What can’t Denzel Curry do? He’s still trying to figure that out.
The multi-talented rapper, cartoonist, anime expert, and bombastic performer is sipping coffee on a mid-September afternoon in Complex’s Manhattan office, playing a bunch of unreleased songs for me. It’s early in the day, but his passion for the music wakes up the room as he raps his verses. (Without revealing too much for now, Curry is bringing artists from different pockets of rap into his world, and each song sounds distinctly different but comes packed with his patented energy.)
Curry has been busy lately, dropping a flurry of singles over the past couple of months, including “Sked” with Kenny Mason, “Woo” featuring PlayThatBoiZay and Chief Pound, and “Blood On My Nikez” alongside Juicy J. And that’s not all. He also did a Tiny Desk in June, performed with a live band at New York City’s legendary Blue Note jazz club in September, and put on a more traditional show in Dubai in October—all strengthening his claim as the “greatest performer alive.”
“When it comes to me saying how I think I’m the greatest performer alive, I genuinely mean that shit,” he explains as he swivels on a black chair. “I know all my lyrics, not backing tracks or none of that shit.”
Curry has every reason to be confident. The Florida rapper has grown a loyal fanbase from the ground up, making music since he was 14 and building on the success of his viral song “Ultimate” in 2015 to release several successful albums and mixtapes, including his 2022 project Melt My Eyez See Your Future. “That’s the best album I ever made,” he says now. “Everybody will argue, but for me, there are literally no flaws on Melt My Eyez See Your Future. Every track was intentional, everything that I wrote was intentional. There are no wasted bars—even the beat selection and the way I did the videos and marketing. That’s why I think that’s my perfect album.”
One of Curry’s secrets to success is his willingness to experiment with different genres on each project, which is an effort to fight boredom when making music. That was a piece of advice that his favorite rapper of all time (André 3000) told him during a conversation in 2014 that changed his career trajectory. “If it weren’t for Andre, I would have never thought to try and do dancehall, which ended up becoming a verse, then that verse ended up on a beat that turned into ‘Ultimate,’” he explains. “The whole dreads and look that people know me for, was all developed after that conversation that I had with Andre.”
Now, Curry has his sights set on his new era, which will be predicated on exciting features, experimental sounds, and lots of “energy.” He explained on Twitter that he wanted to tap into some “Datpiff SoundCloud shit” by consistently releasing music with different features. While he’s not even sure if these songs will end up turning into a full length album or not, he’s being very intentional with how they’re made, despite being one-off tracks.
In an in-depth interview, Denzel Curry spoke with Complex about the origins of his Instagram handle “denzelcurryph” (finally revealing what the “ph” stands for), finding out Smino was his cousin, his thoughts on Elon Musk versus Mark Zuckerberg, and much more. The interview, lightly edited for clarity, is below.
You’re in town to perform at a jazz club with a full band. How has that experience been?
It’s been pretty cool, because for those who have been to my shows, they know there is a lot of energy. I’m doing spin-kicks on stage, rapping everything, and trying to work the stage from left to right. But I’m at a jazz club thanks to Robert Glasper, because the first time I ever did the Blue Note was with him, and I took what they were doing. It just felt like a right of passage, because everything that I was making on Melt My Eyez See Your Future was influenced by the stuff that was being made around the corner from the Blue Note at Electric Lady. One of the songs that made it on Melt was also crafted at Electric Lady: “Melt Session #1.”
Did your Tiny Desk performance with a band feel like practice for this?
I wouldn’t say that was a practice because that was in real time. It was just gearing me up to continue doing it, and also doing the “Live From Komodo City Cafe” thing that I made up. There’s no such thing as a Komodo City Cafe; it was just supposed to be a part of the aesthetic. But all that stuff did prepare me for what I was going to do at the Blue Note eventually, because I wanted to do the Blue Note after I was with Robert [Glasper] and them. I just wanted to do stuff with a live band, and after [Jimmy] Fallon, it really geared me to do this because I had to learn the band and build that chemistry with them.
