Atlanta’s Latest Hip Hop Warrior WARA Finds Color In The Gray Areas (INTERVIEW)

Photo Credits: Alex Inez

There is an old saying claiming that there is beauty in the struggle. A person’s ability to stare directly at a less-than-desirable situation and explore its margins to find some sense of purpose in it all is a trait held by only a few. Atlanta’s latest gift to hip-hop is a shining example of a man who is constantly finding color in the gray areas and using those colors to reimagine the world around him. WARA has been cultivating his sound since he was a young, observant kid simply taking in the experiences that life throws at him. His attention to detail started at a young age as he flipped through CD booklets in hopes of discovering every last detail of classic albums from rap’s finest. After years of releasing projects, touring the world, and reexamining himself into a plethora of new styles, WARA is finally ready to hold nothing back. 

You may recognize WARA from his original extended name, WARA From The Nbhd. Under this old moniker, the artist released two pivotal releases, 2014’s Kidnapped, and 2015’s P.S.A. Along with the immense praise and wide media attention garnered from these two LPs, they also act as snapshots of an artist with limitless potential still discovering his talents along with the rest of us. While these two albums are a proper introduction to the mind of WARA, the man himself felt something was missing. The frustrations of navigating the music industry began to boil over and a reset was needed, WARA wanted, or better yet needed, to disappear. He felt the need to reevaluate his approach to it all and once he returned, it was clear WARA was coming back better than ever. 

WARA reappeared in 2018 with the release of his stellar EP, Bombs Away. A 5-track exploration into the venom built up in his system over his hiatus. The EP featured some of WARA’s best music to date including the hauntingly vulnerable “Singapoor”, a song that has the artist detailing the pitfalls of creative pursuits. This project marked the return of a fearless poet whose lack of output made hip-hop feel incomplete, what was to come after his triumphant return would lead us here today. 

Last year, the multifaceted creative released his most ambitious album to date. Influenza is more than a kaleidoscope-style ride through the many influences and experiences that make up WARA and his music. It’s a vivid depiction of how the artist arrived at this moment in time. The album took years to wrap up and in that time WARA experienced the full spectrum of the human experience from triumph to defeat. His reclusiveness begins to show cracks in songs like “When its Cold Out” while moments like “So Sweet So Sick” prove the true range of his songwriting abilities. Like the rest of his releases, Influenza takes its inspiration from what surrounds its author, creating a bridge to his past releases while still having a unique sonic direction. Throughout its 10 songs, Influenza ushers in a new era for WARA as he continues to forge his path with nothing but his unfiltered creativity and natural abilities. 

Glide recently spoke with WARA to discuss Influenza, his hiatus from music, and what the future holds for the visionary. Check out our full conversation below: 

How do you feel growing up in Atlanta has influenced your creativity? 

I was born in Brooklyn originally so my creativity was already buzzing. I got to see the whole early ‘90s era in hip-hop with Biggie, Jay-Z, Nas, Mobb Deep, and all that kind of shit. When I came to Atlanta it switched, everyone had their unique style here just different. I was listening to Outkast early, I consider Atlanta my home because it helped me grow as a man. My mom was already a southern lady being from Alabama so I was already coming down south a lot as a kid. As far as my creativity, when I moved down south at 7 I started seeing gold grills, more tattoos, and a lot of individualism. It made me change my mind about how different people were. 

Do you feel the music of New York or Atlanta influenced you more? 

I’m a melting pot of all of that. I can go from playing Capone-N-Noreaga to the Hot Boys, I’m not biased toward any region of music. If I feel the music then I’m going to rock with it. If there is anyone in the game that is the ultimate mix of the North and South, I would say it’s me. 

I saw you posted your CD collection a lot, how is the collection coming along? 

I’m a firm believer that the quality of music on a CD is better than the quality of music today. I’m not sure what it is but I tell people all that time, it doesn’t sound as compressed. In the digital era, the music goes through all these different phases but with CDs, the music is so pure. One day I was in this book store and I see all these classics like The Blueprint, Ready To Die, The Infamous, and all the DMX albums. What the fuck do I look like leaving the store and not buying all of these? I must’ve dropped like $150 on CDs that day and that’s how the collection started. I still use the CDs as creative direction references, when I look in the booklets it’s shit I’ve never seen in my life, it’s not on the internet either. I like to read the credits to see who produced them, and who did what. I’m into the little details. I want to have a whole library with every genre so when the homies come in the crib they can just look through the shit, like an in-home museum. 

Speaking of essentials, what are some albums you grew up with that you feel influenced you? 

I would say Speakerboxxx/The Love Below by Outkast, definitely, Kanye’s 808s & Heartbreak, and Jay-Z’s Vol. 3. I was looking for a CD copy of that one and I finally found it the other day. I really like 2pac’s All Eyez On Me, I still listen to Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter I, II, and III all the time just to stay sharp, a lot of the time I don’t write my songs down so I try to figure out Wayne’s and Jay-Z’s techniques with it because I used to write a lot. I would write in my notebooks all the time, I used to write to no beat and then I would get in the studio and it would take up so much of my time. It would annoy me because I was under the clock. When you’re paying $50 an hour, you need to use every minute. I would spend so much time writing that I was like I need a better process so I can knock out more songs. Some advice I would give to young artists is to save up and buy their own studio equipment, the money you put into studio time you could be using to teach yourself how to record. 

