The Come Up: Raury

2014 has seen Raury surpass many a milestone. Like most his age, this summer saw the Atlanta native graduate from high school. He also celebrated his eighteenth birthday. One landmark that differs from most adolescent accomplishments however, would be the fact that this year also saw the world open their eyes to the omniscient promise that the Southerner holds; and now that he has our attention, he is not going to let us forget why he grabbed it in the first place. Following on from the release of his debut music video for “God’s Whisper,” Raury has made it loud and clear that him settling for a mediocre life is not an option; and in the process he has succeeded in inspiring a platoon of other people to follow in his footsteps. Recently having unveiled his Indigo Child project, as well as preparing to support OutKast during their first series of homecoming Atlanta shows since 2006, the pressure is most definitely on for the young crooner — but he’s taking it all in his stride.

An Indigo Child is somebody that doesn’t comply with modern society and is believed to have come into this period of time to aid in the transition of the energies of earth in the near future, well, according to Google. However i’d say your focus is more on shifting the energies of the digital age, and aiding the new generation. 

In a deeper aspect that definition could be qualified as correct, but it’s mainly the youth now. Just because we’re born in an age that makes us this way too; and yeah we’re here to help shift the energies. Whatever you want to define it as, shifting energy, bringing on a new era… I like to call it Indigo Child. I like to definitely believe that we are bringing that shifting of energy to the world.

Growing up, what musicians enticed you to want to discover yourself musically?

The first person to influence me was Michael Jackson. Growing up I just listened to everything. In my family we listened to everything. My mom would play Sade, Anita Baker…Tupac, and my brother would be listening to stuff from Kanye, System of a Down, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, YoungBloodZ. I heard everything. My next great influence had to be [Kid] Cudi. When I was fourteen, he really helped me to believe in myself musically, his music helped me a lot. Andre 3000, he highly influences me musically. You know Queen? Freddy Mercury, I love his performances. Bon Iver, I love how his music sounds. I love the soul and the folk element. Kanye of course.

Speaking of Kanye, Cudi and Andre 3000, you’ve been given the nod of approval from all three. I wonder how that must feel so relatively early on in your career.

(Grins) It’s crazy! It’s crazy man. I just remain humble about everything and just try to keep my composure when great things like that happen; and when that does happen I really make sure that I enjoy it while it’s happening you know, because life is crazy.

A photo of Kanye and yourself has been circulating around the internet, what’s the story?

Nothing really, I met him in California and we just sat down. He’s a cool person and it was a great time, and I will always remember it. Meeting him was a great thing.

Let’s talk about your Indigo Child EP. What song was the most fun to create?

The one that was the most fun to make is called “Superfly” with Vancouver Sleep Clinic. Because I got to really collaborate with an artist and just like really seeing eye to eye with them and make the best song ever. I’m very picky about the collaboration thing and this was a time where it really, really worked out perfectly. Vancouver Sleep Clinic is a great artist. I learned a lot from Tim, so just that whole experience was a great thing. But all of them were pretty fun though. The one that means the most to me is “Seven Suns” though. I don’t even know how I wrote that song. Some songs just write themselves, and I did not know that song would have been that long and I just think it came from somewhere.

How are you finding the reception to your EP so far? 

I find it to be really, really, really shockingly great. I’m so glad that the fans just love it as much as they do. I’m just really happy. It’s very rare that a negative comment is made and just how fast people have picked up on it. I love the fact that what I wanted to do is coming into fruition; i’m already seeing people being affected by the music and listening to it because it makes them feel good, you know? I’m just really grateful for that. Just like with “God’s Whisper” you know, I released that not caring about who would love it or hate it just because I just write from what i go through and how I see the world and I make it as real as possible. If you understand it, that’s great! If you don’t, hopefully one day you do. I just put out the best stuff that I can.

Would you say that there is a sense of rebellion in your music? Those recordings of you and your mother going back and forth over your desire to not continue with your education, you came across as a very headstrong person.  

