yousafzai who won the Nobel Peace Prize…what I’m saying is like, that’s what my message is, that us kids are way more powerful than last generation’s kids and we’re only going to get stronger.”

Talking about this transitional phase, we discuss how easy it is to lean on the side of negativity with social media and such, and that kind of dichotomous dilemma kids are faced with is mirrored in Raury’s own personal conflict, which he in turn puts in his music. Last year’s “God’s Whisper” is counterbalanced by this year’s “Devil’s Whisper”, which he wrote soon after he returned to the U.S from Australia. I asked him why having this duality is important to him:

“Yeah, all these songs are my story. It’s like, on the day I die if you play every song from Indigo Child to whatever the last album is, it’s going to be a photo capture of my life. Devil’s Whisper I wrote as soon as I got back from Australia actually, and it’s about how I get up here and see so many different paths, and I could have easily changed a billion times by now. I could have fell through some pitfalls a thousand times by now, there’s all these temptations to try and stray me away from who I really am. Devil’s Whisper is like the left-side telling me that I could take these routes away from myself. The first verse is the devil talking to me, and the second verse is me and my realisations; what I’m writing is the opposite of the same stuff that makes people want to ‘spit tragic’ and glorify murder and stuff. It’s all about honesty. God’s Whisper told me to chase my dreams. Devil’s Whisper told me stop chasing my dreams.”

Along with songs like “Devil’s Whisper”, Raury also has a track (“Friends”) with the one and only Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine. How did Raury manage that collaboration and why did he want Morello on the album?

“I just knew the ethos of what him and Rage Against the Machine were doing in the 90’s. Coming off the cusp of rock in the 80s with all the sadness and darkness; a lot of kids in that era were finding themselves in the darkness of course. Here we are again, but it’s not with rock and roll, it’s with hip hop. We’re in a dark society and what I’m doing is along the lines of what Rage Against the Machine came out with the message like ‘we aren’t going to be about this, we’re going to be about this.’ And Tom was a fan, man. It was surprisingly not as difficult as I thought it’d be reaching out to him. He got back with the guitar solos and the pieces within like a week! I just thanked him earlier today actually.”

All We Need is available as of Friday 16th October. You can find it on iTunes HERE

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Chris Singh

Chris Singh is an Editor-At-Large at the AU review, loves writing about travel and hospitality, and is partial to a perfectly textured octopus. You can reach him on Instagram: @chrisdsingh.