Alexander Mack: Trust Your Gut
Alexander Mack is a Virginia based hip-hop artist, songwriter, and producer whose production work recently earned him a Grammy. His genre-blending and globe-trotting music showed itself in full force on his latest album You Had To Be There. After his successes, he's had the chance to reflect on his previous work, and release something wildly different than what he's known for, approaching the album with a new outlook and creative process. Together, we sat down to discuss topics like his latest album, 2 Chainz, local artists, and house music.
Q: With the amount of rappers in Virginia, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. Was that ever a challenge in your creative process?
I would say for me, it was always less of a challenge because I naturally just blended the best of what I liked, which was jazz. I play the keys and everything like that, so I was able to differentiate myself pretty easily with the more musical side of things that I do.
Q: It’s been seven years since your last album. Were there any changes in that time that listeners can hear on You Had To Be There?
Yeah, I like switching up almost completely, but I really call it the next level of my sound. So this is a dance album. It’s RnB, It's House, I have some Afro beats on there, some Brazilian funk on there. It's a combination of a lot of different sounds, but still in one cohesive album. It’s way different from the first album, which was more hip hop based. I've always made this kind of music, but I never really put it out. I would say that over time, that seven years actually gave me the freedom to actually experiment and put out singles. It gave me the space to experiment and see where I wanted to take my sound, but then also with putting things out, see what people gravitated towards and everything like that. So I would say that was the big change. Just wanting to just evolve my sound, really.
Q: You’ve opened for a wide variety of artists at shows over the years. Is there something you’ve learned from any of these artist’s performances that you’ve adopted?
I would say I think the biggest thing that I've learned overall is how disciplined a lot of artists are off of the stage. When you see, you know 2 Chainz, right? You know him as you know him, but off stage, super business wise, you know. “I'm here doing this, I'm going here, I have a schedule, I'm chilling right right before the show, saving my voice.” There's a lot that just goes into being the best on that stage. I would say probably a step under that is really just being able to be adaptable. You know, we were at the Jack Harlow concert last week, and all the house lights came on, and it was an accident. But I didn't even know that it was an accident. Because of the joke that Jack made.
Q: How has winning a Grammy changed you and your definition of success?
It changed my perception of success in the vein of I truly just knowing tangibly that anything is possible. It's kind of the biggest award in music that you can kind of get. Other than that, as an artist, I try to understand that success is being able to wake up and do this every day. Not many people are able to do that. The Grammy has changed how accessible I see certain milestones. But from day to day, I'm just happy I get to do this for real.
Q: You’ve talked about producing and how those sessions can be “free flowing”. With that kind of environment, how do you know a song is done?
I know when a song is done because it's really like an internal thing. Like when I can listen back to it, I'm always looking for that feeling that I get when I'm hearing a great song that isn't mine for the first time. Like when I've reached that point when I, you know, hear one of my favorite Anderson Paak. songs for the first time. I look for that feeling. Once I get that feeling that everything feels as full as it can be. That's usually when I know that it's ready to go out into the world.
Q: You blend jazz, hip-hop, R&B, house and world music. Do you ever worry about being difficult to categorize, or do you see that as part of your identity?
It can definitely be difficult to categorize sometimes, especially when you're in an industry that wants you to pick. That definitely plays into my artist identity because I never really wanted to be boxed in in the first place, and that's actually why I started with hip hop. I started with hip hop because you tend to be able to have more freedom going into different genres, especially if you're great at them. If you start off as a singer and then go rap, you're probably going to be labeled as a singer who is just rapping right now, and probably won't be taken as seriously in that. That's always been my artist identity though, and that's why on my first project I sprinkled in songs that were just all singing just so I can show that range. But now I'm kind of in the second phase of this whole thing, and just showing how far we can take it.
Q: Is there something you learned about yourself through music you wouldn’t have learned any other way?
Music has taught me patience. Music has taught me a lot of patience, man. You have to have patience from all angles. You have to have patience with yourself to actually get great at what you're doing, to get good at negotiating and doing all these different things. You have to be patient with other people who are on the other side and who are on your team as well. You have to be patient with the timing. A lot of the stuff you can't really even control, so being able to sit in it and be patient and just do the work every day, that is the biggest thing that I've learned about myself from music.
Q: What song on the album took the longest to get right?
I think that the song that took the longest to get right was probably Night is Young. It has a lot of different elements that kind of fight against each other timing wise in the production, and I kind of had to sit with it for a while, and just see if it made sense, if it felt right.
Q: This album has some collaborations on it, is there anything you’re looking for in them besides musical ability?
I may have different collaborations for different reasons, right? So, I'll give you the very last track with Mia Broadberry. We literally met on Instagram. She's a local artist here, and I just thought she was really dope. But then I also saw kind of like the image in the world that she was building for herself, and I was like, you know what? I think she's a star. I believe in her and her ability, and that's how I really chose that feature. Number one, of course, the music always comes first. Like, Are you talented? Would you sound right on the song? Would you fit? But the overarching thing is what are you building for yourself? Because really, in music, that's what really matters. The music is really just a commercial for your brand. So that's what I really look for. Just like your life, I like to get behind things that I believe in and people that I believe in.
Q: What were your biggest takeaways from the reception to the album?
I was a little nervous. A week out from the album, I was like, dang, this album is so different from anything I've ever put out, but that's what's really making it successful right now. And honestly, I should have really started earlier. I should have introduced these things earlier. But then also, just the biggest thing I think has been trust your gut. I just felt that it was time to introduce these different sounds, it came at a time when people are ready for something new. People are ready for something fresh.
Alexander Mack performing at the Richmond Folk Festival
Oct 10th - 3pm on the Allianz Ampitheatre Stage!
Wriiten by Liam Ambrosino
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