Named after the first recorded speculative bubble, [Dutch Tulip Financial](https://dtf.nyc/) is a NYC-based streetwear brand that's been on my mind heavy since I got hip a little while back through the Antithesis store in Manhattan. Unlike most fashion which is about advancing the status quo and joining a herd, DTF requires your brain to work for the brand to click, and is about criticizing "the way things are." 

Founder/designer Moonwhan Park's graphics generally reference exploitation by dominant culture, governments, unduly powerful conglomerates and oligarchies. The results are funny and trenchant, playing into consumer culture in a way that is also about calling out and laughing at the absurdity of living in a rich man's world. Streetwear as artistic commentary. 

To dig into DTF further I hopped on Zoom for a cool hour and 15 minutes with Mr. Park, the one-man show behind the whole shebang (design, photography, sales, everything). We talked about Korean politics, his famous antiestablishment poet grandpa, the best place to eat intestines in NYC, and Oldboy, among other topics.   

*All images by Moonwhan Park*  

![DTFdelvey.jpg](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/DT_Fdelvey_e0ae40a90f.jpg)

**You just dropped your Anna Delvey capsule. What do you like about her?**

She’s a scammer, so I don’t want to put her on a pedestal necessarily. But what she represents and exploited very well was the worshipping of wealth. Not just what she did with her fake heiress background, but wherever you go, people worship wealth and we give wealthy people power. And why? Why is Elon Musk so powerful, just because he’s rich? It’s the same in Korea. Korea has jaebol (a handful of companies that run the country like an oligarchy), and there’s some sort of irrational reverence for them. “There he goes, he’s jaebol, he’s Lee family, Chung family…” But I always had this doubt. 

When I grew up in Korea, I went to this elementary school that was private and had a lot of kids from those jaebol families, or extended jaebol families. And since we were young, nobody had self-awareness or an identity of “I’m rich, fuck you.” We just mingled normally. But as I grew up I saw how my other friends revered those kids, and acted differently when I was with them compared to by myself. I thought it was so weird cuz I knew those guys when we were eight years old. Nowadays, I only keep up with a few of those rich-rich guys, but seeing the weird class structure, how they carried themselves as they got older, how people treated them, I thought it was weird. In my mind they’re not better or worse than us. But they have an aura of coming from an important family. Anna Delvey created that same kind of persona by faking that she was from a European aristocratic family. So I thought it was funny, and I thought it was a reflection of modern society that she was able to succeed as much as she did. 

**DTF graphics reference economics, social control, exploitation –– what draws you to these themes? You talked about growing up in the shadow of jaebol but what else got you interested in these topics?**

Two things. One of the friends I’m still friends with, and is a great guy, and of course is in private equity now — he used to live here and still comes to New York frequently on business trips. In 2018/2019 he came here and hit me up, and brought me to some random Upper East Side intersection. And he was pretty stoked about what he just experienced. He was telling me about this social club, and how he was either the first or second Korean guy to get into it. Five interviews, 12 reference letters. Just to be in this exclusive thing. Super secretive. I don’t even know if it had a name. It was for, I guess, white guys. Mainly. He was telling me that the guys in it were hedge fund billionaires, and when he got in there, he saw those guys wearing robes and playing tennis and chilling, and making behind the scenes deals. I thought that was movie stuff. But when I learned that was real, that was a direct inspiration for DTF. 

I was like, OK, let me make a conceptual construct where I can inject different storylines into it. I do t-shirts because I didn’t have any money. And it also came out of my desire to differentiate what I do from streetwear as a whole. It was when Virgil Abloh was like “Streetwear is an art,” 2017/2018, and I was like, I can’t just slap my logo on a shirt and not add to the conversation. So I was trying to find my lane. And the stories I heard from my private equity friends and business school friends who worked at investment banks were inspirations for me. There are a lot of brands who do social commentary, but they don’t use finance or capitalism to tell stories. So I thought that could be my lane, with the help of the stories I hear from the guys who are in that industry. 