Credit: Alex Inez

Do you have a home studio now? 

My best friend, who is also my engineer, Oliver Blue. I’ve just been recording with him for the past three years but I’ve always had my equipment. Sometimes I don’t like to try and be the jack of all trades because I can’t focus on one thing and master that. If I’m going to be rapping and writing songs, I’d rather focus on that and let him produce. Sometimes when I’m recording at the crib it’s just references, I don’t try to come out with the final product I just use my equipment to get the idea off. I always finalize it with Oliver Blue though. 

How did you first connect with Oliver Blue? 

Influenza is basically his album too, I linked up with him in the summer of 2019 through a mutual friend. I heard about him through some music he did in Atlanta before. He pulled up to the crib and we were just talking about Radiohead and Coldplay, just shit we were both into. I already had a couple of songs for Influenza because there were two whole albums I scrapped before we had gotten to that point. I wanted to make an album but I didn’t know where to take it so he and I would just record shit. He started mastering his craft when we were working on the album so we originally finished the album back in 2019 when we met, songs like “So Sweet So Sick” and “Let Us Pray”, I’ve had those songs. When Oliver came into the picture it was the final touch. 

Where does the name Influenza Come from? 

It comes from feeling like I’m one of the most influential underground artists in Atlanta and have been for some time. It was a play off the word influential and then I was like I’m also one of the sickest in the city so I’m like damn, what is one word that can sum all of that up. So I came up with Influenza and thought it was perfect because every song I made for the album is born out of my different musical influences like Outkast, Jay-Z, and Aphex Twin, all of these influences packed into one body of work. Oliver Blue and I had the title back in 2019 and I was going to change it again, it was called something else that I don’t want to say because I may still use it. 

Credit: Alex Inez

What was it like putting a tracklist together that is meant to represent you in that way? 

At first, I had songs that were already ready like “Technical Foul”, I made that one back in 2016 actually, the night Kobe [Bryant] had his last game. I was in Los Angeles and Kobe inspired that song a lot because Kobe was going so hard that game I felt like it would be a technical foul to not pay homage, you can’t disrespect Kobe. I made “When It’s Cold Out” back in 2017 and as we kept making the songs they just worked together. With everything from “Comme On Down” to “Let Us Pray”, I wanted to start the album off with a message explaining who I am as an artist and what I’ve been through and have it transition so no song stays the same. If you listen through the album, not one second of any song stays the same, it’s a complete progression throughout. That was tedious at first, we didn’t know how to make it understandable but at the same time it’s like fuck it if they don’t get it, they don’t get it. I wanted to make sure it had the ultimate replay value so that’s why every song is constructed the way it is so they go straight into the next one.  Each song is a moment and once that moment is over, it is like what the fuck just happened but you don’t have enough time to go back because you want to hear the next one. 

You mention how some of the songs on Influenza were made years ago, is it ever difficult to keep songs tucked away for that long? 

It’s hard to keep it a secret because you know it’s good music. If you listen to “Technical Foul”, it’s three different parts. That big Aphex Twin-sounding transition, that was Oliver Blue. He had that beat then we added it in. It’s not hard to keep great songs like that when you know you don’t have a complete body of work to release it with. I could’ve put that song out but I felt like no one was ready to hear it and accept it for how I saw the vision. Some songs are throwaways and some are singles but some have to come with a body of work. I could’ve put “1-800-Blow-Up” and “Nothingz 4 Free” in 2017 when I made them but all of these songs are so different I had to figure out how to make it work without wasting the material because this shit was my life, I can’t just give it away. In this era, you make it, upload it, and put it out but this isn’t microwaveable shit.

You sort of fell back and changed your name for a few years there, would you consider that a hiatus? 

For sure. The process of me changing my name goes back to 2018. I was already thinking about changing it because there was this band called The Neighbourhood and people would always comment like “Oh I didn’t know this guy was in that band”, of course, I’m not but I get it. I was doing a show in Toronto with this band Homeshake and I was on stage trying to promote myself and I was already so tired of spelling the full name out and that’s when it hit me, people were coming up to me after the show asking how they can find my music. I couldn’t brand it so I wanted everything to be under WARA. That was a tedious process in itself because you have to go through your distribution and everything, that shit took like a year. 

At that time I took a step back because I didn’t really know my purpose in the music. I was like what am I doing this for, I’m making no money, I’m not in love with the music right now. I just felt like I should be a bigger artist and that all plays into the ego, I knew I didn’t put in enough work to be who I always knew I was yet but I felt like I did because everything I put out was critically acclaimed and all of the blogs were covering my releases so it kind of spoiled me in a sense. I took a hiatus, but I kept making music. All of those songs being made I was like well this could be something then I started slowly but surely conjuring up Influenza and I met Oliver Blue in that time so he essentially became what 40 is to Drake for me, I finally found someone who understands what I’m trying to do on the recording side fully so once we connected the process was easy.

