From July 27 to August 10, Gus and Makonnen had completed the first fifteen of what would be twenty-one songs and would later be known as the “Diamonds” project. They had completed these songs in Los Angeles. Makonnen had invited Gus, Smokeasac, Fish Narc, and Yung One Era to the Electric Feel studio on Sunset Boulevard. The studio had been new to Gus, and the music was a very new style for him to “hop on.” He had loved every minute of it.
Read more
Gus was feeling good when he released Live Forever. He dropped the mixtape just before midnight on December 2, 2015--pretty soon after Thanksgiving.
Read more
We know that Gus deleted the garage band (original) versions of many of his first songs, so for those songs all we have are the bounces. As he developed fluency with the equipment and his process, he “bounced” a song pretty much as soon as he composed it. But, in the beginning, he likely did not. We know this because we can hear him playing a song on his iPhone fully one month before our first documented record of the song on his computer—the “bounce.”
Read more
Two nights. Two songs. It was a wonderful experience for Gus, one that he expressed such pride about. He really was so proud to be able to make music with Harry Fraud.
Read more
Gus had come home to New York in the end of May, completed the second half of crybaby, and then someone paid for his plane ticket to return to Los Angeles on June 8. The next day, Gus dropped crybaby. Gus’s living situation plans fell through. So, he stayed for a while with a friend named Elias. Gus was busy trying to make music with a multitude of collaborators while he was staying at Elias’s house.
Read more
Gus made California Girls when he was living in Long Beach, during the winter of 2015-2016. He made every one of the six tracks on California Girls with a friend he had never met in person-- @nedarbnagrom. He wrote and recorded these songs at night, and made videos during the day, while I was at work.
Read more