The second big inspiration was my grandfather, a really well respected poet in Korea who passed away in the ‘90s. If you grow up in Korea you know his name: Tu-Jin Park. He has a memorial museum, he’s a big figure in the Korean art world in the 20th century. I lived with him, and he had this aura around him. Even when I was little, I was like, I should not bother him — he’s doing something great. He was the type to wake up at 5 am, meditate for an hour, do calligraphy, have a real small meal, pray for an hour, write for seven hours straight, eat another small meal, meditate, do yoga, and go to sleep. Korea now, we’re doing OK, but in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s that wasn’t the case. We were under a harsh political regime. And when he was young, we were under Japanese colonization. His whole thing was rebellious, socially. And he paid for his views. He got shot at by police, and tortured by the Korean version of the CIA. He got shot at during 4/19, a big democratic event in Korea in the early 1960s. The regime was headed by Sing-Man Lee, who was doing what Putin is doing, illegally extending his term three or four times. But my grandfather was a professor and his students went to the streets to protest, and police opened fire. And my grandfather ran out. He was pretty well known even then, and dared them to shoot him. And they still shot at him. He had the acclaim, the respect, but the life…my dad and grandmother lived in poverty. It was hardship all the time. I always knew I wouldn’t be as good as him, whatever I did. I saw him as an archetype, solitary genius figure. He didn’t get swayed by any temptations, money or anything. He was like a monk. In the ‘70s there was another military regime headed by Chung-Hee Park. And to sway my grandfather, the first lady wanted him to be her private literature tutor. And obviously my grandfather said, Fuck off. Park’s term went on for 19 years, it was like the dark ages. 

So I felt like, I’ll never be able to do that. I’m going to lead a normal life, study business, and be normal — go to a respectable school, wear a suit. I tried. I tried to be a normal Korean. That was me working at Samsung, which is where I met my wife, who was Korean-American, which is how I got to New York, when I was 30. But actually I did have another small business thing at the time. I was doing it with a friend, when I came to New York. And my friend ran off with the money! 

DTF came about because I literally hit rock bottom. I was broke in New York, stabbed in the back by my friend. It was a soul-searching moment, 2017/2018. I only had money for screen printing a small run. And I knew I wanted to be adjacent to art, if not be an artist myself. I always viewed myself as someone that’s not worthy of being an artist, because of my grandfather. But when I hit rock bottom, I was like eff it, I’m going to treat this as an art project. In this day and age, some people might see it as art adjacent. 

So that’s a long story, but my friends and somewhat of a corporate background gave me the inspiration for DTF, and as far as my approach to things, it’s super shaped by my grandfather. 

![DTFdebtjam.jpg](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/DT_Fdebtjam_0fc86039dc.jpg)

**That’s fascinating. What’s your favorite poem of your grandfather’s?**

It’s called “The Sun.” It’s really hard to translate. One thing that separates him from other poets who wrote about the sun, is the tone is very authoritative towards the sun. He’s ordering the sun to rise up. Like hey, sun, get the fuck out and rise up. I’m butchering it. But I heard from literature critics you don’t typically see that approach. It’s more poets singing about the beauty of the sun, in a romantic way. But at the time Korea was between the Korean War and the Japanese colonization, dark times, and metaphorically he wanted the sun to rise up and break through for the situation in Korea. Urgently. His poems really reflect his personality, very masculine, strong words, very convincing. He wasn’t like a “My life sucks guy,” it was no melancholy, just (punches his hand three times). 

**I’m interested in Korean history. The ‘70s in particular was such a crazy time -– the Chung-Hee Park years. Really terrible for human rights, people going to jail for having long hair, and for countercultural figures like your grandfather it was very dangerous. But it was also when Korea rebuilt itself from a colonized and war-torn country that was previously agricultural, to something resembling today where they are a modern global superpower or close to that. And there’s this rationalization that I really hate, which is that you have to break eggs to make an omelet. That you don’t get that development and advancement without treating people like garbage. You have to be bad to people to succeed in the grand scheme. **

It gets short term results. (Heavy sigh) I identify as Korean. I don’t have plans to get American citizenship. And it hurts me, because for me, the two steps that epitomize the current status of Korea as far as how people feel, the the pressure they’re under, is we have the highest rate of suicide, and the lowest birth rate. That means people don’t want to live. That shows you how much stress and pressure there is. 

