The breakout R&B singer has a new song with Tyler, the Creator, and a third album in the works. Here’s how he’s staying centered these days.
Brent Faiyaz on His New Music, and Staying Motivated in 2021
If you don’t know Brent Faiyaz yet, you’ll soon notice him everywhere. The Columbia, Maryland-born artist makes the kind of R&B music you want to hear while driving with the windows down, dreaming of a night out in whatever far future includes them. Faiyaz popped up on the Pyer Moss runway in 2019. In 2020, the 25-year-old released his second full-length album, “Fuck The World.” At the start of this year, he starred in an ad for Calvin Klein from pgLang, Kendrick Lamar’s creative services company. And today, he’s got a new song, “Gravity,” with Tyler the Creator.
“The track is about a woman holding you down through all [the ups and downs.],” the Los Angeles-based singer tells Vogue. “The song has an out of space energy that makes you feel like everything and anything is possible.” (A welcome feeling these days.)
Faiyaz has been making music ever since the age of 12. “I would just be in the crib in Columbia messing around,” he says. His parents weren’t always understanding of his dreams. “They’d be like, ‘come on now, bro, be realistic!’” Their concern, he admits, may have been warranted: “If I’m being honest, I was messing up on every other level in my life growing up—whether it was in school or in my jobs. I was always distracted by my love for music,” he remembers. “It was motivational to me, to prove that I could make it. Music is something I always did for myself and knew I had to do. Whenever things would irritate me growing up, I would just focus on the life I wanted for myself instead. Luckily I was surrounded by friends who had similar dreams, too.”
The musician has applied that same focus to his self-care game throughout the pandemic, a time where it can often be hard to “imagine better.” Faiyaz has been working out, watching movies, and reading “a lot,” he says. He often refers back to the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, the 1985 book that explored “the corrosive effects of electronic media on a democratic society”well before the rise of Trump. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is another favorite. “I’m really into books that can give me overall perspectives on how I see life, and the way I see the world right now in particular,” he says. “Just things that I know are going to motivate me.”
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Akili King
