Saba has always expressed a purity in the manner he approaches rap music.
Someone who comes to the form as a fan, he’s infatuated by the craft – making music thrills him to the core, so he approaches it with a degree of sensitivity, and seriousness.
Many of the pitfalls of the music industry on both sides of the Atlantic don’t apply here – Saba doesn’t fall victim to feature culture, and he refuses to be drawn into the requirement for constant content. Instead, he focusses on his creativity, building entire worlds with each project, allowing his life, his passions to seep into each bar.
Out now, new album ‘Few Good Things’ is typically exceptional, with Saba joined by his comrades in Pivot Gang, alongside guests such as G Herbo, 6LACK, Fousheé, and the mighty Krayzie Bone, amongst others. A full short film was released alongside, a document that pointed to Saba’s curatorial nous, as well as his unique ability to impact a narrative sense on his projects.
Arriving four years after the lauded ‘Care For Me’ the results, it seems, were more than worth the weight. “It took a while before I started picking it back up and like, really getting back into creativity,” he says in conversation with Clash. “Because it’s hard to create with no experience, you know? You’re just sitting in a house. I was sitting on my ass every day watching TV, cooking… things that I don’t really get to do as much when everything is busy.”
“I felt like if it wasn’t for the people that were also going through that with me, it would be a completely different project. Like a bunch of us, we had like a community of people who were holding each other accountable to release music, and to make music, and to write, and to produce and things like that. So, I think this album kind of came from habit. And not necessarily the inspiration – the inspiration came later. It’s a very inspired body of work, but it took months of just creating with nothing there to get to this. It really just took the habit of practice.”
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As a creator you thrive on community, but the concept of the new record is – as you put it in the press note – the “realisation of self after a search for exterior fulfillment.” How do you square those two ideas?
I think part of it is the people that are around me. Like, there are no two people around us that have the same identity; everybody is comfortable being themselves. And I think with that, being in that type of environment, you become more comfortable being yourself. And that’s what I can say for us: a big priority has always been, as far as Pivot, as far as Chicago, as far as everything about my upbringing, it’s been, like, be more specific, be more yourself, be more experimental. Don’t be afraid to explore, because there are different parts of you that you might not even be hip to yet.
And I think a record like this is, you can feel that level of exploration – not just lyrically, but sonically as well. Tat was just something we wanted to emphasise, and it was fun to do. Keep in mind that this was a record that was creative, where there was no longer an audience. It’s like, we’re making shit at this point that is just cool to us. The idea of connecting with the audience wasn’t the focal point of creation, which I think makes for a more honest body of work.
You mention the influence of Chicago on your work, and that’s certainly apparent. But what is it about the city that impacts on you so much?
I think the city of Chicago pushes people toward perspective. Early on, you know, the teenagers there have so much experience in the world. You’re able to offer valid opinions, valid viewpoints, valid perspective on what you see everyday happening around you. Chicago is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and it’s also one of the most fucked up places. So I think that it’s that experience where it’s an understood language that you don’t have to even speak. Knowing that people understand you comes with being from Chicago. Like, nobody in Chicago is trying to do the same thing as somebody else. As far as the artists and stuff, everybody’s like fighting for their own individual spot, their own space to really shine through.
To push this back on the project, then, you mentioned that when you’re making music without an audience, that’s very freeing. But then when you’re avoiding repetition, that must be very disciplined as well. Were you very hard on yourself, when you’re making this?
Yes and no. I think a lot of what we were creating is like, it has to be cool to YOU. It has to be something that inspires the artist, has to be something that the artist feels challenged by, for it to be something that you’re excited about. So for me, a lot of the music that we were making, or even the records that we didn’t use, a lot of it was as challenging to do things or say things that we hadn’t said. Or if we say something that we have said, how do we say it in a different way, or a different voice, or a different cadence? I don’t really care for redundancies in the discography – when I think of my albums, and what I want them to be, I want you to play my album from four years ago, and that album stand alone. I want to make sure that’s something that I would like to embody throughout my career. If you make something in 2020 versus 2030, it should be different. It should be different! I just want to keep challenging myself as an artist.
‘A Few Good Things’ has a real feeling of being authored. There’s a curatorial instinct there as well, in terms of the people that you bring in. Do you think that’s a big part of your approach to this project?
Yeah, absolutely. I think that the curation – now that’s something that does require a community. Like, you can do it yourself, but that is where I think the outside perspective is the most valuable. If I had to play you my album before it came out, you can offer an unbiased opinion. I think, for us, the more people we played it for, the more we realised how unexpected a lot of the album was, and the more inspiring it became. And the more we became intentional with like, “oh, well, how do we make things unexpectedly happen… on purpose?” Like, how do we control it to make it like “oh, this song is a surprise!” The curation part – It’s like where you have to be the most intentional. So, shout out to the producers! Like myself, Daedae, Daoud, everybody who had a part in it, but that’s where that kind of comes together.