**Do you think that’s a byproduct of the 1970s culture?**

Has to be. Not a direct byproduct of it, maybe, but yeah. It’s also such a compressed country, so dense, and homogenous, monoculture…so the frame of reference is too close. Everybody grows up the same, looks the same, put under a pretty limited set of predetermined life paths. You have to be this or that, or you’re done. I felt, being there, that I was always being compared to someone. New York is pretty crazy, but because we’re all so different – Asian, Black, Latinos, white people – I personally don’t have the same criteria of judging myself based on other people. Everyone is doing their own thing. The sheer diversity helps me instinctively not compare myself. But in Korea, the degrees of separation are like two or three. Everybody knows each other. And it’s not taboo to comment on people’s situations. “Hey you look like you gained weight.” Or “Hey I heard you lost your job.” All those things compounded. Just my theory. There’s a village-like culture, maybe stemming from the agricultural aspect, where everybody was in poverty, and everyone had to share meals. We’re all in this together, no boundaries type situation. 

**On a hopeful note, what inspires you about today’s youth?** 

I love Greta Thunberg and Generation Z. Millennials –– technically I’m a millennial –– we were kind of a go with the flow generation. I want Generation Z to give us shit. We deserve it. We should do better. And they know that, and I like that about Gen Z. As far as fashion, if they’re doing more Depop, more trading instead of buying, that’s good. I don’t sell that many t-shirts so I don’t have that big of a guilt [environmentally], but it’s still a guilt. I looked at recycled cotton blanks and tried it, but when I make them, to make my money back I have to charge more, and people don’t buy it. So those recycled cotton ideas are only for the companies that already have a lot of money. Gildan and Hanes –– I want those guys to make more accessible recycled cotton options. I think we’ll get there, because Gen Z wants more eco-friendly options, and that’s who will be buying things going forward. As far as big changes and shift, I don’t know, I feel almost powerless but the least I could do is listen and not try to silence when Gen Z are speaking out. They’re the ones who have to deal with all our bullshit, so they have the right to give us shit. As far as making things better, I have to do my part, I’m a dad, I’m always thinking about my son.

![DTFmofear.jpg](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/DT_Fmofear_fcdf168314.jpg)

**OK lightning round, eight questions real quick. Favorite Korean food in NYC?**

There’s this place called [Gopchang BBQ](https://www.gopchangbbq.com/) I think there’s one in Manhattan Koreatown and one in Flushing. It’s intestines. LIke Korean BBQ, but with only intestines instead. They clean it out of course. It’s not anything glamorous at all, but because of the cleaning process, in Korea it’s not cheap. But because nobody outside of Koreans care for those parts of the animal in the US, it’s cheaper here. You eat it as lettuce wraps with white rice. 

**Favorite brand?**

To be honest I don’t have one. I respect a lot of brands, Cav Empt. I don’t own any Off-White or LV because it’s too expensive, but I really respected Virgil Abloh. The totality of what he did. Me not having any favorite brands is more to do with being a dad now. I don’t care anymore. Technically I’m in fashion, but I look at kid’s shoes more. As opposed to “There’s this new drop.” I don’t care about any of that. My son needs shoes. That’s where I’m at. 

**Favorite movie?**

Oldboy. 

**I always think about the wallpaper in that movie, the honeycomb pattern that’s supposed to drive you insane.** 

Yeah yeah. 

**Favorite musician?**

Tupac. I’m still that generation. 

**Favorite album?**

Makaveli.

**Favorite shoe?**

Air Jordan 8, black OG. With the straps, and some crazy graphic pattern at the heel. It was the first Air Jordan that I had.

**Favorite t-shirt that you own?**

One that I customized at an event with my son’s name on it, B-E-N-N-Y. 

