Gallant Shares a Spotify Playlist of the Songs that Shaped Him Growing Up

Complex and Spotify bring you the albums that influenced today's biggest artists. Today, we sat down with Gallant.

So much of music appreciation is linked to nostalgia, particularly in the digital age as we constantly search for ways to ground ourselves in our own roots. For many of us, the albums that we listen to in our formative teenage years will often go on to inform our own sense of style, our friendship groups, sometimes even our personal politics. For today's recording artists, the albums they were obsessed with between the ages of 13 and 19 formed the backbone of their creative identity. These were records that didn't just inspire their own artistic endeavors, they informed their on-stage character, their performance style and ultimately some major life decisions about how, where and why they'd go on to pursue a career in music. As part of a series with Spotify, we spoke with DC-born R&B star Gallant about the records that shaped his upbringing. These are albums that pre-dated the Grammy nominee's time studying at NYU. They came before his eventual move to Los Angeles (where he now resides). They tell the story of a young man growing up in Columbia, Maryland trying to find some other voices to inform him about experiences he'd missed out on, or could never feasibly have. Among the Weight In Gold singer's choices are seminal LPs such as Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope and Babyface's For The Cool In You, mixed with the vastly progressive production of the likes of Brandy's Full Moon and The-Dream's Love Hate.

Listen to Gallant's Music That Raised Me playlist below. 

Latest in Music