Teezo Touchdown doesn’t want to sit down.
He’s inside Complex’s Manhattan office a few days before the release of his debut album How Do You Sleep at Night?, and he has a request before cameras start rolling for his interview.
“Can I do it standing up?” he asks.
In every other interview at this office, guests sit on a stool. But Teezo, who is wearing football pads on his shoulders and metal nails in his hair, isn’t the kind of person who blindly follows the decisions of others. Since the beginning of his career, he’s approached every creative decision in his own unique way.
Back in 2020, when our team at Pigeons & Planes reached out to him for an introductory 15-minute Zoom interview, the Beaumont, Texas artist took matters into his own hands and turned the "interview" into a full-blown cinematic experience, responding to the questions in the form of a short film. He even created original songs to answer some of the questions.
In all of my years covering music, I'd never seen anything like it. So when I hear him ask about ditching the stool today, I’m not surprised. I kick it to the side and get ready to begin the conversation. But first, while Complex’s camera operators sort out some technical difficulties, Teezo lets me in on his approach to interviews. He remembers studying interviews with his favorite artists growing up, and now that he’s the one being interviewed, he wants young fans to be able to learn from them. He takes these moments so seriously that he’s subconsciously adopted what he calls an “interview voice”—a result of his efforts to be extremely clear and precise with his words.
As we talk, I notice a yellow sticky note pad and a sharpie in Teezo’s hands. He takes these wherever he goes and writes short messages for the people he comes in contact with. It’s another method he’s come up with to be very intentional with the words he leaves behind, and the stickies have become a signature part of his visual universe. His Twitter account is full of the little yellow squares, and they’ve been showing up in increasingly high-profile places lately. When Teezo played his album for Drake in August, he left behind a sticky note that said, "Teezo just played me his first album," and Drake responded by posting the sticky (and some photos of the two together) on Instagram with the caption: "I just heard some of the best music ever."
How Do You Sleep at Night? arrives after an eventful past few years for Teezo. In 2020, he caught the attention of fans (and superstar artists like Tyler, the Creator) with songs like "Strong Friend," "SUCKA!" and "Careful." Then he went on the road as a support act for Tyler, the Creator’s Call Me If You Get Lost Tour in 2022, followed by high-profile collaborations with everyone from Don Toliver to Lil Yachty to Travis Scott in 2023.
From the beginning, Teezo has had a knack for blending sounds from hip-hop, pop, R&B, and rock in a way that’s somehow both experimental and catchy at the same time. His songs are eccentric and forward-thinking, but they’re anchored by a sense of familiarity and timelessness that makes them accessible.
In an era where artists and record labels are breathlessly chasing every new trend, Teezo Touchdown has done the impossible. He bet on himself, fully leaning into his eccentricities, no matter how outside-the-box they were. And he’s been rewarded with a loyal fanbase, and acceptance from the biggest artists on the planet.
Don’t expect him to stop tinkering, either. Teezo reveals that he scrapped previous versions of How Do You Sleep at Night? before settling on the final version, which centers around a new sound he’s created called “rock and boom.” I would describe it myself, but he’s here to break it all down in his own words.
Teezo Touchdown caught up with Complex on Tuesday, Sept. 5, three days before the release of his debut album. The interview, lightly edited for clarity, is below. Take notes.
It's the week of your debut album. What's your headspace like?
I'm very present right now. I'm very excited, very blissful. I'm excited going through my first press week. It's a perfect storm right now. You've got Fashion Week happening. You've got football kicking off on Thursday, the night before the album. So it's very fitting. I'm just very present in all of it right now.
What is something important you've learned recently?
Just being present and being aware. I've been picking up these common denominators in the people who I've had the privilege of running into. These are the three things that they all have in common that I'm living by now: their hospitality, their professionalism, and their care for their craft. That keeps recurring in this journey. I'm seeing that everyone has that, and I want to make sure I have that as well.