**Last one: favorite politician?**

Probably Chun-Ha Chang. He was before my time, but he was the anti-military regime democratic fighter. He was the leader of the opposition to President Park. Of course he died due to “mysterious causes.” One of my father’s best friends is the son of that guy. His friend had to suffer, after his dad’s death. He couldn’t get regular jobs. He was this super smart guy but nobody was hiring him. He did odd jobs his whole life. And they joke about it now, because my dad’s friend is a jack of all trades because of bouncing from this job to that job. He’s like the ultimate handyman now. He accepted it as his fate, and likes it, in a way. By all accounts though his dad was a very respectable guy. If he didn’t get assassinated, maybe Koreans’ recent history could have gone a different direction. A huge what-if situation. 


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The Dutch Tulip Financial Interview

An Interview with CJ808 and QU!$7 of 2K3

[>>DOWNLOAD HYPERLINK<<](https://www.mediafire.com/file/hn2ck5q2k51p22k/FINALS_ISSUE-01.pdf/file)

Pub. November 2020

Featuring: 
- All Gas No Brakes 
- Big Crown Records 
- Laura Sullivan Cassidy 
- Angela Garbes 
- Meaghan Garvey 
- Steve Hiett
- Light in the Attic 
- Lil Keed 
- Michael Kucyk 
- Patrick Milgram 
- Jen Monroe 
- Hank Reavis 
- Soccer Mommy 
- Strath Shepard 
- Tammie Teclemariam 
- Utah State University

Edit: Andrew Matson/Spencer Manio

Design: Ryan Diaz

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Finals Issue No. 01 Now Avail for Free.99

Upendo Moore on Leaving Home

In SoundCloud’s ocean of narcotized, otherworldly rap, few collectives are distinguishing themselves like [cr3stfallen](https://soundcloud.com/cr3stfallen). Their mixtape *[#CF21](https://soundcloud.com/cr3stfallen)*, released in February, assembles over a dozen producers and vocalists to find the lucid moments in the depths of a comatose sound, hypnotizing you with more voices than your brain can process as their plugg-adjacent production reaches into the future. 

15-year-old [rodneyy](https://soundcloud.com/ccrodneyy) stands out in cr3st as a member with some of the most fleshed-out ideas as a solo artist. On EPs like January’s #nYnm, he sharpens the lethargic atmospheres of his peers into something new and infectious, picking punchier beats and using his alien vocal hooks to bend the cr3st sound towards more focused songs with a professional finish. The recent work of Playboi Carti, who rodneyy idolizes, looms large over his sound.

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/playlists/1189770553&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/ccrodneyy" title="rodneyy" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">rodneyy</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/ccrodneyy/sets/nynm" title="#nYnM" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">#nYnM</a></div>

Much of rodneyy’s fully-formed presence can be credited to his upbringing; as I learned in our brief interview, he’s the son of 2000s R&B star Monica and Rocko, the Atlanta rapper and record executive who’s most often associated with his 2010 signee Future. Growing up at the heart of the music industry in Atlanta, rap music’s current crucible, has taught rodneyy how to professionally self-produce and mix all his music before he can even legally drive. He hopes to use his early, singular talent on SoundCloud to become a star on the level of his idols, setting the template for more young people to follow in his footsteps.

---

**You’re from Atlanta, right? You grew up there?**

I’m from Atlanta, yeah. Born and raised here.

**What was your musical upbringing like?**

You know my mom and dad make music, so like, rap and R&B. That’s really what I’ve been around, like, the real trap scene. When Future was first coming up and all that, I was heavily indulged in that, because he was signed to my dad, so I was around a lot of trap music. That’s kinda what I was brought up around.

**Did you say he was signed to your dad?**

Yeah! Future was signed to my dad. Future’s name, before he met my dad, was Meathead.

**Wait, hold up, who’s your dad?**

Rocko. R-O-C-K-O.

**Oh shit, Rocko! I didn’t know that. So you were really immersed in Atlanta music from a young age.**

Yeah. I’ve been kinda stuck into it -- late night in the studio, all that. I really was born into it, for real. I’m glad I was, ‘cause I love it so much.

**You were kind of destined for music.**

Yeah! Destined to grow up into it, yeah. 

