Denzel Curry got some really good advice from hip-hop icon André 3000, and he’s never forgotten it.
The rap star shared the advice during a recent conversation with producer/collaborator/friend Kenny Beats, while doing a puzzle. “Don’t get bored,” Curry recalled André 3000 telling him. “And when you feel like you’re about to get bored, pivot, and do something else.”
Beats then added, “Making something that people are challenged by is the whole thing…I hope when people hear ‘Gone Fishing’ they think ‘Aye, what the f**k is that beat?’”
Denzel Curry has long cited André 3000 as a crucial inspiration for him
This is actually not the first time that Curry has shared this particular advice from André 3000. In a 2022 guest piece for Kerrang!, Curry name-dropped the Outkast rapper.
“I’ve seen André 3000 progress with each album,” Curry wrote. “From [OutKast’s] Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik all the way to Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. We watched him evolve as an artist. He was talking about being from the South, about changing the course of oneself.”
Curry continued, “I remember meeting him for the first time, and I thought about questions that I wanted to ask him: ‘Why did you keep changing every album? What kept you going?’ He was like, ‘[It’s] a simple answer of not being bored and experimenting as much as possible.’ That’s what’s carried me to this day. He really influenced me to create [2015 breakout single] ‘Ultimate‘.”
DMX is another iconic rapper that Denzel Curry has said had a big influence on him
In that same Kerrang! editorial, Curry also mentioned that DMX was another rapper who really influenced him.
“If you listen to the music that I’ve formerly done, it was aggressive,” Curry said at the time. “A lot of that came from DMX and that raw energy. [I remember] watching him take over Woodstock ’99. He’s one of the best performers I’ve ever seen in my life, and I adapted the way he performs along with rock bands.”
“Metal artists perform better than rappers, but he outperformed anybody,” Curry continued. “Listening to him was a whole influence. The way he was telling stories influenced the way I was telling stories on Nostalgic 64 [Curry’s 2013 debut album]. When I was in RVIDXR KLVN [a hip-hop collective], and when I made ‘Mystical Virus, Part 3’, I just thought about his [multi-part] song ‘Damian’.”
Curry concluded, “That’s what I pretty much took from him. Being able to work with him before he passed away was a highlight of mine.”
Photo by Tiffany Rose/Getty Images for HIM Training Camp
The post Denzel Curry Reveals the Simple Advice André 3000 Gave Him That He’ll Never Forget appeared first on VICE.