A debut album is an introduction, in a way. So let’s get right into it. What do you stand for as an artist?
Those three things: hospitality, professionalism, and caring for what I do. But also, I've been noticing I have what I call an "interview voice." And this is because… I spent many hours watching Complex, watching all of these interviews, and searching everything but, "How does Teezo Touchdown make it?" Because I always say you can't search your own ending or how things are going to pan out for you. So I want to make sure that my interviews allow the next person to come in and study. And I make sure I don't have any filters in it. So if you wonder why I have the voice on right now, that's what it is. It's in every single interview. I take these very seriously.
After spending years studying other artists and getting inspiration from them… Is there an artist who changed your life?
Yeah, there are a few. Very first, early on, there was Dante Davis, who does some work on the album. That was the first star in my town of Beaumont that I'd seen. He was a star, locally, because he could sing. That was a time where if you could sing, you could make the whole auditorium at the school scream. One thing I picked up from him, other than the technique of singing, was... When he would interact with people, even if he didn't know their names, they didn't know that. He never met a stranger, it seemed like.
Then you skip all the way up to Trippie Redd. He was the person who showed me a very courtside seat of the game, and showed me how to move around. That's why I move around in black SUVs now. I saw him in the studio, treating his studio time very seriously, just knocking out ideas.
Then I think you can transfer over to Tyler, the Creator, just seeing the world-building. I first saw Odd Future at the Woodie Awards in Austin, Texas, then you jump to now, being in an arena, sticking to the same guns that he stuck to when he came out.
Then you jump over to Don Toliver. While I was making this album, I pulled up on him, and the album was probably 70 percent done. I pulled up on him and played him something I made from the night before, and he was the person that told me, like, "Nah, you gotta stand on your album. You gotta stand on what you're working on right now." And then of course, from everyone else, I think it's those three things: the hospitality, the professionalism, and their care for their talent. Everyone inspires me.
When it comes to your own career, what are your biggest ambitions? How big do you want to take this? Do you want to be the biggest star on the planet?
I want to be the biggest star, but also the most tangible. You can always reach me. Like, when I put on this interview voice, if you want to ask how I got here, I can be very transparent. That's another thing [I notice] when I meet these people: They're very present in their journey. They remember little interviews. Everyone remembers everything. People are like, "Yo, don't forget about me," and it's like, "Yo, my memory is so... I know what my fourth grade class smells like," you know what I mean? So I definitely want to be big, but I also want to be accessible.
You recently posted, “As we get bigger, people are going to start using my name for engagement. They don’t mean it. They just really need the numbers.” Can you expand on that? Why did you want to put that out in the world?
Absolutely. I'm glad you asked about that. I will never use these sticky notes and this ink to ever write down anything negative or to belittle anything or anyone. So what I want to say probably can't fit on there... But as I get bigger, I'm noticing that it's not really a disdain for me. My theory is they see someone else championing me and the problem is with them. So on the timeline, they're attacking the people who they see championing me, and I kind of take that more personally. I would rather you come directly at me than the people that support me, because I really love and care about the people that support me. I remember when I didn't have any.
Especially now with the algorithm, I see a lot of, for lack of better words, clickbait, just to rile people up. But that's been a part of tabloids and journalism since day one. When you go to the grocery store—they still have them—you see the little paper magazines with the most outrageous [headlines]. They want people to buy that. Now you don't even have to buy the magazine—you can just get the views online. I just want the people who care about me to know that. Don't take it personally. They really need those numbers however they can get it.
What do numbers mean to you as an artist? Do you use analytics as a tool, or do you try to ignore them?
I think numbers are ingrained in my DNA, just because of when I was born and when I came up. I see the importance of numbers, but I also see the unhealthy side of numbers. I've had days when it brought me down, but I don't really try to focus on it. I love numbers, but I also know the negative effects of it. The other night, I was on the Spotify Artist app. If you click on a certain song, it has a little pulse when there's another stream, and I literally went to sleep with it on my heart… Not for the numbers, just knowing that I can feel when someone just got done listening to my song. So I look at the numbers more as a human-based thing. That's a person. So I don't look at it as a number or a consumer. These are people.