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It’s notable that you released the short film as well. There’s a narrative sense on the record, draw on things like that, films and comic books and different types of narration when you’re building a larger project like this?
Not especially, but I think – based on my understanding of art and my own music – I think it’s just how I kind of came up doing it. Like, from the beginning, I used to really love creative writing, and writing short stories… like. just in English class and things like that. But what that gave me when I started writing music is being intentional about something, especially as it pertains to projects – I want the projects and the songs to have a beginning and a middle and an end. If it’s just a collection of good songs then there’s nothing wrong with that – but, to me, there’s a way to take the collection of good songs and make it a story. – I’m not a film buff, but I just kind of engage with things that I like. I honestly watch the same things every day… I pretty much just watch The Office and it has nothing to do with the music! (laughs)
A lot of the collaborators are very close to you, including members of Pivot Gang. Are you continuously working on music together?
Yeah, there are probably hundreds of Pivot Gang records. When we make Pivot Gang music, we’re able to work so quickly, because there’s so many minds thinking about the record at once. It’s like, it just comes together really seamlessly. If you leave us in the studio for an hour, we might leave with like two or three songs. Honestly, that’s all we do all day – like right now I’m gonna get off the phone with you, and I’m gonna go to the studio and just work on some Pivot Gang records. Like we almost make Pivot Gang music, like, recreationally. Like, as much as we do it professionally, we just do this shit for fun.
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Is there a full Pivot Gang project on the horizon?
Everybody’s working on their own solo stuff. We’re doing group stuff. We’ve been making stuff, all of our friends and things like that. Like I say, my house is like a workshop at this point; everybody’s just meeting up and working on as much as they can, and we’ll figure it out. We’ll figure out what to do with all that music. But right now, we kind of just can’t stop creating it… that’s a good problem to have.
The features on here feel extremely curated, which goes against the grain in a lot of both US and UK rap right now. Equally, you don’t subscribe to the need for constant content – you release when ready. Do you sometimes feel under pressure from the industry due to that stance?
I think most of the rules that have been implemented on creation of music or art are stupid. Like I get it, people see something work, it’s like “oh, well that works, so let’s recreate that.” But I think for me, as long as it’s natural, it’s organic, and it’s what you want to do… I support it. So for me, I didn’t necessarily plan on having this many features. But I had this many records that had features on it. So it’s like, why go against that? Krayzie Bone and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony were my biggest influences growing up, that’s how I became a rapper. So the second I have the opportunity to try to pursue a Krayzie Bone verse, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do, because that’s a dream of mine. It’s like crafting this music as a fan first.
In your introductory press quote you talk about finding your fullness – where did you find it? Does it lie in creativity, and community?
I think there’s so many things… those are two, definitely, but there are plenty of things. I think just living in purpose and doing things that make you feel fulfilled… you know, sometimes it’s honestly doing nothing. And I think that’s something that the pandemic showed me; it’s like, actually, I’m doing a lot of stuff that I don’t want to be doing today. I don’t want to do anything. And that’s the best decision sometimes I feel like as humans we can make.
But I think it’s an ongoing quest almost, finding it. Because I think it’s a fleeting concept, it’s always changing, what you’re looking for as a human. I think the important part is being accepting of that, and to be comfortable with the change. You know, some people get so caught up in their own identities that they don’t allow themselves to take a look at who they are… the older we get, the more we change. And I think that community, having people around you that are aware, having people around you that are fearless in their own self-expression… it’ll just inspire you.
I think you need to be comfortable, to search for a kind of communal comfortability with the uncomfortable. I guess, like, let’s keep pushing ourselves forward. You don’t know how you feel about this place if you’ve never gone, you’ve got to go to these places to see how you feel. Because you might find your whole new life purpose doing something you didn’t even expect to be doing.
So, what will you do next? Are you recording new material? Aiming to release some of the music you’ve already made? Or re-connect with audiences again?
I think a combination of everything you just said! I mean, I’m focused right now on this tour. We’re touring starting next month for the first time in, what, three years now? So that’s gonna take a lot of my effort for the next month, just getting prepared for tour. But, outside the tour, we’ve been making a lot of music, shooting videos, just trying to build out the whole Pivot Gang outside of myself and everything. So there’s a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff that we’ve been working on just every day. But as far as what’s next… I can tell you that hopefully… just continuing to push this album because I think it’s really great. I want as many people to hear it as possible. We’ll take it from there and see what we fall into next.
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‘Few Good Things’ is out now.
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