The DMV Daily Interviews: half-empty

Who is half-empty?

half-empty is a persona that I made up after finding the urge to make songs on my own beats. I was always known for producing, but I didn’t want people to look at it as “oh, he’s trying to rap now?” so I made up a fake profile for empty and everything. I would put out songs here and there, and tweet myself as if i was really another person, and everyone around me knew that I was half-empty, but eventually some of my songs started getting played from outside of the DMV, then people would start mentioning the fake half-empty account on twitter asking for new music and stuff. So pretty much half-empty started off as a concept and became a reality for me. 

Where are you from?

Silver Spring, Maryland. Born and raised. My family is from Liberia though.

What led you to move to New York? How is life there different from the DMV?

I love the DMV but I was just starting to feel a bit lost/complacent. I felt like there wasn’t much left for me to try to do in the music scene because everyone that I was a fan of musically ended up becoming a friend or regular person to me. Making the move was extremely humbling because at home, a lot of people didn’t even know my first name. I was just “filth” to them, and I was used to that. Moving to New York and starting from scratch all over again, having people s*** on me and not being able to have someone else vouch for my abilities, it’s all humbling. it’s almost like “aight, bet.” it makes you wanna turn up and prove people wrong, and I’ve missed that feeling. 

How would you describe the sound of your music?

Good question, I have no idea. I’ve been trying to figure that one out for a while. It’s mostly just an inside view of me, if we’re talking lyrics then it’s a mix of regular emotions whether it’s happy, sad, etc. I try to be as transparent in my music as possible. Production wise, I like to go all out with melody’s and make tons of sounds blend with each other because I love to hear that. So overall, I can only describe my sound as me, or what I’d like to hear. 

What’s your relationship with 8Hundered like? How did that partnership/friendship come about?

Those are my guys. My friend Ande first started the group when we seniors in high school and from then on, it grew into a way bigger collective after many people joined and left the group (including myself). Even though I’m not in 8hundred anymore, we all still support each other and above all, we’re still friends, so they’re all still my mans. 

Last year, you posted a Tweet about befriending a 80 year old woman you played over 300 games of “Words With Friends” with. Since you posted that tweet on December 1st 2017 it has received 1 million likes and over 240,000 shares. How did that story get so big?

That was a shocker too. I think it got so big just because of the obvious difference in the kind of people me and Roz are, but I think people mostly enjoyed it because of the wholesomeness of everything. That whole experience was really cool. 

What’s the story behind your production moniker “High Class Filth”

It started off as an inside joke between my friend and I over the website “brazzers”, that’s what we would refer to it as. I never knew what name I wanted to use for producing so when the time came, I chose that moniker. People started calling me “filth” for short, and the name stuck.

Who inspires you?

Chuck Inglish, Tyler, The Creator, Kanye, there’s a long list. That’s just a few names.

If you could do a EP with any rapper/singer or producer who would it be?

Either Toro Y Moi or Tame Impala. 

What’s the longest studio session you’ve ever had?

I’ve only been in like a real official studio like 3 times. Since I’m the one engineering all of my music, all of my “sessions” are just me staying up late in my room. The longest session I ever had was the night before I dropped my 2 Debut EP’s. A lot of the songs weren’t mixed yet and I still had some verses that I needed to record. I stayed up the entire night until like 6 AM, slept until like 10 AM and got back up and started working on everything again since I planned on dropping at 8 PM.

Can you tell me about the making of “All N All”, what exactly inspired that track and how did you make the beat?

I wrote that song mid-2017 when I was like involved in some drama all around in my life. After I was a few lines in, the “no regrets” part came to me and I just kept repeating that with the beat on loop, then I decided that I should make the song about my life, or at least what was going on in that immediate time period. The beat came to me really randomly, I remember listening to a lot of death metal back then so I wanted to start trying to make faster songs, I was kinda trying to go for that sound on the hook too. 

What are your plans for 2018?

to continue putting out music that people enjoy and relate to, all while keeping my integrity.

Any closing remarks?

None that I can think of off top. I guess thank you to everyone that listens to my music or is even interested in what I have to say outside of my music. That whole concept is still really big to me since I spend so much time listening to my own music, so when I put stuff out and other people tell me they can’t stop listening to it, it’s like “wow, really?” it’s a great feeling. I’m grateful. 

Social Media

Twitter – @half___empty