You're holding a sticky note pad and a pen right now. Why do you like using sticky notes to communicate online?
A lot of what I do, I think of what I'd want to see my favorite artists do—even how I do show announcements or interviews. So when I got my first magazine placement, which was The Face magazine shot by Steven Klein, I was like, "OK, the magazine is out; we need to post it. How do we want to post it?" I didn't want it to be just vanity, like, "Yo, look at me in a magazine." So I had sticky notes and a scanner at the crib, and I wrote down a few things and just scanned it. At first, I was literally scanning them, and then I was like, "Wait a minute, it's a square." And the iPhone gives you the capability to crop, so it's just perfect. So that started from there. I wanted to make it personal, like everything I do.
OK, let's talk about the debut album, which is a big milestone for any artist. Why was now the right time for you to take that leap and put this out as your "debut album"?
I was very adamant on calling it a debut. I signed—er, "turned pro," as I say—on Mar. 6 of 2020, and I didn't want to be like, "Oh, I'm doing this EP and then here's the debut album." I wanted to make sure the first thing that I put forth would be my debut. I didn't want to cheat that. Like, if it's a mixtape, it's a mixtape. But this right here is my debut album. This isn't my hooray moment. This is literally just me sticking out my hand and saying, "Nice to meet you. I'm Teezo Touchdown."
What is rock and boom?
Rock and boom is the sound that I'm playing with right now. It's R&B with the intensity of rock. Also, I love my pen, so when I say boom, it's boom bap. I say boom bap not because of the sonics, but just because with boom bap, you know it for the lyricism. And I'm not here trying to rap you to death, but I'm an MC at heart first, and I just love my pen. Also, the boom is going to shake the world. And it's a boom because of my hometown of Beaumont. It's an oil town, so it's a boom.
It's still very early on. I joke with my engineer, like, "Yo, we've got to shorten what this is," but I don't mind making it a long-winded answer, just because it's so new. The sonics are still building, and I'm even building how to explain it, but right now, it's rock and boom.
There's been a lot of talk lately about how we're in the era of snippets and singles, and albums aren't as important as they used to be. You've been ahead of the curve when it comes to making shortform videos and sharing snippets, so I'm curious to hear what you think the main value of an album is in 2023?
For me right now, we don't have any data on it. I haven't put out an official album yet [before this]. I always say if you don't have any data, you're in an exciting place. I've put out an album equivalent of singles, if you take them all together, but we don't know if I'm a singles artist or an album artist. For my first time, I think we did a really good job of putting it together. So when this album comes out, that conversation starts about how the world perceives it. But from my perspective, I think it's a really good and cohesive body of work.
We can talk about it... You all announced the album June 23, because that's what we sent out in the press release. It was [initially] supposed to be July 23, but I always preach about trial and success—not being afraid to scrap anything. So with that album and rollout, we scrapped it out. The people weren't reacting to it. So we just went back to the drawing board and now we have what we have today.
As far as the snippet thing, I've been doing that before. I would literally be in the studio, wouldn't finish the song, and I would call up the videographer like, "Yo, meet me here; let's shoot the video for it and put it out." Then people would be like, "Yo, where's the rest of the song?" And I wouldn't even have it. I always knew that with videos... They needed to see me and also hear me to understand me. And that was way back in 2016. So even still now, with the previewing of the whole album with these short videos ahead of time, I've got to give credit to my manager, Amal Noor, who gave that idea. I was super scared about it. I was like, "What if I'm robbing them of the first listen?" But I think it's working really well. A lot of people are aware of this album coming with that method.
Besides acting as an introduction, did you have any other goals for this album?