**How did you first stumble on SoundCloud shit? Like, the shit you do now?**

Believe it or not, I had just gotten TikTok, in like 2019. And I heard this one song by notlocked and i9bonsai. Ever since that one song, I was looking into related tracks and stuff, and that’s where I met st47ic and mar and p6nk and luci and them, and the rest is history. I used to be in call with them every day, and I got better, and we all got better with each other. They’re my bros, for real. 

![rodney 2.png](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/rodney_2_2c58b5037f.png)

It’s crazy that TikTok got me where I am now.

**Especially since you were surrounded by Atlanta music when you were young, but what started you off was an i9bonsai song.**

Yeah, exactly. It’s weird, yeah.

**How did you first get linked up with the dudes in cr3stfallen?**

You know Dani Kiyoko? He used to make a lot of producer chats. Back when Instagram had a chat option, you could just hit a button and join a chat. So I would join his chats, and in those chats I met fakekickin, and he’s like co-leader of cr3st. 

I’ve always wanted to join, but one day I was like “what’s cr3st?” being, you know, nonchalant about it. And he was just like “you wanna join?” He didn’t even tell me, he just asked me if I wanted to join. And the rest of that is history too -- that was around, like, July. I didn’t start rapping until a month after I joined cr3st.

**So you grew up around rap, and with Rocko as your dad, but you didn’t start rapping yourself until then?**

I had been making beats all my life. And then I started rapping around...the beginning of the school year.

**Does your dad fuck with your music?**

Oh yeah, he does! The “TEAR IT UP” video, he paid for it for me. I appreciate him. My parents are giving me cosigns and stuff, I really appreciate it.

**In one of your recent songs, you borrow the hook from “Stop Breathing” by Playboi Carti. Is he an inspiration to you generally?**

Man, Playboi Carti is such a big inspiration. And you know, that’s after Whole Lotta Red dropped, and...You’ve seen Instagram after Whole Lotta Red.

**They weren’t giving it a chance, honestly.**

Exactly, like, they weren’t giving it a chance at first, but now it’s so widely liked. People base their clothes, the way they talk, their Instagram’s look, off that album. And it’s so cool. I want to get up there like Carti one day.

**You want to set the tone for other people.**

Yeah.

**Obviously to do that, he had to develop a really unique presence. What do you think sets you yourself apart from other people on SoundCloud, in that kind of way?**

Honestly, I think it’s the fact that I really can be in a room by myself, with just FL Studio, and I can just make an album. You know, it’s not a lot of rappers that make all their own beats, mix all their own music, and rap. Know what I’m saying? Because I really just hop on FL and make whatever I want.

There are other rappers that do make beats in my style. Like...who are some, for example? Like Yen.

**Duwap?**

Duwap Kaine’s a good example. Yen’s my bro. Kuru makes beats, I don’t know how often he hops on his own beats, but you know. I feel like the fact that I’m younger than a lot of people that are going up is important, too. I’m 15, and Duwap’s one of my biggest inspirations too, for that reason. Because when I found Duwap, he was 14, and I’ve just been listening to him all my life. 

I just want to be an inspiration to the younger people. If you’re younger, I want you to see me and be like “damn, that young boy making music! I wanna do that too,” or “I want to go up like him,” you know?

**Who else on modern SoundCloud besides those you mentioned inspires you, as far as sound?**

Modern SoundCloud...let’s see. Everybody in cr3st. Chain Gang, that’s like Yen...And 777World, that’s like Kaya and Vagex and them. And then, last but not least, Andrettimakk. Andrettimakk is a big inspiration.

**His mixtape that came out a few months ago, I’ve been playing the shit out of that.**

He’s just so different, for real.

**You’ve had two EPs drop this year. What do you have coming up the rest of the year?**

I think I’m gonna drop one or two more singles, and then it’s gonna be a tape on my birthday, May 21st. I turn 16.


