Steve Lacy had a huge year in 2017.
In addition to dropping his excellent Steve Lacy's Demo, he also contributed to albums from some of rap's elite, like Tyler, The Creator's Flower Boy and Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. Today, he spoke with Matt Wilkinson on Beats 1 and discussed his big year, shared some new details about the next album from The Internet, and spoke about his new project with P&P favorite Ravyn Lenae.
After each member of The Internet focused on solo projects in 2017, he says, "I think we’re about to get back in soon. I feel like after this one last weekly run it’ll be at 95%. It’s exciting, it’s scary, it’s so many things. And really I’m just thinking about the change component. Because I know off of Ego Death to where I am now it’s been a dramatic shit. It’s not the same as it was when that came out. I feel like this is on a higher echelon than Ego Death. I love Ego Death, that was a great record, but I know this one is a step up."
Addressing the title of the next Internet album, he says, "Before we started making it I was like ‘dude, I think this should be the self-titled joint’. But I guess we’re having a problem with looking it up: ‘The Internet’… ‘The Internet’. But yeah, that’s the conflicting thing with the name."
After being more of a background player on Ego Death, Lacy says he'll be singing on the next album more: "Well I’m singing on the album a bit more with Syd. I sing on a hook with her. Dang, I feel like I ruined the surprise now…"
I do everything production wise and she comes in [...] It was dope because she’s so young and she’s not locked into a certain style or vocal range so anything I’d give her she’s like ‘I got you.’ It’s also a different producer side of me. It’s entirely produced by me, the first thing that I’m entirely producing. When I got the opportunity I looked at is as like - YES, this is my Pharrell / Kelis, my Timbaland / Aaliyah, my J*Davey moment. I had to take it."
You can listen to the interview above and hear the first single from that Ravyn Lenae project below.
