It is easy to grow cynical of the music industry today. With so many artists underpaid and overworked, and a market saturated with assembly-line sounds, it can be quite disheartening talking with artists who are forced to cut corners or compromise their passion.
Yet Atlantan soul/hip hop savant Raury has been able to avoid such concessions, and is quite humble in acknowledging his good fortune.
“You’ve really gotta keep your eyes open,” Raury warns. “You have your back against the wall so often in terms of timing – when you want to get your album done, when you want to tour, how much money you have, all of these different factors. I was blessed enough to get the deal that I got from Columbia, because there are plenty of people out there who just didn’t have that kind of appeal, who had to change what they do because they didn’t meet the right people. It’s not even a matter of it being anybody’s fault, it’s just getting lucky with opportunities and making the most of them. You do what you have to do. There are people out there who do things they wouldn’t be proud of, but hey, they have to feed their family.”
In the course of our conversation, it becomes clear Raury isn’t speaking in abstracts here. Establishing exactly what kind of artist he hopes to be – which, in effect, is the same person from everyday life – and how that can work within the modern music world is something he is all too conscious of. His first mixtape, Indigo Child, was released last year to almost instant acclaim, culminating in him being shortlisted for the BBC Sound Of 2015 poll. This week he unveils his studio debut, All We Need, and it doesn’t take a betting person to foresee a huge year ahead for the 19-year-old. This is all the more impressive given his life already seems to be quite a dervish.
“I’ve got these incredible experiences, but a lot of people don’t hear from me that often anymore. I’m all wrapped up in this thing, I’m in another country, so I have to remember to keep my phone charged,” he chuckles. “I was never a person to call someone, to reach out all that often to begin with, so now that I’m busy, the only people who tend to hear from me of late are the people I’m directly working with. My management team, they’ve become like my best friends. I mean, my manager is only 23. I met him when I was 15 and he was 19, so he’s more like a big brother, and everyone else in the management team are around the same age. We all just work together, and they’re the most immediate people in my life now.”
Raury sounds amused – and thankful – for the life he leads these days, but there remains an undercurrent of concern to his voice. Melodious as his songs are, there is often a seriousness to his lyrics and themes, and given his relatively young age, it is unsurprising that he carries such empathy and worry for his circle of friends; those who are also taking their fledgling steps in the adult world, but who might look at the wild success Raury has forged with resignation.
“Take a song like ‘Crystal Express’. I was an 18-year-old kid graduating from high school, like all of my other friends, and I just happened to strike success with a music career. But a lot of my friends, they don’t know where they’re gonna go. They don’t know what they want to do; they’re still trying to figure it out. And when the person next to you, who here happens to be me, is doing really well, you might get discouraged, you know? So ‘Crystal Express’ was a song that I was hoping could breathe some life into them, tell them that if you believe in yourself and keep putting yourself out there… you need to meet your dream halfway.”
While the lead single, ‘Friends’ – which, incidentally, features a certain Tom Morello – has already been showcasing the new album’s strengths, it is worth noting that in response to Indigo Child’s ‘God’s Whisper’ comes a companion track, ‘Devil’s Whisper’. It seems a fitting way of charting Raury’s creative development to have him discuss just how these songs reflect the man he is, and what he hopes to become.
“‘God’s Whisper’ was the good angel on one shoulder, ‘Devil’s Whisper’ is about the evil angel on the other. Early on I had that whisper in my ear telling me, ‘Man, you can take on the world with this sound, you can become what you want to become.’ And now I get out here, I’m touring, making artist friends, and now that devil is saying, ‘You know, you can use all this to become extremely rich. You can use this for personal profit.’ And I had to be honest with myself, and be open to writing about that. To say, ‘Yeah, I’ve felt that way, I’ve almost become that jaded.’ That’s what the song is about.
“I could have changed, I could have fallen down so many wrong paths along the way. That’s what the first verse of ‘Devil’s Whisper’ is about. But then the second verse is about self-realisation, knowing that you shouldn’t be doing this for the profit, but for people. That’s what you have to remember.”