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The Browser #5: A Q&A with Rodneyy

![raeg1.png](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/raeg1_2cd64553a9.png)

At age 17, Raegun can already do whatever she wants. You wouldn’t know it by listening to her current output, but before she wrote confessional pop songs on SoundCloud as a member of [noheart](https://soundcloud.com/ripnoheart), she was a rapper inspired by abstract stylists like MIKE and Earl Sweatshirt. If you listen to the rap EP she released last October (which she’s asked me not to link here, so people can discover it themselves), you’ll be transfixed by her command of the genre; as she laterally navigates her insecurities and Black identity over roughed-up soul samples, you hear echoes of her younger years as an aspiring poet. Last December, she released [a song](https://soundcloud.com/raegun240/in-the-aeroplane-over-the-sea) on SoundCloud tagged “#hyperfolk” that mashes up Neutral Milk Hotel with osquinn’s “bad idea.” She’s even started exploring [self-produced garage music.](https://twitter.com/raegun010/status/1382126092325113856) What unites all of these phases of Raegun’s career is a keen sense of discovery, like she’s bringing new life into everything she attempts with fresh, curious eyes and an insatiable need to get what’s in her head out into the world.

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/952054804&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/raegun240" title="raegun" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">raegun</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/raegun240/in-the-aeroplane-over-the-sea" title="in the aeroplane over the sea" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">in the aeroplane over the sea</a></div>

Her debut EP under her current moniker, *cherry blossom blooms*, is out tomorrow -- it’s a breezy, four-track project produced entirely by [coleslau](https://soundcloud.com/coleslau) to capture the inflection points in Rae’s mental health and love life as the seasons change from winter to spring. She sketches out a place in digicore’s indie pop wave with the same therapeutic detail that marks her earlier work. Lead single “talk to me” sees her grapple with communication problems between her and a girlfriend, while songs like “window washing” read more like diary entries, sourced from the poems she might write to herself.

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1010799859&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/raegun240" title="raegun" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">raegun</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/raegun240/talk-to-me" title="talk to me" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">talk to me</a></div>

When I interviewed Raegun a few weeks ago, she seemed to have more fully-formed ideas about what to do with her art than she could mention. SoundCloud has given kids like Rae an environment where, in short amounts of time, they’ve spun simple music out into a wide range of creative pursuits at a young age, and our interview makes me think she is next in line on that journey. We had a bubbly, forthright conversation about all the different places she might direct those artistic impulses, and how exploring her identity and upbringing in Bowie, MD figures into her music; our conversation is transcribed below.

---

**Tell me about where you’re from.**

I’m from Maryland. It’s called Bowie, in PG County. It’s considered one of the safest Black areas in the United States, and I think that definitely shapes who I am. I’m very strong about identity, as a trans Black woman, and I think that’s kind of what I’ve been trying to make music about — being somebody who’s not really accepted in my day-to-day life, and being able to escape on the computer with friends. In everything for the past year, that’s kind of how I’ve built myself.

**I noticed a while back on socials, you were showing off your MIKE *May God Bless Your Hustle* vinyl.**

(laughing) Yeah!

**I love that album. What about that style of music do you think appeals to you?**

Definitely the pro-Blackness. When I was young...this is gonna sound crazy, but I used to read Black Marxist theory when I was in like...elementary and middle school (laughing). When I was super young, I lived in Kansas, and I was surrounded by a bunch of white people, and it was awkward. So when I moved here and was surrounded by other Black people I dived deep into that. 

That’s kind of where I started in music. I’m like, a huge Earl Sweatshirt fan. I have an Earl tattoo. So that’s kind of how I started in the abstract rap scene, mostly because they were all about explaining complex ideas in the simplest way possible. And I think that’s how I try to incorporate that into what I do now.

**Before that one EP that you dropped that you sent me, how far back does the abstract rap phase of your career go?**

Oh, God...very, very far back. I have older siblings and they -- specifically my older brother, he’s a rapper, and he’s been doing that for a long time. He’s been doing abstract rap even before I knew MIKE and them. Very, very far back, at least 2015...it’s been a while.

**I don’t know that much about your career, but it seems like you had a bunch of musician friends online before you got big in music.**

Yeah, for sure. Gum -- Dirty Bird, the house producer -- I’ve known him for a while. He’s been huge even before I was anything. Also, a bunch of other abstract rap artists that like nobody knows, I was friends with (laughing). 

