G-Eazy
G-Eazy is back. The Bay Area artist caught up with Billboard about his time away from the music scene, his come-up and his upcoming album.
“I went through some personal things with losing my mom and there was just a bit of an overall burnout,” he told Billboard R&B/hip-hop reporter Neena Rouhani. “We started aggressively trying to tour and release music independently. That level of grind catches up to you.”
After a soul-searching hiatus, the 33-year-old rapper is back in motion and has no plans of letting up. “I just needed that step back. Once that spark hit it was like, ‘Yeah, it’s over. We found it. Now y’all are in trouble.’”
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His latest single “Tulips & Roses” is all about giving flowers while someone is still here to receive them. The track centers on “human vulnerability,” G-Eazy says, adding, “People put artists on this pedestal where you’re supposed to be the superhero and invincible. But at the end of the day, anybody could have a bad day or catch an L.”
The rapper is pleased with the fan reaction to “Tulips & Roses,” which has over 1 million views on YouTube. “When you make music, you’re making it in the studio with your closest team. When you put it out, all of a sudden, it has this life because it’s impacting all these people,” he says.
G-Eazy reflected on his journey, from a 13-year-old kid who bumped Too $hort, Mac Dre and E-40 in his bedroom to a world-famous artist playing arena shows. “I started making beats and the beats were trash. I started like writing little raps in my notebooks, I didn’t know how to like structure a song or even how to count bars,” he explains of his early years. “I’m just 14 in Oakland, in size 36 jeans and baggy white tees.”
But one day, while listening to Jay-Z’s critically acclaimed The Black Album, everything changed. “I was like, if we’re gonna do this, I want to chase him. I want to aspire to that,” he says today. “If I could go back in time and tell that 14-year-old version of me that we’d be sitting here doing this or that I’ve done these arenas, that’s unfathomable.”
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Dex, the son of pop star Cyndi Lauper, has announced an upcoming album with features from fellow rappers G-Eazy and Trippie Redd.
In an interview over the past weekend, the 25-year-old rapper spoke about the project while leaving Los Angeles International Airport for a promotional tour for the “F*** You Gumbo” cannabis brand that he’s involved with. He was asked about being perceived as a “nepo baby”, given that the pop legend Cyndi Lauper is his mother.
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“If you know me personally, I grew up in Harlem bro. Me and my mom were split up when I was a kid. But we reconnected through music, which was kind of beautiful,” Dex responded casually. He continued: “I don’t complain about my story man. Everything is a blessing.” He was then asked if he’d ever do a track with the “Time After Time” singer. “I’ve got three or four records with my mom,” but demurred when asked if she’d be on his album. He did confirm that Trippie Redd and G-Eazy would be on his new project.
Dex revealed that his mom took him seriously as an artist when her label had worked to sign him onto the label without her having advance notice based on his previous appearances on G-Eazy’s Scary Nights album and being on tour with Sean Kingston. “From seeing that, she just went, ‘okay, he’s ready’”, he said. He’s also been highly protective of their relationship, exemplified in a post he made on his Instagram stories after appearing with her at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards with the caption: “Say what you want about me but keep my mother’s name out of your mouth. I couldn’t have asked god for a better mother.”
The rapper, also known as Declyn Lauper, had previously been in the news after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct last October in New York City. He was caught by police in a stolen Mercedes-Benz after leaving a memorial for a friend in Harlem in July. The dictates of the plea deal instructed him to complete five days of private community service and to remain out of trouble for a one-year period.
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