Pollari and New Collective WAY Drop Sparkling Debut Project 'Always'

Pollari, Yung Cortex, Air, Buried Treasure, Young Plug, and Charlie Shuffler are the friends and collaborators behind WAY.

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way always album

We've covered Pollari, a rapper from Atlanta who is now based in L.A., on P&P a bunch before, following his journey from 2015's OFFWITHHISHEAD EP to 2016 project lil llàri world and subsequently working on his new album with the legendary Rick Rubin.

Today, we're introducing another project Pollari is involved in, a group called WAY who are dropping their debut tape Always. WAY is Pollari, Yung Cortex, Air, Buried Treasure, Young Plug, and Charlie Shuffler, a collection of producers, rappers, singers, and more importantly friends who all live in L.A. and collaborate all the time. "Six friends sleeping, eating, recording, working, building and growing with each other every day," Pollari explains. "Fueled by dreams, by ambition, by the need to always do more and do right."

The eight tracks are loosely rooted in contemporary rap, with heavy beats and lots of melodic deliveries, but the group approach of WAY gives the project a unique edge, sounding like the past, present, and future at the same damn time. Production from 808 Mafia and Zaytoven might catch your attention, but Always is a testament to the power of friendship and creative collaboration. Listen to WAY's debut project now and get to know the team behind it with a short interview below.

How do the six of you in WAY know each other?

Pollari: To Be honest we know each other really through some organic friend shit. Charlie and Plug met each other in High School math class like two years ago. Plug knew air and his friend Hayden and started hanging and making music together so that brought Charlie, Plug, and Air together.

I moved out to LA from Atlanta in 2016, when I signed my deal with Rick and that's when I only knew about 6 people out here and like all of them were from the internet. One of those people was Yung Cortex. Me and Cortex went way back on some “hey ur beats are tight, can I have some” DM days. We ended up hanging out like every other day summer 2016 with our boy Tracy from GBC and his right hand Smokeasac. Thats when me and Cortex met air, who Smokeasac knew through one of his other friends Tyler. Its a weird little web!

As soon as I met air we instantly became like twin brothers, and we currently live like seven minutes away from each other. Me, Cortex and Air ended up making hella songs together over the months and then we all started hanging with Charlie more because we needed tight beats ya know. So that took me, Cortex, and Air over to Charlie, Plug and their friend from music who had moved here from VA a few years back, Buried Treasure. 

Can give a little detail on what each of you bring to the collective?

Air is real melodic and has a unique voice. He’s also big on content and our branding. He’s like our dad. Treasure is the goat. He’s extremely catchy and he has this wild voice with nostalgic ass lyrics. Charlie and Cortex run our production side. Not only do they produce most of what we get on they kinda stamp and approve the stuff we work on even when it isn’t their beats ya know. Cortex is from the future and the past. His music is super alternative but also mainstream, star quality. Young Plug is our based King. He’s super passionate but still doesn’t give a shit ya know. His music is hard, but funny at the same time. He’s like the king of anthems. Then theres llari, kinda our leader but not our leader. No need to say too much, he’s the one. The future, the best.

What do you want listeners to take from this project?

Charlie: We want people to really just pay attention. Listen to the beats, listen to the vocals and how different we are, but how good the project and songs are. We just want you to enjoy it. It’s really an art piece ya know, we want y’all to really dissect it. 

What do you like about working on a group project vs. working on solo music?

Pollari: Its just more fun. We all have different goals, careers and stuff we want to do with our lives. But on those days, during those years when we’re growing, learning, and just finding our WAY, its fun to have a group of people we relate too and can work with on stuff we’re really passionate about. We love this and we love the gang, so why not?

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