You recently tweeted that you’re the best live performer in this generation.
And I mean that shit. The only thing I need to do now is pick up an instrument or something, but that’s how I feel. You can say whatever about my music—I know my music is good. I don’t really have to tell people that. But when it comes to me saying how I think I’m the greatest performer alive, I genuinely mean that shit. I do all my lyrics; no backing tracks or none of that shit. I bring the same energy to every show, with or without theatrics. I’m GOATed in that shit.
What do you think of the next generation of artists making moshpit music, like Yeat, Destroy Lonely, and Ken Carson?
I fuck with it because the music is just going to keep changing. I met Destroy Lonely, super cool dude. We were out in Europe and they were all just bringing that energy. The beats that they be picking are really good, too, and they just go out there and kill it. I haven’t seen Ken Carson perform before, but everything that [Playboi] Carti is doing with the Opium guys, I support it.
You’ve always been really tapped in with your fans, and you’ve been letting them into your musical process even deeper with your recent tweets. Why’d you want to do that?
Usually I just be keeping shit in the vault. When I make music, I don’t give it out to people. I try to perfect it, and if I didn’t perfect it, I’ll put it on an EP. That’s why you have EPs like 32Zel/Planet Shrooms, 13, and Unlocked. Even with Unlocked, none of those songs were finished. We just felt like we wanted to put a concept around it, with them feeling like leaked tracks. Even when it came down to the original 13LOOD 1N + 13LOOD OUT, those songs were ones that did not make the cut or weren’t finished. But with this new stuff, I want to actually make the songs, let people into the process, show them how I make songs, and if it doesn’t hit the same way, I’m going to keep throwing shit out until you start getting it. Either way it goes, I just want to give the fans the music. I want to be able to drop music in real time if I’m not coming out with an album. And as of right now, I’m not.
How much unreleased music do you think you have in the vault?
It’s probably in the thousands. I make a lot of songs. Some songs are finished and never released. Some songs are just okay, and there are songs that other producers got from me that I don’t even remember. That’s how much music I make.
How surprised were you when one of your fans found your first mixtape Curry Wuz Here that you dropped in 2011, back when you went by PH CuRRy?
No, no, no, no. No! Well, I guess this is how motherfuckers are going to find out what the “PH” stands for in “denzelcurryph.”
I made Curry Wuz Here because I was a massive Big K.R.I.T. fan. Partially why I made King Remembered was because “King Remembered In Time” is the acronym for Big K.R.I.T.’s name, so that came later. But Curry Wuz Here was my first shot at doing shit. I don’t know how they got that mixtape. I took it off the internet, and there [should have been] no trace of it, but somehow someone found it. It was me at like 14 making these songs and shit, and I was a Killah Priest fan for the [song] he did on the GZA album, “B.I.B.L.E. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth).” That song solidified it for me.
I hate the fact that I’m admitting this, but the “P” stands for Priest and the “H” stands for Hood, and then you got Curry. It was the wackest name I ever thought of, ever. I didn’t even go by my real name at first. It was “Denzel Aquarius Killer Curry” right after that. The moment I decided to go by my real name, things started to take off.
I was into music that everybody wasn’t into at the time. When everybody was listening to Jeezy, [Lil Wayne], and Ye, I was listening to MF DOOM, Big L, Killah Priest, GZA, and Ghostface Killah. That’s what I was listening to before. And then you got Lupe Fiasco, Pharrell, Kanye West, Weezy, and Young Jeezy on top of that. Then you have the stuff that my brother put me on to, like Gucci Mane, Waka Flocka, and all that stuff. So when I went by my real name, I just kind of abandoned all of the shit I was listening to before and started listening to Curren$y, Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Juicy J, and then my brother went to college and I was hooked to all of this.
DatPiff sounds like it was pivotal to your music discovery growing up. What was your reaction when rumors were swirling a few months ago that it was shutting down?