It’s kinda weird being in this scene now, because I just started making pop music in like, September, and it was very hard to try to get people to take me seriously. A lot of people are so strict on: “we have our circle, and we’re not gonna let anybody else in. This is how it’s gonna be,” and it’s only been in the past two months that things have just blew up. It started from a Masked Gorilla show with Glaive. They played my song, and Glaive was like “whoa, this is crazy! I’m gonna message them,” and then he follows me and messages me. And the next day, Ericdoa follows me and asks me to make a song with them, and the next day, noheart asks me to join! So it’s like these things were really topping onto each other in the span of a week.

And now, I guess I’m at a weird point in my career where I feel like I’ve proven myself to the community, but not to anybody outside it. I don’t know how to go about it, but it’ll be interesting. 

**What song was that, the one at the Masked Gorilla show?**

It was [“al capone.”](https://soundcloud.com/raegun240/al-capone-tsuyunoshi) I don’t know...I don’t know how I feel about that song. (laughing)

![raeg 2.png](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/raeg_2_be18819bc4.png)

**The song you did, “newgen,” is about that experience of not being considered part of the community. Is that what people were calling you -- a “newgen?”**

Yeah, exactly! Like, there’s so many times where people were like, “you’re probably not gonna be able to talk to them, because they don’t like newgens,” and stuff like that. It’s just bullshit. At the end of the day, if you make good music, you make good music.

**In your transition from making abstract rap stuff to the pop music you make now, do you think there’s anything you’ve carried over, as far as your craft or the way you think about music?**

Honestly...not really, which is so weird. It’s such a huge change-up. I just remember one day, I think the specific song I heard was “BadGirlsClub” by ericdoa, and then I was like “damn, I wanna try that,” and then I did it one time.  

Because like...okay, let me go back. When I was an abstract rapper, my producer -- he’s a kid who lives in my neighborhood, his name’s [Ria](https://soundcloud.com/ria_chuelo), he’s in worldonlockdown, sugarrush, a bunch of hyperpop collectives -- he was just an abstract rap producer. I sent him “BadGirlsClub” one day, and he was like “whoa, this is crazy,” and we just decided to do that on our own. We were just working together for a month, and we knew nothing about any of these hyperpop people, so we were kinda just developing our own sound. It was, like, refreshing. It felt like...that was probably the best month I’ve ever had making music, being able to completely switch with no direct inspirations but yourself.

**The other day, I saw you wrote this [really nice poem](https://twitter.com/raegun010/status/1377625945918611460) on Twitter -- about your girlfriend, about transness, identity...Are you the sort of person who just wants to explore as many different avenues of art as possible?**

Yes! For sure! Before anything, I wanted to grow up and be a poet. I still do want to go to school for journalism, and stuff. I’m huge into writing. That’s why when I read your juno thing, I was like “wow, this is really good!” I was surprised, because I want to do writing.

Poetry is definitely something I’ve always been into. That also connects to abstract rap, because it really tested me. Instead of vocal mixing and all that, it’s mostly just poetry onto paper, and I still preserve that with just writing. For whoever wants to see it.

**Do you think that early love of poetry informs the way you rapped, and later the way you write pop songs?**

For sure, like...It’s so much easier. I have friends who produce, and they always say they want to sing, and they always want to do this, and they can’t because they just can’t get their thoughts onto paper. Poetry definitely helped me be able to easily identify my feelings and put them into words. I can make a song about anything that I truly feel in like ten minutes, because I’m so used to understanding how I feel and being able to say it.

**Do you pre-write all your songs, or is it just a straight shot?**

It depends, honestly. “Newgen,” that was, like…

**Just angry? Like, “ugh!”**

Literally! dltzk just sent me the beat and I was like, “fuck it! I’m kinda mad,” and just went through. But songs like “talk to me,” the one I just released, that one was pre-written for sure.