No, but once we made this album, what I did notice was... It's extending my hand and saying, "I'm Teezo Touchdown," and it's really just the beginning of a conversation. If you're in a relationship or you have a best friend, all of that started with an initial first conversation for you to get to these long relationships. So I look at this album as that.
I just wanted to put together my first body of work. And I was talking earlier about the other album. We scrapped that because I felt like I was trying to show you everything I could do. But I feel like this album here, especially with this rock and boom thing, it's a more direct [example] of what Teezo Touchdown is offering you right now. I'm not saying it's gonna be forever. This is still just that, "Hello, nice to meet you. How are you?" Even the name of the album is an icebreaker: How Do You Sleep At Night? It's the beginning of a conversation.
What is your favorite thing about the album? Or something you're proud of?
Just being able to go in a room and let other people's talents shine along with mine. If you look at my catalog, I can tell you where the pivot happened. It happened right after "I'm Just a Fan." Just having that conversation in London with Joseph Hill, the CEO of Not Fit For Society, just saying, like, "You've got to have fun with this. When you come in a room, be collaborative. Just because you can produce doesn't mean you have to take over the room. Once you get to this level, everyone's talented. So just let them shine." I think that became a fear, just trying to be super in control. If it's a success or a failure, I wanted it to be on me. But now, what I'm most proud of is how I'm able to communicate and collaborate. The collaborations that you hear me on, I think that's a direct reflection of that. When I go in these rooms, I'm there to serve. I'm here to help. "What are you really good at? What do you want to get better at? Let's work on that." We're not even writing it down like that, as black and white on the chalkboard, but even our conversation, I can tell subliminally. It's just a great conversation, musically and verbally.
You don’t have many collaborations on this album, but you had a lot of guest features on other people’s albums before this. How do you navigate your collabs with A-list stars? How do you keep your individuality while entering their world?
How I navigate it is I'm there to serve. I'm not there to make it a Teezo Touchdown show. I ask like, "What do you want from me?" And they never really tell me, but I just make sure I ask that. They always say, "Yo, do you." But I still wanna make sure I ask, "What do you want me to say in this song? How can I add on to it?"
Also, the lack of vocal collaboration on my album just comes from a place of fear, to be honest—being afraid to ask these people, like, "Yo, would you mind hopping on this?" It's to the point where I don't even get to that point. I don't even make things with people in mind. I don't even plan on asking. But that's something that I'm actively working on and dealing with. Just getting over that fear, because it's literally a fear that I have of asking for things. That's the reason why there's only Isaiah Rusk, Janelle Monáe, and Fousheé [on this album].
One of my favorite songs on the album is "Neighborhood." Where did that song idea come from, and how did you pull that off?
The inspiration for that came from the budget ending, and knowing that these are my last few sessions, so I probably couldn't afford the engineer anymore. So it was like, "This is it—you've gotta wrap up this album," kind of a thing. I want to shine a light on my engineer Andrew Keller, who did a lot of work on this. The vocal production is really good.
"Neighborhood," "Impossible," and "OK" were the last few songs that I did for the album. And that week, it was just like, "Yo, let's take it with all the bells and whistles [off]... And let's just keep me dry, so it's just very, very bare." So for "Neighborhood," I was just telling the story. I didn't see the whole viewpoint of the story and what the whole thing was until I zoomed out. And even a few days later listening to it, I was like, "Oh, this is a song about perspective." The first story talks about the person who has enough to have a TV in his room. He does renovation and he has a garden. The next person has a house, but he boards up the windows and he's not washing the dishes. Then go back to the first person who complained about his door squeaking and the second person has things that are leaking. But the last person, instead of his door squeaking, it's his shoes.
So really, "Neighborhood" is just a song about perspective. But in the moment, I wasn't conscious of it, like, "Yo, I'm about to write this tearjerker story." I was just going line by line. After I had the first story, that's when I was like, “Alright, cool, let me talk about the next neighbor, since we're doing a neighborhood.” I really just let things flow through me in the studio. I'm not like this mad scientist knowing what I'm gonna do. I'm taken aback and surprised by a lot of this when I press play as well.