I didn’t have a reaction until now. That shit happened? DatPiff really is important because my first three mixtapes were on there and that’s where I heard a lot of shit from back in the day. The crazy thing is, I didn’t know about DatPiff until this guy, his name was 758 Stick Up Kidd, and he was dropping mixtapes on there. He and all the 758 guys were dropping their music on there and he was just killing the shit. That’s what made me want to do mixtapes like that. It started out with PH CuRRy, me and my brothers did this thing called Batcave family, and then when he went to college and I got kicked out of art school, I did all the Raider Klan shit and deleted all my old mixtapes because they weren’t gaining any traction. That’s when I was getting into Three 6 Mafia heavy, too. I was listening to Lord Infamous every day. That’s a nigga who I wanted to rap like. The first album I ever bought was a Lupe Fiasco album, but the nigga I wanted to rap like was Lord Infamous.
You’ve talked about potential albums like Designed By Angels in the past year, but then you said it might not be the next album. Will it ever come out?
I said that because my feelings toward Melt are solidified. That’s the best album I ever made. Everybody will argue, but for me, there are literally no flaws on Melt My Eyez See Your Future. Every track was intentional, everything that I wrote was intentional. There are no wasted bars. Even the beat selection and the way I did the videos and marketing, that’s why I think that’s my perfect album. But when it came down to everything I was doing with Designed By Angels, I wanted to make sure that I get what I’m doing down to a tee. I would say that is the next album, and I still believe it is the next album, but for now I just want to do this first before I even jump into the next thing. I want to actually sit down and study the genre the same way I did with Melt.
You said it was going to be an R&B album that’s inspired by Channel Orange, so you want to go into it with the same intentions that you had on Melt?
Basically. And even a lot of stuff that comes from pop music, because what fans don’t know is I love songs like “Everything She Wants” and “Careless Whisper” from Wham! I love stuff like that and getting put on to other things, like this group called ABC. I got put onto ABC by a friend I was working with named Miss Genevieve. [Pop] is a genre I want to study before I even go in [to the next album]. If I’m going to be the most versatile artist I can be, I want to study everything. I probably won’t do country though. T’all can keep that shit. [Laughs.]
That reminds me of a quote you had about wanting to change your sound on albums because you get bored easily and André 3000 told you to “never to get bored.”
That stuck with me forever because when I met him, it was in 2014. And if it wasn’t for André, I would have never thought to try and do dancehall, which ended up becoming a verse, then that verse ended up on a beat that turned into “Ultimate.” The whole dreads and look that people know me for was all developed after that conversation that I had with André. My manager took me and my ex-girlfriend to an exhibit he was doing and that’s how I met him. On my top favorite rappers list, he’s No. 1. You wouldn’t have the stuff that I do now if it weren’t for him.
Does that fight against boredom run parallel to the chase to capture the feeling that releasing your first album, Nostalgic 64, brought you again?
It’s not the same thing. I just want to keep [experimenting]. I just like making music and art because I’m an artist. People say I’m just a rapper—no, I’m an artist. I think about everything when it comes down to what I’m doing. When it came to Nostalgic, I made the cover, which was colored in by Johnathan Rodriguez. I was even drawing all of the single art because I was influenced by Lil Ugly Mane who was doing his own artwork and making music. I was influenced by everything around me with the lyricism. There is never going to be another feeling like that ever again for me, so I have to drop stuff that’s going to create new experiences for other people. I can never re-drop my first album. So I try to create experiences for people who have never heard me before and it’ll be the first time they heard a Denzel Curry album.
In 2020, you said that you had plans of retirement after three more albums. You dropped Melt My Eyez since then, and recently tweeted “2 More Albums.” What do you think the feeling will be like when you drop your last album?
I say I’ve got three albums left because I feel like my life is going to continue being good, but I want to go into different things. I’m working on a manga right now that I’ve been working on for almost four years now, Hail Trials. I want to venture into that and make cartoons, anime, and film. But I have to put as much effort as I do with my albums into that. I’m going to keep making music every day, but I want to try other things. I want to try acting. I want to try voice acting and stuff. I want to try all of these things, so that’s why I say I think I can give people three more albums, and then I’ll go do what I have to do.
