In the art work for Destroy Lonely’s new album, If Looks Could Kill, the 21-year-old’s face is obscured as he stands in a discipline of grass. His head is tilted downward, and he’s carrying a black jumpsuit, matching gloves and a brimmed hat. In the GIF model, his blond locs sway throughout his chest, propelled by his proper arm, which is swinging an orange ax backwards and forwards like a pendulum. A purple flash of sunshine punctuates the refined motion.
“If I were to explain what my album is for the world to understand, I like horror movies, and this ain’t nothing but sonic horror movies,” he says on the Monday earlier than the file is launched. When he shares music, he says, it’s not sufficient for folks to only take heed to it. He desires followers to inhabit the world he’s creating all through the rollout, together with the photographs and music movies.
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Centered round three chords on an electrical guitar, the album’s title observe juxtaposes lyrics about a luxurious wardrobe with darkish references to violence. “I’m walkin’ through hell, I got an FN loaded up with a laser,” the self-proclaimed “fashion demon” raps at one level. He closes the tune with a blood-soaked assertion: “If looks could kill, that makes every day Halloween.”
Fans of Lonely know that is all a a part of his model. On the 2022 mixtape NO STYLIST, the rapper leverages equally darkish cowl artwork and rhymes about wrapping somebody up and turning them into a mummy (“PRSSURE”), makes sly references to hanging with Bloods with the assistance of a vampire metaphor (“BERGDORF”) and claims a woman is consuming him up “like a zombie” (“LNLY”).
When requested to explain his fascination with horror as a style, he begins to reply truthfully after which remembers he’s taking part in an interview, turning on the advertising attraction. “If I’m going to give an answer that I know people want to hear… I’m a person who is going to say or do whatever the fuck I feel, whether it’s shocking or people like it or don’t like it,” he says. “You watch a horror movie, somebody is getting their head cut off, people are having sex [and] cussing. It’s a whole bunch of shit that you’re like, ‘Damn, this shit is insane.’ Who gives a fuck? People might call it breaking the rules [or] inappropriate, but they’re doing exactly what the fuck they want to do.”
Despite making and publicly releasing music for a third of his life, Destroy Lonely continues to be very a lot a thriller to most listeners. That hasn’t stopped them from gravitating to his songs. Signing to Playboi Carti’s Opium label (an Interscope imprint) in 2021 has each amplified Lonely’s music (he’s at the moment streamed by greater than 3 million listeners per thirty days on Spotify) and strengthened his enigmatic, vampy persona. Where final yr’s NO STYLIST landed him on a number of “artists to watch” lists, If Looks Could Kill capitalizes off that momentum and exhibits that, after seven years of constructing music, he’s lastly hitting his stride as a rapper.
If you requested Lonely to explain himself, he’d say that he hates most labels. Recently, he instructed Complex that he doesn’t like being known as an “underground rapper” or boxed in with the group of artists who first made waves on SoundCloud. He doesn’t appear terribly all for overanalyzing his artistry. His raps are off the dome, meant to seize a particular thought or feeling from a second in time. When that second is gone, it’s time to file one thing new.
[Photo by Paula Busnovetsky / Photo editor: Justin Scott Rivera]
Bobby Sandimanie III, whose stage identify got here from a damaging dependency on drugs at a younger age and a normal inclination towards isolation, didn’t all the time have a approach with phrases. Rapping supplied an outlet for the in any other case reclusive child to precise himself. “I was able to say exactly what I wanted with no restrictions,” he says. For early, unreleased songs, he’d jot down lyrics as he was determining his fashion. Eventually, he started strictly recording freestyles, within the vein of Lil Wayne and Young Thug.
A Decatur, Georgia native who ultimately moved to the southside of Atlanta to stay with his grandmother, Lonely’s teenage years within the late 2010s coincided with the discharge of breakout tasks from native rappers equivalent to Lil Yachty (Lil Boat) and 21 Savage (Savage Mode with Metro Boomin). Atlanta’s hip-hop scene was house to mainstream successes like Future, whereas the underground was making house for rappers like Young Nudy. And, in fact, Playboi Carti rose to prominence throughout this time, releasing the critically acclaimed Die Lit in 2018. There’s a direct hyperlink between Carti’s music and the early work of his eventual Opium-signee Lonely. If Looks Could Kill is his most profitable try at distancing himself from these comparisons.
Lonely, whose father was as soon as signed to Ludacris’ Disturbing Tha Peace and raps as I-20, cautions towards crediting his sound to anyone affect. “I’m not directly influenced by any specific artist,” he says. “The culture of [Atlanta] and the music and all that shit really inspired me.”
