Last week, Rapzilla dropped an article about Joe Ayinde that showed a picture of his heart and motivation for rapping. In this installment, the emcee talks about what he’s working on and what’s coming.
***This interview is from the spring so some information has been updated***
At the time of this interview, Ayinde was really putting in work as an artist. He had dropped the “Holy Moly Remix” and a two-track EP called Lonely Room.
“I’ve really been working, locked in, spending time in prayer, learning myself, and learning why I’m worth it because of what Jesus did,” he shared. “When you start to realize your identity, you just grab hold of something. I’m in that phase now where it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s who I am, got you’. So I’m doing two, three songs a day. I’m locked in like that, along with being a dad, along with being a husband, along with being the sole provider. There are no excuses to be made, God gave me the gift to work this thing.”
He was also doing a challenge where he was writing a song a day. Obviously, that’s a crazy commitment but he was going for it.
“I’m as committed as I’m in that moment. It’s a work in process. I’ve been keeping up with it,” said Ayinde.
The artist said his friends are sending him beats, so at 1 a.m. he sits there vibing behind the mic and brainstorms ideas. Some of these ideas turn into songs and some turn into hooks all while experimenting.
“It’s more so to stretch my creativity, get even more comfortable with my voice, and see what I can do, what God placed in me,” Ayinde revealed. “The growth has been in that, and the growth has been in discipline, for sure. Being able to continue to stick it out like, ‘I’m dead tired, I’m up till 3 in the morning sometimes with these joints. But the discipline is there, and I can’t make excuses. That’s been the joy of it. As of now, I’ve been sending it to people in my circle. I’m getting the website together, getting a bunch of videos together, right now my videographer wrote a movie, so I’m working on that movie with him. We are shooting videos for everything that we are doing. It’s going to be like a flood of releases where there can be a consistent product, whether it be weekly or bi-weekly, and it’ll go up on the website.”
Joe was working on an EP called Blue Collar Dreams produced by Official Stichel, who did Lonely Room. At the moment the project was put on hold. He said that happens with a lot of his projects.
“I had a situation happen with my daughter that caused me to shift the focus of the sound I was going for.”
However, the story of how the EP was coming about is pretty intriguing stuff:
“The way it starts is, I’m rapping about a bunch of luxurious stuff. The wife grabs the keys and then she starts yelling at me in Spanish. I look in the mirror and my hair is gray. I’m like, ‘Yo, what’s up?’ I look for my kids and they aren’t there. I see returned mail from my children, so my children aren’t talking to me. Then the sky is red and black and these monsters fly in. They are like old text threads and things like that. They meet this other monster that is made out of all of my demons. And the monster’s like ‘You’ll never defeat me, you created me and I am your god’, and then I wake up. So throughout the project, I’m trying to figure out if I’m asleep or awake, and I’m learning things in every song, like patience, kindness, and persistence. There’s going to be animation with it, probably turn it into a movie.”
His new focus is on a project called Euphoria. It’s slated to come out on his mom’s birthday, December 14th. That could change if he feels it’s done or not, but that’s the current plan.
“My brother and creative director, Tonye Kay, took over the A&R part of the process,” he said. “I started to test my hand at the current sound and began having so much fun with it. In a nutshell, I chronicled a new found peace and freedom that I have as a result of my sincere relationship with God. I guess I’d call it a mixtape because of the minimal thought I put into the creation process. A lot of the songs were either written in my head on the spot or jotted down in 30 mins. It’s about the realization that good and bad will come. People will be in and out of your life. What YOU have control over are your thoughts, actions, and emotions. That peace that the world can’t give you.”
Today, just because I felt like it. Euphoria is coming. #Ayindays pic.twitter.com/LYVlILrAi5
— #EuphoriaTape 12.14.18 (@JoeAyinde) October 3, 2018
Aside from how Ayinde said growing in New York inspired his style of rap, he explained that a few artists actually sparked an interest in it for him. He cites MC Hamer, Mase, Bow Wow, and the whole Bad Boy era for getting him into it.
“It looked so cool to me,” he said. “It was really Mase that did it, and just the whole flashy everything. I wanted to emulate that. Of course, I was a kid, so I see a Rolex, I see a hat turned backward, I look at jerseys, I’m looking at Bentleys. ‘Oh, I want to rap to do that’. And it just so happened that my parents let me get away with it.”
Now that he explained the start, has he ever thought about the end?
“Have I ever thought about quitting? Absolutely. There was a point where I was thinking about quitting every single day. I don’t know, it’s innate, it’s the gift. I can’t escape it. It’s what God called me to do.”
Also, as someone who is constantly reflecting and thinking about his next move, has he ever thought about what he’d tell younger Joe Ayinde if it were possible?
“Be thankful for the moment. Find joy at the moment you are in. It really comes down to Philippians 4:11. There’s something to be grateful for. If you can even say, ‘Oh, I’m mad’, be grateful on the fact you can speak. Be grateful that the gift of life is still in you.”
He continued, “Keep in contact with your loved ones. Ask them about their day. Pray for your loved ones with intent, not just for them but with them. Communicate openly and honestly.”
