Rap Radar Rewind: Saint JHN

because it's for me. I put out the records. I've believe in the things that like. I'm living on my own terms, which is a rare situation of being right. I put out Collection one. That's how I think of music. It's a body of it's a collection. It's my first offering. You're gonna like this record in the summer. This record is gonna fit you better in the winter. This is a fall record, and I understand that it's like any other collection, right, you can't wear it all at the

same time, and you shouldn't have to. I got options for you, you you know. So it's a selfish project because these are the things that I thought. Listen there's no adjustments, nobody making any other impactful decisions. I said the whole what is it like to be like because the end of the day, you're like, You've done so much to help other people behind the scenes to finally execute your vision. How how powerful did that feel for you? It's a victory for all the niggas like me, all the camps,

show me, all the cameras. It's a victor to breathe. Family is a win because just you know, working from behind the scenes having ideas, right, imagine watching your idea die every time. It's like, um, they invented the plane, right, and every plane that they invented they believed in so like feverishly, and they were like, this is the plane, and it goes up and the bitch comes crashing down and you're like, damn, fam can I get one? Can

I catch one? So it's like a victory. It's like watching the plane that you believed in this whole time take off and it's my original design. See if I'm the niggative invented the plane, this is actually my original design. And I went through twenty other iterations just to go back to the first. You love that like breaking all conventions,

like was a singer the way you dressed? Like do you love that part of it that, like you knew from jump that you use somebody is just gonna shake it up and you're not really trying to fit into a box and like challenge, challenge what views are, what what a rap star music stars should look like? And absolutely, yeah, I believe. Look, I believe that the only way to make impact is to make impact. Indentations and impressions have to happen. I live and I see the world the

same way I've always seen the world. But I'm the guy I've always wanted to be. That's a fucking miracle, you know what I'm saying. A lot of people are in positions that you might um think of wonderful you you might celebrate, but they're they're not on their own a court that sounds like I'm in church right now. They're there. But why do you think you're able to have that so strong when you see so much of the opposite. You see people literally struggling with fame, struggling

with finances. Everything plays out depression, you know, it gets so expressed in the music. Why do you think you've been able to like you almost countering that in a sense of like, I think I've just been deliberate. I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't know from extra special have extra special conditioning. I think I just decided nothing else fit me. It didn't wear. I couldn't wear that as well as they could wear that. For instance,

I can't be you better than you can. I'm really good at being myself, so I figured, if I'm really great at being myself, why not be that. So when I saw that you're really great being yourself as l A read man, you signed with Hitko, but wasn't like working with you know, such a legendary you know guy in the game, those meetings like those L A read meetings a legendary. I think we have a we have a unique relationship where we just I mentally respect each other.

He's done so much, he's done so much for the culture, black music, and listen, you don't even have to say anything so that you don't have to top that off with a Chevy. That's just what it is. So to be in the same room with someone that has such a tremendous legacy and they're like, I think you're special, that's read you know what, because it was instant when you play l A your music and the way he'd be vibe into your music. What was that like us not see he has, he dances, he does, He's just

being a he likes it. Wasn't familiar with some of the records. He may have been I think one of two records. And then because no one had heard Collection one, no one knew all the types of things that I would be able to do, all the types of songs i'd make, you know, I put out Roses and I put out reflex in three below, and those were like really, you know, specific samples i'd be probably didn't know I would do a record like selfish or you know, something

that's introspective, like God Bless the Internet. So him hearing the length and breath of it, like the whole body of it, that was really impressive to see because it was somebody that had no idea what was going on from the inception, just sort of thrown just taking apart just by music in a new way that he hadn't heard. I heard you got too Lit last night. I see the I G is always popping. I live an interesting life. I live really I literally just let young lady and

your Instagram feed over once in a while. Every once in a while, Look, I'm about I like to help promote self esteem to me, that's true. So for it, married right, belong to myself in the world. Actually that's not true. You actually belong to the Christian sex club. Can you explain thing? He got the whole My mother might be watching the Christian sex Club. I think, Look, it's sort of self explain to her, right, Christian sex club. Right, there's a hypocrisy to it, as a novelty to it,

and it's a charm to it. And I like to exist on all of those borders right there. That's a triangle for me, all right. I grew up. You know, my mom is she's um. She studied metaphysics, she practices metaphysics as my grandmother. So lots of things I was taught early. I went through all the religions, not all of them, but I went through you know, Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal. So I got to make up my mind based on

the information I had at the time. Those experiences. Yeah, so you know, I get a sense of what's going on in the world, like I really understand what's happening. So when you see Christian Sex Club, you get it. I'm I'm here clothing line too, though, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, that man, you know, and I got you. I don't even know how much I got you. This, this silks, this leathers. Listen, we're doing this thing called sex suits. Man, when you see him, you're gonna thank me.

