Our home town homie Alex Wiley connected with the music department of Vice, aka Noisey for a dope interview covering topics ranging from Wiley’s latest song to his creative process and what direction he’s been trying to take his sound. Check out the back and forth down below, and click here for the full article.
Noisey: Tell me about this song, “Booty Club.”
Alex Wiley: It’s a song that I made in a hotel room. I had this bodyguard on the East Coast tour, and he used to come in the hotel rooms like late as shit at night, like on some 4 AM shit, and we’d just be like ‘where were you?’ And he’s like ‘man, I was just in the booty club’ and shit. And one random night he comes in at like 5 AM, waking everybody up, and we’re like ‘where were you?’ and he’s like ‘the booty club, going dumb again’ and it was like the funniest shit I had heard in that moment, the booty club going dumb.
What’s the deal with Silent Party?
It’s like very dark and grungy. I’m trying to make very dark, beautiful things. Pushing myself, I want to make more beautiful music, stuff that whether you like rap or me or not, you can listen to it and it’s just undeniably well put-together, beautiful music. I think it’s easy for that to get kind of corny and not as impactful when it’s bright, happy, smiley music. I just think that a lot of artists now are painting this picture of how they want things to be, and I’m going to paint this picture of how things are for me right now.
This super positive wave of rap—I call it Smile Rap—it’s very cool, and it’s noble. It’s noble to make super positive stuff like that, but it needs a balance. Rap isn’t supposed to be fucking kumbaya session, to me. I think it’s supposed to be gritty, and it’s supposed to be uncomfortable sometimes. It shouldn’t be all ‘let’s fucking hold hands and love each other.’ That’s tight, but that’s not real life to me. I was trying to come with a new approach and trying to make dark-ass, beautiful music that really reflects real points in my life. And I felt like if I did it that way it would be easier for me to try and dig deeper and give more to the project than I have before.