Kid Cudi recently said he was “intimidated” to get on a track with you, explaining he was waiting to find a song where he wouldn’t get “ruined.” What’s your reaction to that?
Cudi is the GOAT, bro. If there was no Lupe, if there was no Cudi, there would be no me, period. His and Lupe’s albums were the first albums I bought with my own money and those guys have played a significant role in my life, because I always wanted to meet them and hang with them. I’m really good friends with Lupe and I’m also really cool with Kid Cudi as well. I just feel like I could never ruin Cudi on a track. I grew up listening to him. The person I developed to be is because I would listen to their music when I was growing up. Besides all the Three 6 [Mafia] shit, these guys were really the first to make me realize that I can do this shit.
Is it true that you and Smino are cousins? You guys have the same uncle and you only discovered this when you worked on music together?
Yeah, we have the same uncle, and we found this out when we were doing Unlocked 1.5. He was like, “I got Currys in my family, we might be cousins,” and come to find out, we are actually cousins. I have cousins in St. Louis.
What other rappers do you think you could be cousins with?
Yung Miami. I have a feeling that we’re related because I have Brownlee’s in my family. It’s a strong possibility that Caresha is my cousin.
You recently tweeted that “first week sales don’t mean shit.” Why did you think it was important to express that to fans on Twitter?
First week sales do matter if you’re a major artist, but to be real with you, I never played that game before and I still gained a lot. I’ve just now decided that I want to have a No. 1 single, just because that’s something I’ve never done before. My first week sales have never been super crazy, but everybody still shows up to the shows. The shows still sell out, the venues still get bigger. It does not matter. My development is not going to change. And everybody thinks you need a TikTok hit—no nigga, just make fire shit and if the people fuck with it then they’ll come to you.
You’re on Twitter a lot. What do you think of the Elon Musk era of Twitter?
I kind of miss the bird, man. It’s crazy because I hate Twitter, but at the same time, I miss the bird. I don’t know about Elon, man. You got Tesla, you won. You sent a car into space, you won. You’re about to fight Mark Zuckerberg.
Who do you have in the Musk vs. Zuckerberg grudge match?
Oh, Zuckerberg all day. Zuck be in the paint. I think Zuck got him. That boy is going to do a flying guillotine on his ass on some UFC shit. If they actually do fight in the Colosseum, bruh... If Zuck beats [Musk’s] ass, he has to relinquish Twitter. [He] has to relinquish Twitter and give it to Mark Zuckerberg so now he runs Facebook and Twitter.
Do you care about being labeled “underrated?”
It gets annoying when everybody is like, “He’s so underrated.” Now it’s like, “He’s overrated!” But the only reason you got haters is because you’re doing something right. When it comes down to the “underrated” comments, somebody said it and it just stuck and it’s been that way for almost five years now. I think it was around Imperial or TA13OO because not too many people were hip, but they’re getting there. I’m a career-long artist, so eventually it will dwindle out over time. I’m always one song away. I’m “underrated” now, but I’m one song away from being overrated because everybody likes it.
What does the next chapter of Denzel Curry look like?
So there was Melt My Eyez See Your Future, that was the era where I was getting away from all the turn-up stuff and I just wanted to express myself and do it over beats that I always liked growing up. When it comes down to the 13LOOD 1N + 13LOOD OUT stuff, it’s all turnt up. It’s just energy. I want so much energy and push it out so that when we do the shows, it's straight energy. I give energy on these records and at the shows with these songs, and the people give energy back to me. That’s the one thing I didn’t have on Melt. There were only a couple of tracks, but it wasn’t everything, it was very chill. So I’m going to give all the turned up shit. But as of right now, I don’t think it will be a project. We’ll just see what it develops into over time. I just want to throw these things out in real time and if it becomes a project, cool, if it doesn’t then it doesn’t.