**That was with coleslau, right? How’d you link with him?**

I don’t know if you know anything about the collective FourSeasons. It was an old collective, with so many talented names. cole was in it, hallow, endie, st. jimmy was in it. But nobody ever took us seriously because our leader, people thought she was a “reply guy.” So we weren’t really taken seriously.

That’s how I met cole. I remember one day, me and him were in a VC, and we were talking about our music inspirations, and they aligned so well even though we were doing completely different genres that we were like “we should just work!”

For the past month, we’ve just become best friends and worked, like, every single day. We’re always calling, always texting, always bouncing off ideas.

**I also saw you have a song with meltycanon on the way. How did that happen?**

Oh my God, I don’t know. That was like, a dream come true. I’ve been listening to meltycanon for so long. I just woke up one day and meltycanon followed me and DM’d me, and I’m like “what the fuck?” It just did not seem real. But I’m definitely taking my time with that, because I don’t know how many Meltycanon collabs I can get, so I’m making sure I get my best with that one.

**You have this new EP coming out in two weeks. What’s new for you on there?**

*Cherry Blossom Blooms*, it’s a concept, but not very straightforward. I deal with depression and depression is terrible during the winter, so the EP is about the transition period between the winter and the spring when you’re gradually feeling better, but you’re faced with all these tasks: the school year is ending, you don’t know what you’re gonna do for summer, falling in love -- just everything that happens from winter to spring.

It’s just a terrifying time for me every year, so I just wanted to see how much I can put that into sound. That’s why I got Cole to produce, because Cole’s very good at making very happy...very spring-y kinds of sounds. So I’m trying to put that sound all together and see how it works.

I’m not even gonna lie to you. That project isn’t even finished, and that’s kinda how I work best. I always, every time I drop something, I finish it right before I drop it. Not even the day before, the day of. That tends to work with me, because I can procrastinate, and if I make myself sit down for three hours straight and work on something, it’s gonna be the best damn thing I’ve worked on.

**So, you’re a poet, you’re an abstract rapper, you’re a singer, and you’re only 17. What other kinds of artistic avenues are you trying to explore, since you’ve got a lot of time?**

I want to do, like, movie sound shit. I’m also a violinist. I wanna see if I can do stuff for movies. I used to listen to, like, Hans Zimmer shit all the time. I also want to learn how to paint; my brother’s an amazing painter, and I envy him so much, because he’s so good at that. But I feel like if I put my mind to it, I could definitely do it. 

I’m open to anything, really. What I always joke about to people is that I’m not good at anything except art, so I’m just gonna keep doing it. I might as well do whatever I can!

**Has your brother had a lot of influence on you?**

For sure, for sure. He lives in California. We’ve never lived in the same house before, but as I grew older and started talking to him more, I realized that we were, like, the exact same person, and that’s really helped me come to terms with who I am today. We were both artists in our own way. If I had an experience, I’m almost positive he’d have the exact same experience, so it’s kind of cool to have that intel on how to deal with things.

**Do you have any other siblings?**

Yeah, I have so many. I currently live with one of my sisters -- she’s actually from the UK -- and I live with another brother, so I have a ton.

**Do you feel like pop, as an ecosystem, has specific aspects that connect with transness for you?**

Oh, for sure! Oh, my gosh. The trans pop community has helped me so much with my identity. I’m not even just talking about people like SOPHIE, or like Arca, I’m talking about people like osquinn. There’s so much emotion into it. It’s just so empowering.

**After this EP, where do you think you’re specifically trying to take your pop sound?**

Honestly, past the hyperpop/digicore label. I realized that no matter how many songs I can drop under that label, at this moment, it could only be listed as that. The only person who’s pushed it further than that is, like, dltzk, and I feel like I have a way better opportunity at becoming the superstar I want to be if I take a more pop route. Which is what I’ve kinda always wanted to do, looking at people like Clairo or Kevin Abstract who’ve done bedroom pop. But not even just that -- merging that with my own sound, I think that’s kinda what I want to do. 

I want to be able to conceptualize things way better than the people around me. Instead of just dropping single upon single, I want to be able to bring entire stories into it, and bring a bunch of other media aspects into it.

---

*Photos by Raegun's younger sister*




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