You're gonna text me, But like, thank you so much. You understand, you really get it like I do. Last night story, oh to the last night. It was my birthday and you know my girl at the time signor it's ignorant on my birthday kind of my birthday sign this. My birthday was six days ago and I took a bunch of my team and we went to um we were in Croatia. I took him to Croatia, just got on the plane. Yeah that's how you should, man, you should live exactly how you want. I gotta sign a

hit cold man. Whoa money? Huh? I like money. Money's good. Um. So last year we were doing my girl threw me a party. My girl at the time, she threw me a party. This is a surprise birthday party. And I'm in the edibles. I don't smoke that. I like edibles. So we got this massive cake with one of the artwork from the Christian sex club line. It's like a nun given priest to blow job. God. Hey, it's facts. It's on the shirt, right, signorant. So she got it on the cake and then my home girl didn't know

it was a weed cake. Everybody else was eating a week they understood what was happening. She was like, Oh, this is delicious. I like this. I'm like, good luck. You see how this goes for you. So I hit it the next day and the first thing that I texted I was like, yo, I heard you got too little last night. I was in the studio sitting on the couch. We're pulling it with playing with the synth line, and I texted, I heard you got too little last night. I even look at her. I didn't even look for

her response. I like, cool, le let's go, because you know it's in the moments, right, The magic is in the moment. That's it. And I was just a moment and it was insane, and I just I told that story. That's one of my favorite tracks on the project, and you know, I'd like to beat a lot. And what's funny is that I saw on Twitter that you said that you never turned down a bad beat. But I didn't understand with that because most of the pea sound good.

What do you mean by that? It was no, no, no to be I said, to be a SoundCloud to be a great SoundCloud rapper, you have to be able to turn down every bad beat or something like that. You know, it's just yeah, the provocative nature of you know, poking fun at that because you know, some of that beats are terrible, some of them. Some of them it's just awful, like god awful. Right, But there's even though it's a child too, I gotta swing to it, And I'm like, whoa fam do you even know how to

use this software? It's like he's pressing all the keys at the same time I rap on it. That's be a fantas. How do you sud how do you decide what you're gonna hop on? Because here it's like no to St John's song sound alike? Almost Yeah, I build them from scratch, so we we build everything from scratch. So I worked like almost exclusively with this producer named Falling and when I'm in the studio, it's it's army drill, practice this again every day, like we never did it before,

Like none of our songs are good. I'm like, I don't care what happened yesterday. Let me hear it, and we're starting from scratch, and I'll write or create from anything, cause I'm just all I'm looking for is magic, fan any creative is looking for. It's like that sparkle, the magic, and you find it and you stretch it out and you turn it into to entire campus. So I'll start with I might just hear drums. It might just be

a simple loop, like really unimpressive loop. But if I can hear it in my head, I'm not gonna articulate it, then I can build around it. So i might do a melody, and then I'll say, put this synth line here, and they'll change the cynth line, they'll change the way I approach it. So everything is customed. What do you

get out of performing? Because I saw he's obviously just sets down here that my a. But I saw something you said he was like in two countries and and he was on the outside show and got caught in the pouring rain before. Yeah, so I did just this past week, like right before my birthday. I was in Germany and Amsterdam on the same day, right, So I did two festivals, Encore Festival in uh in Germany and Amsterdam. I did hype actually still reverse anyway, there were two

hours apart from one another. Literally. So I went on the stage in Amsterdam. First, it's pouring rain. It's pouring rain. And the act who went on before me, they murdered it. Everyone was going off. The crowd was enormous. I got on stage, and because they just started pouring rain, nobody was built to prepare for it. There were fifty people on my stage, right, that's a fact, right, And I won't alter my life or just it. I'm really here in this present moment. However it happened, how it happened

was documented. I'll tell you the whole story. Fifty people at the set, but I didn't make that made no difference to me. I was here in a place where I've never been in my whole life. I dreamt about moments like this. I don't care two of y'all. When your grandmother showed up, I hope she will. Yeah, she got off a pedic song because it's about to get lit. So I went in. I just I never performed in the rain. I didn't hang back under the hanging I

was outside. I was in the ray was pouring on all of us, and the rain started to slow down and it got enormous and it was more people in my eyes because set back out. Yeah, but I got off that stage five minutes after. I was in a car driving to Germany. I got off the two hour drive right as soon as I got off stage. Five minutes later, I was on the next stage. So I've never done that before. Two shows, two countries, two hours apart. Like I'm not even making up these numbers. It's real,

like it's just hopping. And I went in. I did it again. I care. I just perform it for me. It's a different outlet. It's the expressive portion of the art. Right. You make the music and I internalized it, and I'll make it for myself or I make it for you, depending on how I'm making it, and you get to hear it and it's audio format and then I could give you the fucking televised version. It's different. It's like a screenplay in person where I can tell you the

story of it, because no one. You don't know the origins of records, right, You don't know that I might have written like selfish, which I wish we were both somebody else so we wouldn't be somebody else's. You know, I wrote that about some girl and I'm a friend with and she can't be with me because I'm in a situation, and I can't be with her because she got a long term situation. But I can tell you when I'm on stage, I can tell you where it came from, or reflex, and I was that moment a reflex.

I was in Fallen's bedroom. We were just sitting I was in his bedroom. We're trying to figure it out. I think maybe I had just written usher record and we were just trying to figure out what we wanted to do next. And I remember thinking about all the things that I've been through and trying to picture where

I was gonna go next. I was like pitching me, bawling, pitching me with the fifth and Hendy something far and pitching me right around here in the Benzo, pitching me blunting with the tints on the window, like you know, I can see about the looks of it. They got the feeling. I told him, bitches, I'm something they should believe in. I told my mama, they can't reach me at the ceiling. This is only the beginning. This is preseason. You know what I'm saying. It just about it. When

I'm here, it's one on one. You can understand. You can understand these back on tile down Man. Appreciate you taking a thank you guys success. Hold. Look, this is a legendary one of my first time the Amen podcast. Yeah,