Diandra Interviews Yoshi Flower: Breaking The Idea of Genre Through Truth
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Yoshi Flower really impressed me with our interview. Playing Elsewhere on February 9, his music and personality are emblem of a very good problem to have: the clash between intelligence and heart. You can have a brilliant mind, but the minute you have a broken heart, you might as well cut your brain in half. Hence, his lyrics show the challenges between ones’ inner demons and inner, angelic visionary. Meanwhile, his sound goes above genre to drip basslines and melodies like the golden chains he likes to wear. In our interview, we discuss everything from “ratchet meditation” and the importance of tech in breaking the music industry’s attachment to “genre.”
Diandra: Why do you sleep with your guitar, and do you find it bonds youmore creatively?
Yoshi Flower: I like the feeling of it next to me in bed is mostly all, and if I think of a melody, in my sleep, then it’s not far away when I wake up.
Diandra: You have described your sound/style as ratchet and zen. What parts of you are ratchet and what is zen? If you could come up with aratchet meditation course, what would it involve?
Yoshi Flower: Did I say that? I like that. I think I was trying to explain my bi-polar nature of living. Some days I spend all of my money on a necklace. Other days, I don’t spend a penny on anything other than food or helping another person. Some days I need a tattoo because I’ve convinced myself I need it, and other days I walk around and just listen to the sounds of birds, or cars, or people talking, and try to be grateful. But to answer your question, the course would involve breathe based meditation while wearing diamond or gold grills.
Diandra: In trying to surpass genre as a music identifier, what music archetype or descriptor are you trying to build? Are music castes inevitable?
Yoshi Flower: I’m not trying to build anything really, just trying to be honest, I don’t fit into a genre so I can’t honestly try to fit in to a genre. I think when commercial interests get involved then “genres” or ways to separate the sounds like castes do come in to play. The genre is just a way to stream line commerce; grouping listeners together by their taste or socioeconomic circumstance so as to help pin point promotion and radio, I would imagine. These days most of the dope artists are true iconoclasts ,in a sense, and it is an earthquake unto the industry until they find ways to replicate and commodify it.
Diandra: Your music helps you get through the highs and lows of life. What is one song of yours that represents a high point in your life and one that shows a low?
Yoshi Flower: “Movies” was definitely a high point: an empowering moment of “I-can-do-anything-ism.” Most of the other songs are dealing with the other end of the spectrum. Musings on dependency or doomed love or lust for lust’s sake, or plainly just drugs or observing angst.
Diandra: You have spoken of technology as an ultimate equalizer in the music industry. Whom are some artists that you feel have brilliantly used tech to build and promote their sound?
Yoshi Flower: I think I first saw it when I was young in Detroit, people would burn CD’s of the new Lil Wayne mixtapes or Trey Songz or Blade Icewood ,and they would be sold as bootlegs at gas stations. I think modern artists that are good at it have been Soulja Boy, Brockhampton, Gus Gapperton, and other people who have built these massive movements with just their computers and phones and social media.
Diandra: You have said flaws are like superpowers. What are some of your flaws that have become superpowers through music?
Yoshi Flower: Frustration, addiction, depression, and hopeless romanticism would all qualify.
Diandra: You have said you are observer. What have you observed as changes that are brewing in terms your own music process and that of the industry?
Yoshi Flower: I’m not sure how the industry as a whole is going, but it seems like music is at an amazing place. The top Billboard songs are all brilliantly written melodies and lyrics. I think there is more and more bending of classifications, and I think hip-hop is driving a lot of that. Hip-hop, for as long as I’ve lived, has driven change in the art I see. My process is still the same. I just write songs when they come to me. Sometimes, I put them out and if people dig them then that is love.
For More Information On Yoshi Flower Click Here.https://www.yoshiflower.me
