Anderson .Paak is doing it for the love of Cali

After spending a long time putting his talent at the service of others, Anderson .Paak has transformed into a flamboyant artist, showcasing his native California album after album. A conversation with an artist who didn’t necessarily see himself in the spotlight.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN FRENCH ON YARD.MEDIA

"You interviewed Anderson .Paak? That must have been cool, he seems like such a warm guy," reads the message I receive after teasing this interview on my personal social media. A perception based on no concrete evidence, yet one that almost always comes up when discussing the Oxnard native. The ultimate “radiant” artist, Anderson .Paak exudes warmth. There is an undeniably positive energy in both his personality and his lively music, which convinces us that he must be a great guy—even if we can’t quite explain why.

But is that really the case? Fifteen minutes of interview time might seem too little to truly grasp someone’s character, yet our conversation with the man who once called himself “Breezy Lovejoy” at least confirms this initial impression. We discover a man deeply devoted to his passion and his loved ones, someone who carved his own path from the background to the spotlight. This Friday, April 12, he releases his new album, Ventura, once again named after the California he cherishes so much.

You started music as a drummer, but drummers aren’t really the ones under the spotlight. Could you have imagined staying in the background your whole career ?

I thought I would. I wasn’t really into the spotlight in the sense of being a frontman or a singer. At first, I fell in love with the drums, then I just fell in love with making people dance. That's why I started djing and producing at a very early age. I was pretty content with being in the background and being a part of what makes the music tick. Then I started developing myself more as an artist, and I also fell in love with the whole journey of getting better at it. I remember people telling me like: "You should stick to drumming and do just what you know you’re the best at". But that made me wanna do the other thing even more. When we looked for a drummer to play with our band, we were so picky that I ended up playing the drums and singing. We eventually thought it was something that made us unique, and coming from Los Angeles, we know how important it is to find something that only you can do. That's one of the reasons why I kept playing the drums.

Have you ever seen music as a way to just bring food on the table ?

Absolutely. I didn’t want to get a regular job nor to work for somebody else. My mom was an entrepreneur, I watched her start her own business and work night and day, and I think that influenced me. By the time I became an adult, I tried different things : selling shoes, selling groceries... All kinds of different things. It was like hell. Then I started playing drums at the church and getting paid for that. That was really the first time I realized as a teenager that I could get paid for doing something I love. But when I had my son, I knew I really had to step it up. I just couldn't get by of a couple hundred dollars a week. That wasn't gonna be enough to get my family the life that they deserved to have. So I started putting it over gear and realizing that it wasn't just gonna be about my  talent. I needed to start getting my businesses intact and figuring out how I was going to put my music out and make it digestible to a large group of people, without compromise.

Everybody can take lessons and learn how to play an instrument or a partition that already exists, but it’s not up to everybody to create something from it. Is that what made you an artist ?

I think what makes anybody an artist is putting 100% into whatever he or she does, and not having one foot in and one foot out. When I started with the drums, that was the only thing that separated me from the best drummers out there. I was going to college with some of the most talented musicians I knew, but a lot of them were just happy with playing for another person or playing someone else’s music. That wasn't what I was into, but it took some time for me to develop that confidence. I think I was just stupidly crazy enough to just believe that my own music was good enough to not be dependant of another artist. I didn’t know when nor how it was gonna happen, but I knew that I was going to put everything I had into myself. And when I look back now, playing in these big arenas, I feel like everything that came to my life was a byproduct of that focusness towards my passion and my dream. Not everybody can do that. A lot of really skilled and talented of musicians have their own music as well, but sometimes they kinda shy to put it out or even present it. I went through times where I held that back too, but I felt like I was living beneath my purpose. I was lucky to have people around me that help me digging in to what I had to find the confidence I needed to do that year after year.

In may 2018, Dr. Dre said during an Instagram livestream that your major debut album will be titled Oxnard Ventura. We ended up with Oxnard coming out last year, and Ventura in 2019. What happened?

Man… It was supposed to be a double album, but I was getting a lot of push back from the labels because people thought it was a lot of music to digest at the same time. Plus around the time I thought it was finished, Dre felt like we had a little more time to go on it so we couldn’t get it out as earlier as I wanted to. We finished the mix of both projects at the same time, but the idea of getting it all together got lost in the process. That's why Ventura took a little more time than we expected.

From Venice to Malibu, Oxnard to Ventura, California is at the heart of your work. How does it keep you inspired after all that time ?

I mean it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. I’m able to travel across the world, see all kind of different places and realize how blessed I am to have been growing up in a place like this. A place that is a hub for people with ambition and people that want to be progressive, and has such beautiful weather. Everywhere I go in the world, people just like letting me know, "I want to get out there," even in places that are not even that far. There’s people in Arizona that dream of going to Los Angeles and it’s right across the street. I’ve seen a little bit of pieces of my city all over the world but there’s no place really like it to me. So I’m just paying homage to the place that birthed me and my musical personalities.

Aren’t you afraid of going around in circle at some point ?

No, because I’m done with the beaches after this. After Ventura, no more beaches. I swear. [laughs]

Soon after Malibu dropped, you signed a contract with Dr. Dre’s label Aftermath. Can you tell us the whole backstory behind this encounter ?

I got a call to come in the studio and work with Dr. Dre on his album. I didn’t believe it. I was like, "I ain’t showin up, I know what this is about : I'm gonna go to a studio, writing much music that’s never gonna come out. I don’t feel like doing that no more." I was doing my own thing. I had a single out with my group NxWorries called "Suede", I had Venice out, and I was almost done with Malibu, like maybe 60%. I was really focused on that, but I've been told, "No, you should come, you should really come," so I show up to the studio and the first two people I meet there were D.O.C and Dr. Dre. Now I'm thinking, "Oh shit, this might happen." Then I meet King Mez and Justus and I realize they were working on what would be Compton.

They told me that they loved my song "Suede" and then they let me hear some of the stuff they were working on. They first played "All In A Day’s Work", but only the beat. I was already down to write something but they stopped me and said, "You know what? We gotta play your song for Dre first, he ain’t even heard it." I didn’t know if he was gonna like it or what. So Dre walked in, they played the track for him and he ran it back like three different times. After the third time, he’s just like "Alright, let’s work!" So they threw on the beat and he started telling me some advice, some of his ideas for the song. I went to the booth, I closed my eyes and I tried to freestyle something, cause that’s what I was used to before I got into Dre. So I went off the top, and when I opened my eyes, I looked at Dre and he was like, "Woooooo man!" We’ve been working together ever since.