Introducing Lanii.

Lanii is a Brooklyn born and raised rapper and hip-hop artist. Since his debut EP in 2018, "Uno", Lanii has continued to release amazing song after amazing song! He sat down with us in a long-form Instagram Live interview to discuss his music, process, past releases, and future career aspirations as well as the changing landscape of the music industry!

Q: How do you describe your own style? What genre do you fit into?

I'm definitely a rapper. That's what I grew up listening to— the thing that makes me love music and wanna do it every day. So definitely rap, but, I don't know. I feel like as rap has progressed, we’re still such a young genre, but as rap has progressed really in the past 50 years, the sound done changed.

Like, I don't even know, like so many different times. So it's like, I don't even know what type of rap to call myself. I feel like I'm my own version of this genre, but I'm definitely a rapper though. Shout out to hip hop.

Q: So are there specific rappers, from different eras that either you grew up on, you listened to or you pull from for your own sound?

Yeah, if we was just talking about rappers, I'm really, I'm really just a rap fan. So if we were just talking about the amount of rap artists I listened to, we would be here all day, like shout out. Definitely like Kendrick, I feel like as I started rapping, I feel like artists like Kendrick, weirdly, like Mystical, Don Q, like even Young Nudy, like these are all artists who I weirdly like be feeling like, damn, why do I, why did that almost sound like that dude? But in terms of rappers, like, I don't know. I don't even know where I pull direct influence from at this point. But I just think like how I was saying it is the culmination.

Just how much of a fan I am of the music and the culture really. Like even past rap, like I feel like when I was growing up, my mom just, that was something, Music was always on at all times in the crib. Like, so I'm brainwashed with tunes, so it's like, it's just in me, like, I don't even know.

Q: Are there any artists that you listen to or that inspire you that your fans would be surprised to hear? Maybe of a different genre or style?

Definitely. Like SADE, Nick Drake. I'm trying to think.

I don't even know, like definitely those two I could say just right off bat have had mad direct influence on the way I've been able to grow as an artist. Just listening to them over and over again and sort of like taking my own understanding from like not only what they mean through the music, but like how they got there, how they're putting songs together and like, I don't even know.

Just everything that I've been able to get from them and then apply in my own music I feel has definitely helped me progress. So definitely SADE and Nick Drake. I feel like I'm leaving so many people out just cuz I listen to so much. But it's like, I don't know. Above all, I would definitely put them in there.

I love Tame Impala. That's the mad, popular answer though. But like I really think, Who? What's his name? Kevin Parker. Whatever. Y'all drop it in a coms. But I feel like he's one of the muddiest white musicians to ever live. Like, I don't even know. And he's so fired cuz it's like granted music and the origins, like we could go into a deep thing about where that's really from, but like black art is just a gift to this planet, you know?

But his ability to just be so himself and still be so musically as clown like on another level, like his attention and details on another level, but he's so himself with it, not pulling from anyone else is just like, I don't even know. That's for real like so smuddy to me. I think he's so hard.

Q:  Speaking of your sound, I wanna talk about what your process is like. Can you take me and your fans through your song creation process from the conception of the idea? Do you start with the beat? Do you work with producers? Do you produce yourself? How does that process get kicked off? 

I love to sit with producers as they make beats. So shout out to Joe Asti and East End, Jackson, Crybaby Music. Damn Krishna, Cunning Cannon and Benjamin Bowman, like those are six dudes that every week I'm locked in with. Like at least three of us are together every Tuesday and we dead just like cook up beats. I don't even technically know how to like make beats, but we just that sit there and like exchange music ideas. Sometimes we just talk and argue about music.

But just being able to […] create the authentic, comfortable atmosphere so we could sorta be mad experimental, be the ones that sorta, I don't even know, going back and forth about something to just to try and create something new, you know?

But I love to start with the beats per se. It's like even sometimes I won't use the whole. But as a beat is coming together, I'll sort of hear the beginnings of the song. Yeah. And then literally everybody in this live could tell you I just start like mumbling into my phone. I'm just trying to get like flows down.

