The Paris Williams Interview
Catching up with the one and only before his forthcoming EP
Paris Williams is a 21 year old artist from Muskegon, Michigan. Williams released his first project, an EP called Delay, in 2018. Iggy Pop showed some love to a track off the EP that was named after him. After leaving home for Kansas City, Missouri, Williams started working as part of a group called DROP DEAD XX, which dropped one album in 2018, and another album & B-Sides EP in 2019. At the tail end of that year, Williams also dropped his debut solo album, Drop Dead Gorgeous. Earlier this month, Williams took the time to talk with me on Zoom about his influences, past music, and what he has coming up.
Photo by Cameron Wiley
Brian Harrington: How would you pitch your music to someone that’s never heard of you before?
Paris Williams: I really never know how to answer this question cause I feel like, I guess you kind of have to do it for Spotify and different platforms with their write ups, but I never really sell myself as far as music goes. But I guess I would say pretty production and gritty raps. That’s kind of what I’m going for for the most part. Just trying to bring everything back to that bittersweet sound. I like that juxtaposition and I just think, through life everyone’s trying to find balance. Pretty music is my favorite, but then I like super, more introspective lyrical type rap so I’m just trying to bridge those two worlds. Bridge my pop influences with my underground influences essentially.
Who are some of your influences specifically? And what albums of theirs?
I always forget people, so I always feel bad but, Pharrell. My favorite album by him is probably…him as a vocalist it’s probably either Fly or Die or Seeing Sounds…or In Search Of, just that whole N*E*R*D discography is crazy, I’ve got like two N*E*R*D tattoos. Then as a producer with The Neptunes my favorite would be Hell Hath No Fury. Pusha T is one of my favorite rappers too, he’s up there. Tyler, the Creator, my favorite album by him is Flower Boy. I think that’s pretty flawless honestly it’s a great listen start to finish, the transitions are perfect, I feel like he finally locked in on that one. The Cool Kids, I love The Bake Sale, classic to me. I found out about Odd Future and The Cool Kids around the same time, and not too far after that I started making music so they definitely opened the doors for everything. I’d say Madlib, super big Madlib fan. I was super heavy on Madvillainy as a kid, but I think I like Piñata the most out of all his projects. Who else, who else? Flying Lotus, Flying Lotus is amazing. I feel like that’s one you can’t really hear as much just cause he has such a specific style of production, but his ear for stuff is amazing, and Until The Quiet Comes is my favorite album by him.
Did you listen to his rap album, the Captain Murphy project?
Yeah, I was definitely big on DUALITY when that came out, that was really really sick. Let me do one more cause I could go on forever about who influences me. It’s kind of controversial to throw this guy in there, but imma say Kanye just because he’s influenced me so much. My favorite album by him is Late Registration, but 808s is close. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is close. College Dropout, all flawless. Graduation’s up there too.
I can definitely hear a lot of them in your sound, and you named a lot of rapper producer combos, people that do both like you do. Did you start rapping or producing first?
I started rapping first, I mean I feel like every kid just writes raps when they’re in elementary or whatever, just like to show to their friends. But I remember my first rap was probably around 2005ish, I was maybe around 8 cause it was P.I.M.P. by 50 Cent that was playing on like BET or something and I remember I was like ‘oh that’s cool, imma write that down.’ Wrote it in a rap, said ‘I’m a P.I.M.P.’, and I showed my mom and then she fucked with it, she was like ‘oh this isn’t that bad.’ So I was like maybe I can do this. I just tucked that in the back of my head for a while. But when I really started making music was probably when I was like 13, and raps came first. It was when I was introduced to Tyler, and I was watching one of his interviews and he just said he produces everything himself, so I said fuck it, I’ll try it. Downloaded FL Studio, pirated it on the family computer, think I ended up fucking it up eventually with some type of malware from like the Pirate Bay, and then yeah I just stuck with it.
Now that you’ve groomed your talents in both rapping and producing, what comes first when you’re trying to write a song?
It definitely varies, but most of the time it starts with the beat. I find that sometimes my most topical lyrics will come when I’m just writing solo, in the notes app or just a piece of paper, but then I’ll stash that stuff away until I find a beat or make a beat that just catches my ear, and it’s like ‘oh this is the home for it.’ It’s definitely rooted in the production.
So I first heard you through your solo album Drop Dead Gorgeous, love that album
Aye thank you man!
That was your first solo album, right?
Yeah, my first full length solo.
I was wondering how your approach or mindset was different. Because you did an EP before that and the group albums with Drop Dead XX. So how did you go into this one?
For that one I had just come off the last group album we did, and I just felt like I had a lot more to say. I just think that period in my life there was a lot of changes, I had just moved out here from my hometown which is really small, came to a bigger city, was kind of finding my footing, and just a lot of things within the group happened, so I felt like I needed some type of outlet to express that. It was my attempt to kind of make a coming of age album, like the one I’ve always been trying to make. It’s probably my last attempt at trying to make a full coming of age album, but who knows. It was really just to express myself and around that time, my production had jumped a few levels cause I was in the room producing and making songs pretty much 24/7, so that was the main focus on that project. Some people talk about it being overproduced and stuff like that but I think once you unlock a new skill, you just go kind of overboard with it, and then true mastery is when you draw it back in and know what to put where.