As a teenager dwelling with his grandmother, Lonely started recording music with a low cost microphone in a makeshift house studio. His highschool (which he declined to call) hosted a class on music manufacturing, providing him a likelihood to realize expertise utilizing studio tools and Pro Tools. “From there, I was really able to learn more and teach myself how to record myself better,” he says. By the time he was 14, he was importing his music to SoundCloud, generally racking up 10,000 streams in a month’s time. It was the validation the teenager wanted to substantiate he was onto one thing. “If you ask me, I’ve never made a bad song, just because I always tried,” he provides, earlier than offering a clarification. “Of course, [now] there’s shit that’s way better than the shit back then.”
Released in 2019 when he was 17 years previous, the tune “Bane” offers a glimpse into the rapper’s fashion in its early levels. If the 4ME manufacturing feels prefer it’s straight out of a simulation, Lonely’s vocals dip out and in of vocal ranges as if he’s attempting to flee the observe. Lonely admits he doesn’t like when folks say his music seems like a online game, however listening to the repetitive synth melody within the tune, it’s simple to see why folks make the comparability.
[Photo by Paula Busnovetsky / Photo editor: Justin Scott Rivera]
In lower than 5 years, followers have watched Lonely house in on his fashion via a near-constant stream of latest releases. Where his 2020 mixtape </3 featured the rager observe “F.U.N” and the cinematic “Dover Street Market,” NO STYLIST — his first underneath Carti’s Opium — signaled progress each sonically and when it comes to inventive route. For the art work, an oval-shaped highlight shines upon the rapper’s chest however stops wanting revealing his face. A majority of the duvet is pitch black, signaling the darkish tone of the music to come back and engulfing the rapper in a shroud of mystique that he’s but to take off. “Damn, I done switched up my swag/I done hopped in my bag, know these n*ggas ain’t on that,” he raps confidently on opener “JETLGGD.” On the title observe, he turns bragging about not having a stylist into an anthem about indulging in hard-earned luxuries (“Told my folks I’m gettin’ rich, it ain’t no way I’m washin’ dishes,” he raps). NO STYLIST options 19 songs and just one function, fellow Opium artist and good friend Ken Carson, however succeeds in solidifying Lonely as probably the most promising new rappers out of Atlanta.
He proves himself additional with If Looks Could Kill, which serves as his official debut album. Previously, it may generally really feel like Lonely was competing with the manufacturing for the eye of listeners. He’s unequivocally the point of interest of this undertaking. On “fly sht” and “raver,” the tales of his rock star, drug-fueled life-style are positioned atop wailing guitar strains. Throughout the album, Lonely’s raps are as grand as his new life-style. He’s on G6 planes and bragging about his jewellery (“which way”) and has a new home for months earlier than he’s capable of finding time to sleep in it (“new new”).
Lonely spends virtually each evening within the studio, arriving round 10 or 11 p.m. and listening to beforehand recorded tracks earlier than delving into new materials. It’s not unusual for him to be with Carson (who’s in a close by studio room once we converse) or the producer Clayco, who has helmed a variety of tracks for the rapper all through his profession.
“Every album I’ve ever made was made by my friends. That’s a part of my process. I make the music and share it with everyone around me. If they fuck with it, that’s how I know the world is going to fuck with it. Within the recording process, it’s all communal,” he says.
Oftentimes when Lonely is within the studio with Clayco, he’s buzzing a melody or sharing a reference round which the producer will assemble a beat. There’s a synergy between the 2 and an ease within the studio that has made recording through the years really feel seamless. “He can translate everything that I’m thinking of sonically into a beat, and that’s why I fuck with him,” Lonely says.
Clayco describes their early studio periods as unfolding “like a dream,” including that the 2 had been engaged on music collectively for about a yr earlier than they ever met in particular person. “There wasn’t really much talking. We just always connected musically,” he says. “Over the years, he’s really become his own artist. He really has his own swag. The beats he uses from me are the perfect duo. I inspire him, and he inspires me. When I make a beat, I can hear him rap on it before I send it to him.”
“Anyone who I’m closely attached with, I’ve known in real life for years,” Lonely says. “That’s why I don’t like to dip and dab into the whole rapper shit or to meet other people or put [them] on my projects or [anything]. I feel like I’ve got everything I need in my life with the people around me.” Carson, Lonely says, was a good friend earlier than the 2 signed to the identical label. As youngsters, they bonded over sofa hopping, smoking weed and daydreaming about sometime discovering success with their music. Soon, the 2 plan to launch a joint undertaking collectively.
Hearing Lonely converse of his neighborhood seems like lastly seeing glimpses of him peek out from past the persona he’s created for himself. Even if he nonetheless has moments of feeling alone — a fully regular and customary feeling — he’s removed from the reserved, lonely child he was.
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