Yep! That’s when it had changed. I was making decisions and I was figuring out what I wanted to do. By the time I was in Junior high school I knew that I didn’t want to go to college. The closer we got to the senior year the more heated things got, “why aren’t you applying” and things like that, and i’d be like “that’s not what I want to do.” I don’t want to apply for any loans, no. I don’t need to do that right now, it’s going to be there forever. College will be there forever. It. Will. Be. There. Forever (laughs). I would never want to put out to the world that college is a bad thing because there is a lot of good in it. Just like going out there and building that experience and network and whatever you need to do to get out there. I just feel like a lot of people are going because they feel like that’s the next step, they don’t think it through. They don’t think it through at all.

Let’s talk about your time at the C5 Georgia Youth Foundation.

C5 is a programme made by Coca-Cola, and how you get into the programme is very meticulous. 300 students get nominated from their school that show leadership potential, and who show really good signs really early. If they see something in you, the school will nominate you. So 300 12 year old kids in Atlanta got nominated, we had to write an essay and apply and then it got cut down to 180 kids, and then it got cut again after interviews and stuff to 72. We’d be in that programme all the way up until our senior year of high school. We’d go to this camp for a month in the summer, and they’d teach us all kinds of things about life. We’d be gone all summer, camping there, and we’d play games, go hiking, and just play in a big field all day and that. But at the same time we would be having seminars and sit-downs and sessions where they’d talk to us about life, about corporations and stuff like that, they talked to us about how corporations kind of effect the world you know? They’d tell us the truth and it was an amazing thing. At the end of every year we’d go on trek, you’d go in the Backwoods in Georgia and it was amazing. The final one that we did was when we went to Wyoming Yellowstone National Park and we went on a fifty mile hike, it looked like a movie. It was crazy! That was a life-changing experience, and it really gave me an appreciation for the world as a whole and made me want to be a person that inputs something good back.

Would you say that you took inspiration from what you were taught about leadership there to want to lead a generation of people through your music?

Oh absolutely. They want us to take what we learn there and apply it to our life.

Who inspired you to want to inspire the world? 

Scott Mescudi. His music affected me, and I was thinking, music has an effect on people. A really, really, really, real effect on lives. People are living through what they are listening to; If someone else is a Cudi fan, I’ll automatically know that I can be cool with them. That’s the thing about Cudi, his fans are like that. His music creates a type of person. Other artists do too. Beyoncé creates a certain type of person, all of these artists…they create cultures. What their cultures do can really affect a person. Input creates output. What you feed into your mind is what you will eventually somewhat become. If you speak positively, and speak great things, and send really good vibes into your music, imagine what you’re doing for your fans and your people. Affecting their view of life and how they live everyday, because people listen to music everyday.

What is the theory behind your ‘Anti-Tour.’ Some publications have described it as your ploy to “steal fans” from other artists. 

(laughs) I don’t even like to think of it at the angle of like, “stealing fans,” it’s not like they’re going to be like “forget this artist! I’m moving to this artist!” you know? I look at it as almost direct marketing. I just look at it as my version of saying that I know what my music sounds like, and what kind of target market I have. So it’s like what kind of artist is this? What kind of crowd do they attract? Is their music amazing, do they have awesome fans…Odd Future has awesome fans. Childish Gambino has awesome fans. The Neighbourhood has awesome fans. My music is different, and I feel like their fans have the depth and the appreciation for music and creativity to understand my music. I feel like a lot of my stuff may tend to go over some peoples heads, and that’s alright, but if i’m putting it out i’m going to make sure that I try my best to get it to who I believe would receive it.

Congratulations on your deal with Columbia! 

Thank you! I’m really glad that they understood my vision the most, because I feel like at this point i’ve met with almost every American label under the sun, and I just told them what i’m here to do and I feel like Columbia understood it the most. They understood what I wanted to do and they had the same sense of urgency as I did about the situation. So that’s who I connected to.

What’s next?

Shows, shows and shows. Other than that, we’re really just getting out in the streets and in the faces of these people to show them that we really are out here and we want to put them onto this. We’ve just been thinking of ways to keep our feet moving and drive more traffic towards this project, and definitely getting ready for the next album. Like, a lot of the material you’ve heard is somewhat written further back, i’ve been writing like this for three years and I have so much stuff. It’s about to be crazy. The official album will be coming soon enough.

The Come Up is our new series where we speak to some of the music industry’s most amazing and promising rising new talents.