I would disagree that it’s overproduced
I don’t necessarily think so either, but thank you
In terms of production, I really enjoyed that beat on PHOENIX that has the switch up at the end
My homie Medici actually produced that first half and then I had made the second half beat sometime right before we turned in the project and then I just threw it right there just as a little transition.
Speaking of Medici, from following you, I’ve seen a lot of talent you’ve been sharing out of the Kansas City area with your stuff, Drop Dead XX, Medici’s Songs For Alyssa EP, and Blackstarkids’ album, there’s a lot of talent in that area I wasn’t aware of. What’s the scene like out there?
The scene’s pretty cool, I think it depends on who you talk to. I think it’s in a good place though. There’s a lot of different types of artists right now too, especially like Blackstarkids. Medici is based out of Manchester, so he’s not in Kansas City at the moment, but there’s a lot of different punk bands and grunge bands and there’s all types of rappers. So I think it’s in a good place, I think maybe in like the next 5-10 years you’ll see those names become more of a household item and Kansas City start to rise just in general.
I definitely think it’s a scene people are going to start paying attention to if they haven’t yet.
You just announced that you’re doing a 3 part series of EPs called Crybaby. Why did you decide to structure the release as 3 EPs instead of doing another album?
Just as far as like marketing, I feel like it’s so hard to get people to listen to a whole project by someone they’re not really familiar with. And for the last project I didn’t do any singles, I just threw it out there, put out two music videos, and then that was pretty much the extent of the promo, nobody really picked it up or anything like that. So I felt like it’s easier to get people to listen to a batch of 4-5 songs as opposed to a 10 song album. And just releasing it slowly over time, I think the more stuff you release the bigger the chance there is of somebody seeing it. Instead of working so hard on like 10 songs and then just dropping them all at once and not having really anything else planned, it’s easier to just make a few songs that you really love and slowly pitch them out. As far as creation, I just feel like albums are super important. I want my discography to be super concise when it’s all said and done, I don’t want to be the person with like 52 albums like Prince, even though Prince is amazing, but that’s just like so much content to listen to, you know? And it kind of takes some stress off of me, like I can experiment with different things and try different techniques out, when maybe I would otherwise stay away from that cause I want the album to be like really concise and cohesive.
Streaming has definitely changed the way that people are paying attention to releases, and how artists get people to pay attention to them
Definitely
You just released the first single NOLA, congrats on that song
Thank you, thank you
I saw a tweet that said you think people are missing little things in the song, what kind of things are you talking about?
Mainly what I was talking about there’s like this little synth towards the bridge and outro that’s just like, it sounds like a beat essentially, it just goes up and down. Really simple but I think it adds to that emotion. And that’s like really buried in the mix, cause I even forgot about it then I was listening and I was like ‘oh, oh!’ It’s really really quiet. But even like the little pitched up background vocals and the way stuff is sequenced, cause the beat is pretty simple, just through that process and making Drop Dead Gorgeous, I was trying to refine the production, taking it down to the root elements and not do too much extra. So the way everything is sequenced is really important to me as well, dropping everything out when the record scratches to add that emphasis, and bringing everything back in, just little shit like that.
This is also your first release with French Exit Records, what made you decide to work with them and how has it helped your process of releasing music?
That was actually super organic, so there’s a local blog it’s called The Pitch by a really cool guy named Aaron Rhodes, and he ended up writing about one of the music videos that came out, and the homie Brad who runs French Exit Records ended up watching it, liking it a lot, and he hit me up to model for a brand that he’s involved with. Then we just ended up becoming pretty close chopping it up. I showed him some songs and he was like ‘yo what’s your plan for this, I’ve got this label, we can do all this stuff,’ and it’s just really helped cause he knows a lot of people in the scene. He’s from Kansas City so he has so many more connections, and it’s just helped with the branding being able to do photo shoots and videos. It helps me turn my ideas into tangible things. I’m super grateful for it.
Is there a song you’ve put out or plan on putting out that you’re most proud of?
A song that’s out right now would be ZOMBIELAND. I haven’t listened to any of the [Drop Dead] Gorgeous stuff in a minute just cause I’ve been super focused and trying to hone in on the new stuff. But when I made that one, that was my favorite thing I’ve ever made just cause it’s everything I like in music in one song. It’s guitar, a super sick hip-hop drum loop, heavy bass, these synths, some cool raps, and a solid hook. I did everything I wanted to in that song, I did a bridge and all types of shit so I was super stoked on that when it came out. I think OFFLINE is up there, I’m pretty proud of that song. Then one that’s coming out that I’m proud of is probably…there’s a song called Paradise that I really like, doing more introspective stuff. Even if that’s not the most popular, I feel like it’s just cool to have that out. Similarly to artists like Kid Cudi, those really emotional songs just meant so much to me, so I hope to give kids that feeling.
You can keep up with Paris Williams on Instagram and Twitter