HYPETRAK Sits Down with RL Grime

Although surely this audience is familiar – either by virtue of the blogosphere, being at dance parties, or genuine following – with RL Grime, you might only know him as a certain type of artist. To set the record straight: RL Grime knows you think he’s ‘just a trap artist’, and like an eager rookie in his first season, his debut LP – VOID – was built to contradict such notions. Calling in select features from everyone from Big Sean to psych-tronic act Djemba Djemba, the album flexes the kind of sonic versatility you might expect from a shining star of the SoundCloud generation. HYPETRAK got the opportunity to speak with the artist ahead of his album release, which dropped earlier this week.

Check out an excerpt of the piece below and head on over to HYPETRAK to read the interview in its entirety. Pick up VOID here if you haven’t already.

You’ve released three EPs, How does your album VOID fit in the rest of your work/catalog?
Being that it’s my first ever full length album, there’s definitely a strong push on VOID to channel some the themes and ideas I’ve been building on since the very beginning of the RL Grime project. To me, this album is an amalgamation of all the ideas I’ve put forth over the years, but finally fully built out and realized in the right way.

How long have you been working on the LP?
Well, my initial ideas for doing an album started at the end of last year, but musically I began working on VOID in February of this year, so it was about a nine-month process.

How do you choose the artists that you are collaborating with?
VOID has four features on it, and all of them are artists I’ve either been trying to work with for a while, or artists I really respect and felt would be right for the record. For my debut album, I felt it was important to use features only where they truly made sense and not to overdo it.