Like anything that's coming to my head, I just am trying to put it down. Cuz that's usually always the best shit is them original ideas.

Q: So when you're thinking about lyrics, you start with the flow and then build what the song's about on top?

Yeah, definitely like 70 to 75% of the time. There's sometimes where I really just like got some shit I need to get off. So I'll start with the bars, but usually I'll try and construct a song with the flows first. Definitely.

Q: How did you get started? How did that first EP come about? Have you been rapping forever or did you come about it in the last five years?

I feel like a little bit of both. Like I feel like I was rapping just on some brainwash black teen thing like, Oh, I either gotta be a rapper or, or a NBA star.

So I was trying to do both my whole childhood , but then sorta I started rapping again, I guess probably in like 2017. Actually, thanks to Choppy Jan and my brother Aubrey. They were, at that time, they were making a lot of music together and just sort of like rolling with them every day. Being able to go to the studio every day and just, I don't even know, like see people I know be creative doing it every day.

Like, it wasn't like they was going to jobs or school every day. They was just making music. They was just making music, so I thought that was mad fire and just the artistic expression. I don't know, I just thought it was heat. So eventually I just, I don't even know when to do everything that my big brother does.

I was just like, damn, I'm gonna start rapping a little bit. But then from there, it's like the first rap I wrote and spit. Maybe it was my ego, but I was like, Damn, I might be the greatest ever. Like, I gotta do it now.

Q: You’ve been known to collaborate with an artist named Barter. What's that partnership like?

So I started rapping in like 2017, but it was mostly like doing features. On my brother's tracks or Choppys tracks. And then eventually we started a group called 360, and that's where Barter came into the loop.

I used to go to boarding school, I left boarding school. and I went to a school back in Brooklyn for my last year of high school and that's where I met Barter at. And he was just like off rip. We had to be friends cuz we was at a predominantly white institution and we was in the same grade and we was both black.

So I don't know, it was besties since then and I don't know, I just, he just supported me through my, like as I was trying to rap as through, I was going through high school when that summer, I think think like, I don't even know the push from him just being around 360 plus his, like he already had ties with Next Gen O, which is a legendary rap collective out of Brooklyn.

So it's just like, I don't know. I felt like it was perfect timing for him as well. And since then, I don't even know. I feel like he started one year after me.

So since we've been on a, I don't know, since we've been locked in together, it's just we locked in in real life. So the music is like, I don't even know. Like it's almost-- it be laughable, like how you just said, we make music together.

Q: I wanted to ask about your latest release, Agent 230, It has the Knicks on the cover. How do you see that relationship between the hip hop world and the NBA basketball world?

I don't know. I feel like it's a double-sided thing. I feel like, I don't know. Basketball and hip hop is married on the one hand, just cuz that's culture for us. Even growing up, like I grew up like 10 minutes from Gersh Park, so that was literally like what we would do every summer.

We would just go and watch people play, see famous rappers and NBA players, like, I don't even know. That's just culture. But on the other hand, it is like as you grow up, it's definitely some weird thing that's happening. Like, I don't even know until I went to boarding school, it's not like, damn, like I don't even wanna sound mad, ignorant, but it's a fact.

It's not like I even knew to dream to be like a computer scientist. Or like an engineer. Like just the way it seemed, aside from my mom, mad prop to my mom, cuz she always wanted me to be on some like, some wild school tip, like go and become a lawyer or something like that. But outside of like, I guess a lawyer or a judge or whatever, my mom was telling me like all I really thought like the only cool thing to be was like a rapper or a baller it, really?

 So I, I feel like it's joint cuz it's the culture, but it also feel like it's some weird shit that's pushed on to us like we already know how unlikely it is to be a professional baller or to be Lil Baby. So it's like, I don't even know. It's like I fake, I still love basketball and I still love rap so much, but it's like, I don't know.

