powfu

Powfu unveiled his nine-song debut album, Surrounded by Hounds and Serpents, on Friday (Dec. 2), and to celebrate the release, the 23-year-old star sat down with Billboard‘s Rania Aniftos to discuss his musical journey.

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“My first memory was walking into the living room, and my parents bought me a drum set,” he shares of when he first started getting into music and how he was inspired by his father, who is also a musician. “When I was 12, that’s when I really started trying to write stuff and I was into poetry a lot. My dad built a studio beside our house, so I would go in there and watch him make music. I stole a microphone from my dad, took it into my bedroom and downloaded GarageBand. I just got addicted to it, basically. Then I started getting numbers pretty quick.”

After blowing up on TikTok with the success of his 2020 Beabadoobee collab, “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head),” Powfu has been continuously putting out music, even dropping a punk rock version of Taylor Swift‘s Speak Now hit, “Mine.” “I really like Taylor Swift. I think she’s awesome,” he says.

Of his new album title, he explains, “In my life, there’s a lot of people that I met that are fake or only want you for the wrong reasons. Over the years, I think I’ve gotten better at being weary and looking at my surroundings and spotting out who those people are.”

Watch Billboard‘s full interview with Powfu above.