You said you wanted your fans to wear PJs when they first listened to this album. Why is that?
I think music and memories are very synonymous. So I'm doing that so you can attach a memory to it. Instead of just sitting there playing it, and skipping through, wondering, like, "Oh, this album didn't do anything for me," I want you to physically put this album on. I want you to physically put on pajamas. I want you to call your friends over. I want you to make a memory of this. I think that comes from me being a fan and wondering, why do I love these albums? Why do I love Blonde? Why do I love PartyNextDoor 3? It's because I have memories to attach these things to. So I think that's just me wanting to make sure that when you go into this album, this isn't just a, "Yo, let me click and review so I can be the first to say what I think about it." I want you to really be inside of this album with me.
One of the lyrics that stood out to me was, "I believe in aliens. I don't believe in luck." What’s the meaning behind that line?
I think I use "alien" as something extravagant—this UFO kind of thing—just to say I would rather believe in that than believe in luck. It's more of a diss to luck. Whatever I'm doing... One, I pray for it. And I think if you ask, you shall receive. I got down on my knees and asked for this and prayed for this. So to me, it's not a question of: Will it happen? You know, ask and you shall receive. So if you take anything from me, take that from me, please.
Another lyric that stood out to me was: "Maybe you wanted to be a rock star, but somebody told you you was too old."
Yeah.
I feel like that's a mentality that a lot of people have. Once they get into their mid-20s or whatever, they give up on certain goals. Can you talk about that?
I'm an advocate against anything with the isms—whether it be ageism, racism, sexism, classism, any of that. One thing that I don't like about the world is division. Even as lighthearted as people joking about age or sexual orientation or whatever, even if it's a joke, I also know the opposite end of that spectrum where it can get violent and people aren't being able to provide for their families because of division.
I've seen it many times. Many people told me, like, "Yo, if it don't happen for you around this time, then it ain't gonna happen." And I also tell my friends, like, "Yo, if you're watching me, don't let it [take] however long it took me." Your story is your story. But I want you to be very conscious of... You know that you're not doing everything you're supposed to do to get there. This is your time. This is your wake-up call to do it now. If you're watching or reading this and you let the days go by, this is your wake-up call to go after whatever you're chasing right now.
One of your collaborators on the album is BNYX. It’s cool to see you guys together, because you’re two of the most forward-thinking artists in music right now. How would you describe your relationship with him?
Wow. You see how I lit up when you said his name? I met BNYX like a week before I was leaving to go back to Texas, which I was super terrified to do in 2019. He had just been in L.A. for a month. He was working at the studio. He's like, "Yo, I sleep right here." And he gave me like three beats. I met him through a friend of mine, Keith Lawson, who also helped me on the album. But BNYX gave me three beats, and one of those happened to be "Social Cues." So the very next day, I cut "Social Cues."
When I would come back to L.A., I would go to Keith Lawson's crib, and I would always see BNYX. We would catch up, collaborate, and just be friends. It's been amazing watching him and what he's doing. I can't watch myself do it. Like, I can't watch what I'm achieving and stuff, so I feel that way watching BNYX, like, "Man, BNYX, you got another one!"
I light up when I'm in a room with BNYX. It's the talent, but it's also the person. The song we did, "Sweet," was just a fun day in the studio because I was surrounded by my friends. I had Keith Lawson, who introduced me to BNYX. Then later on that day, we have Fousheé pop up. You know, I always say Fousheé was the first to fly me first class. Ever since we did that "Single AF" video, we would just talk about our careers and everything we're going through, and that was another one of those days. We went back in the room after me and Fousheé talked, and BNYX played one chord, and I had that first line. I basically had the whole song.