I don't even wanna be the corny one, but I wish there was some way like. We could make like the n*** from Earn Your Leisure, like ass flies, Lil Baby or something like just to give the young black children something else to like, I don't even know, aspire to outside of sports and music. Like, it's great. I don't even know.

And it's like, it's great. It's great to be, I don't even knows. Great to express yourself through art and physical activity for every single human being, but that's not, that's just also not all it is you know. 

Q: How does being an independent artist work for you in your life? A lot of independent artists are also entrepreneurs in other ways, or pick up side jobs. Have you always just been fully independent?

Yeah, so to be honest, everybody in here know it, but I done, I literally worked at a ice cream store for like three years. When I was like, from like 18, 17 up until Corona, I worked at Ample Hills, and that day was like my first real trap, like that's shout out to Ample Hills. That really propelled me to like, I don't even know, just have a little money to make more money in my entrepreneurial pursuits.

So yeah, it was really, Ample Hill was bringing me all of bread for a while and then after. Just sort of figuring life out. To be honest, I done sold soaps in my life, like I did trade in the free market. Just, you know, just trying to figure out, That's what I, as it goes back to like figuring out there's more than just being a rapper or a ball player, just figuring out different routes that exist to get there. And there's that infinite in this world.

Q: That's one of the great things that we feel at Busker can be done with this Web3 NFT world is giving independent artists the chance to raise money in new ways for projects. What do you think about all of it?

I think it's cool. I think it's like we really in our infancy with everything that has to do with, I guess, cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, what everyone wants to call it.

Like, especially in, NFT. So I really think it's like a lot of what's happening right now in the grand scheme of things, it matters towards building towards something greater. But it doesn't matter towards, like, I don't even know how we see people diving in and spending they life savings on apes. You know?

Like I, I think that's less cool, but just like, I don't even know the technology, like fractional ownership. Having someone be able to like put their art out and always make a residual off of that, like, I don't know. I feel like it's a great use of leveraging technology for artists is just like with most things in crypto, how is this actually like, I don't even know.

I guess I'm just not the bright mind to think. But you know, how in application, how it's going work. 

Q: You’ve been on a bit of a break from releasing. Are you you building a project? Are you working on other stuff?

To be honest, bro, I really to keep it a full buck with everybody in here and not disappoint none of y'all.

But be truly honest to myself, I really have no clue what I'm doing at all. Y'all like, to be honest. Yeah. I really got like, to keep it a buck, I could really drop like six tapes or something. I got so much music, but it's really like just thinking more about how I want to do it.

Like what's my true intention. I just been, I don't know. I've been getting older. And think really just trying to be more aware, like to the world around me and myself. And I think just been having me question everything. Like, not in a bad way, but like, just so I'm being real. So I'm being authentic and honest and coming from a place within myself that I want to be operating from.

So that's fake why I took a step back with that music cuz I gotta figure that out for real.

I feel like that's really why I got into rapping. And especially during my last run, like I was still dropping heat. But I sort of like, I don't know, it was COVID, n*** was trapping everything, but I was fake like trapping a rap to be honest. And like, I think that's what you said is everything. Like, just sort of like taking a step back, get more intentional about what I'm saying.

Q: Once you figure some of that out and you start releasing stuff, is there a dream artists out there who you'd love to collab with or open for?

Nah, two different questions. Collab with? Off the rip. The first two names I thought of was Thundercat and Pharrell. I would love to get in the lab with both of them. I would love to make a song with Jada Kiss. If anybody know Jada Kiss, please tell him I'm real. All right. I would love to cook up with Jada Kiss.

I'm trying to think if anybody else that's really like, that's it. That's really it right now. 

As terms of like opening for, I don't even know. I would love to go on a tour with like-- I don't even like, I don't even know a rock artist or something. Like I feel like they be having the mad, they be having crowds that be wild ready to release their inhibitions polls.

But like, I don't even know, like I've been to rock concerts and like the amount of emotions and the different like array songs that they'll take you to and the fans will just be there the whole time. Like that's something I really, that's something I would love to just be around.