I kept saying all day, "Man, there's nothing like working with friends." I knew it was a special day. A lot of times, I'm meeting new people—like producers, engineers—but to grow a friendship with these people and get in the room and do what we love, there's nothing like it. It almost feels like a cheat code.
In the weeks leading up to this release date, you ran around, playing your album for some of your friends in the industry. What was that experience like?
As much as I want the listeners to make memories with it, I'm making memories with it, as well. The first person I played the album for was Janelle Monáe at Wonderland. She had those three things I’ve been talking about. The hospitality she had.... We were all sitting in the studio just playing this album, and afterwards they poured into me and they told me how great it is and what they love about it. Even with Paris Texas, I pulled up on them when they were at rehearsals. I was like, "You know what? I'm going to call us a car and we're about to just ride around." The Camp Flog Gnaw lineup had just been announced, so I was like, "Yo, y'all seen the mural yet?" They're like, "Nah." So that was a memory. We hopped in the car, drove all the way there, playing the album. Halfway through the album, we got out, looked at the mural, and took that in. Then we hopped back in the car and finished the album. So we're just making all these great memories with people.
After you played the album for Drake, he wrote on Instagram that he'd just heard "some of the best music ever." Can you talk about what that moment was like for you?
Yeah, I'll talk about the very high of that moment. Waking up to that and seeing that [was a] very high moment. Because one, his penmanship, how he integrates R&B into what he does, and of course the acting background... He's achieved a lot of things that a lot of artists aspire to be. So as a fan, to hear that was great. But then also that same day, I got this influx of negative comments and stuff like that. So literally the highest day I felt of my career was also literally me bogged up, like, "Dang, they're not really liking the album. Is my album bad?" Literally for a minute I felt like I heard it with their ears. Like, "Wait a minute. What is this? Is this is a Disney song?" [Teezo stops and reconsiders.] Well, a Disney song isn't bad. I'd love to have a Disney song. [Laughs.] But umm... For a split second, I heard it with their ears. And then Monique Avant, my hairstylist, was like, "If you had 100 people that love you, and 10 didn't… Now you have 100,000 people that love you, so you're going to have—excuse my math—but you're going to have that many more people that dislike you.” That was my first time feeling that. But it's over now. Don't try it. Like, "Oh, we know where to get him." It's not going to work anymore. Like, who are you going to believe? Are you going to listen to what Drake said? Or are you going to listen to what User749 said?
What else do you remember from that moment with Drake? What was the energy of that day like?
That day, Monique was like, "Yo, we have to wash his hair. I understand we're busy, but we have to wash his hair." And I was like, "Alright, fine, we'll finally take my hair out." So the day that I finally take my hair out is the day that happened. So that picture is very funny because it's like the one day that, you know... I'm usually always ready. But that was the sentiment on its own. I always tell people—and I tell myself—I couldn't imagine Chance the Rapper posting me in 2019 or Trippie Redd bringing me out to L.A. for the first time or staying at Lil Yachty's house the day before I go sign... I didn't know that this is how it would happen. So I think that was just another example of: I didn't know how it would happen, or even if it would happen. It was just a great moment because like, wow, this album that we've made a million times and scrapped, to hear what he said publicly and to hear that validation, I'm still living off of that moment.
You've done a great job of building a world around your music and fleshing out the Teezo Touchdown persona. How would you describe the difference or separation between the Teezo Touchdown persona and the person behind it? Is there any separation?
There's not really a separation. The only thing is... Greg Phillinganes has a saying that you're never more of an artist than you are a human. So it's just like those days when I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but I have to go do a photo shoot or I have to hop on a meeting. And my team always tells me, like, "You don't have to. Feel free to have those moments." But I think that's the most difficult part about it. I don't want someone to run into me on one of my bad days, and that's that one story that he tells in every single room. So I think that's probably the only downside that I'm dealing with right now, of there not being any separation. I grew up like basically an only child, because all of my siblings are way older than me, so I've pretty much always been a kid in my room, just making music. So that's not really different. I'm very human, so just dealing with those days when I still have to do this... But number two, like I always say, the professionalism. I chose to do this, so if I have a bad day, it's up to me to make sure that before I step out of the hotel room, I correct it. I can deal with that behind those doors.
Let’s talk about fashion for a minute. How would you describe your personal style?
My personal style is... Even today, I'm Marc Jacobs to the toe right now. But it's not just because it's Fashion Week. Everyone that you see me with, I have a story with them. With Marc Jacobs, I always say if you ever see me out of the country, first thank God. Then second, thank Marc Jacobs, because he was the person that got me my passport.
Then… Telfar was one of the first brands to reach out to me, and I'm super spoiled by them and the love that they embrace me with. Then you have Matthew M. Williams. We have the story of "I'm Just a Fan," meeting him, and just having these conversations...
So everything as far as fashion, it's not even on a name basis. I'll talk to Kerwin Frost and he'll say a designer's name. I'm like, "Who?" [Laughs.] And he understands that I do the fashion [things] and I respect it, but I wasn't really versed in it. But now I think I'm getting versed in it in the most organic way, and it's all from actually meeting these people. So with fashion, it's definitely that, as far as the love. But then also knowing that as an artist, I want to make sure that you can identify me and you know what I am. And that you can be me for Halloween as well. [Laughs.]
You dress very well, but I know everyone has things they'd do differently when they look back. Do you have any fashion regrets?
Give me one moment. I'm sure I do. [Pauses to think.] It's not even a fashion regret. It's more, like, I just cringe at a previous version of myself. It doesn't have to be years. It can be like the 2018 rollout. It changes. I cringe a lot. But I always say I use what sticks, and if it falls off, then it falls off. But whatever sticks, I really continue on to the next level. So I don't think I have any regrets, but if you look at the timeline of everything, you can see what I stopped doing. I can't think of it right now, but it's something that I stopped doing.
I’m a big believer in manifestation, and I know you’ve talked about it too. So before this interview ends, I want to give you a moment to look into the camera and manifest something.
Sure. [Teezo takes a few minutes to write something down on his sticky note. Then he folds it up and puts it in his pocket.] Alright, so I'm not going to share that with the camera. But what I will share with you is if you have a dream or something that you feel is unattainable, I want you to write it down first, so you can hold it. You can read it to yourself every day and every night. I wish I could go back home and find it, but I definitely have a notebook where I was like, "Yo, I want a laptop. I want this and that." I want to find it so bad because everything that I wrote down on that, I'm pretty sure I've crossed off of that list. So if I have advice for that: I would say write it down, so you can see it and feel it in your hand and smell it. Like I just did.
Do you have any other advice for young fans watching or reading this?
My advice is to take the three things that I'm taking right now. Number one, hospitality. How is it when people come around you? How do you treat them, even if it's grabbing them a water, like, "Hey, do you need anything?" It can be as small as that or as big as your imagination can go. Number two, professionalism. That goes without saying. If you're in school or if you have a job right now, look at the structure of it. Look how they want you to be there on time. Look at how the dress code is. Take the skeleton of that and apply it to yourself as far as the discipline goes. And number three, love what you do. And if you haven't found that yet, it's okay. Use that time to try things. Just explore as much as you can until you find that thing that really puts a spark in your eye. Make sure that it's something healthy. If you fill in those three things, that's better than any advice I can give you right now. But I'll probably have some more for you in the next interview. [Laughs.]
We can end with a question I've been asking everyone lately... What's the meaning of life?
The meaning of life... To me, I believe the meaning of life is to love, of course, and also to serve. I think “do unto others” is the meaning of life. So whatever you want, instead of waiting on it to happen for you, do it to the next person. And don't do it expecting it to come back. Do it and forget about it. I think we're here to love and serve.