How do you feel that time and those emotions helped you progress as an artist/person? 

You gotta kill your ego. I’ve always had fans and I’ve been overseas to perform and everything like that. The first thing I had to accept was that I’m an underground artist and not everyone knows me like I thought. When you’re an artist and you’re on the come-up, you’d like to think people are waiting for you, you’re setting release dates and trying to stick to these standards you made up for yourself but that’s not reality. I had to accept that we were playing a different game, and every week there is a new artist coming out. I motivated myself to be like alright, after all of this time, not only are they going to get a great body of work but I’m going to come out in a way where every moment is unforgettable because I gotta stand out. Influenza had me recreate myself, in the time that I was gone I grew as a man, I’ve been through things, and my subject matter was different. I had to make that shit relate to what I was doing because I spit the truth. 

I’ve always been a great artist and rapper, now I just have to simply be myself.

I was trying to get signed. The whole time I was doing it for everybody else. Once I started learning the game and realized I can do this independently to basically earn my leverage for when it was time to sign if I want that I’ll be alright not everybody is meant to sign, but that’s not going to stop me from making an album great as a major label artist in the same capacity.

You seem to have found a new sense of freedom in your growth. Is that fair to say? 

That freedom starts in your mind. You have to tell yourself “I’m doing this for me” and that’s where the freedom comes from. You can’t do this to try to impress anybody, no A&R or record labels. I literally have to make this music because it’s therapeutic for me and it could help somebody else that listens to me. Even though I was gone for those four years I still had people waiting to hear what I had to say next and that was motivation within itself. 

You had a pretty strong buzz going before you went on your hiatus, was there any fear you would come back to something less? 

I never had any fear because I never moved off the timing of the game. My music was always  ever-changing and I knew any week could be my week or month. I’m not afraid to take my time because I know what I’m working with and that’s the difference. I can’t control the climate of the game, I just have to move at my own pace and release this music when I feel comfortable. If you’re comfortable and love the music you’re creating then you’ll promote it like that and people will follow suit. I need to live, I have to know what I want to talk about, and I’m very confident in my skills so once I do put out a body of work it’s timeless off-rip.

Your songwriting is very vulnerable, is that level of honesty natural or taught? 

It comes naturally. I might go for two months without writing one song or even 6 but I’m still creating music in my mind, I’m still thinking about what I’m going through and what’s happening. I’m the type of artist that can’t sit in the studio all day, I have to record when my spirit has some shit to say. My creative process is me just living my life and through that, the vulnerability comes off. I’m just being pure and that’s all I know how to do as an artist. If that turns into me singing about some painful shit or rapping about something that went down, whatever it may be it’s going to be my life. 

What is your process like when selecting beats? 

I’m very picky about my beat selection, I only like to work with specific producers that know me. I’m more of an in-house type of guy, if we’re friends and you’re a producer, you’ll know what I like and what I’m into no questions asked. That’s why you see people like Oliver Blue and Nkosi Kamal on Influenza, those are my real friends and they just so happen to be great producers. There are times when these guys might play me beats that I’m not feeling but if I’m feeling it, I know right away. I look for a feeling when I hear the music because I don’t write a lot, if I feel it I can automatically have a connection to the music and the words will come just like that. If I’m trying to compete with the best, production is everything. 

Does your beat selection ever influence your writing? 

I need the music. As I said, I used to write to no beat, I would just rap all day to no beat and I would have full notebooks of raps. The way I got better was I would try to use those raps on random beats to try and make it work. I realized that my voice is just another instrument so if I’m feeling the beat, the song is already there. I just need to talk about how I feel or how it makes me feel and that’s what makes the writing process so easy for me. 

Do you listen to other albums when recording your own? If so, what sort of stuff were you listening to during the creation of Influenza

I was listening to a lot of King Krule, I listened to Aqueminni by Outkast and Mobb Deep’s Hell On Earth, it was so much. I was even listening to A Love Supreme by John Coltrane, and a lot of Westside Gunn as well. I listen to Gunn when I don’t even want to think about what I’m doing, it’s just quality raps and sometimes that’s exactly what you need. I was listening to a lot of Portishead, Radiohead is my favorite band, and let me not forget I listened to a lot of Demon Days by Gorillaz. Oliver Blue and I love Danger Mouse, I’m always telling Blue they remind me of one another. 

How do you approach collaboration in general? 

It has to come naturally, I don’t like working with people I do not know. It feels forced but if we’re going to work, we have to kick it because I have to see how you’re living so I can figure out how to approach the music. In my relationship with Tu!, who produced “1-800-Blow-Up”, we always knew each other and even when I heard some of his beats I was blown away, I knew I had to work with this person right away. If I don’t know you then you don’t know me, so how is this going to work? If they’re just on some shit like “Oh I got beats for you”, how the fuck do you even know what I’m on right now? Don’t send me a folder of beats like you know me, I like to make my shit from scratch because I’m a producer. A lot of producers that try to work with me forget that I make beats too so my taste level is different and I know what I want, a lot of artists don’t know what they want. I’m down to try new things but I’d rather just build with the guys I’m already building with. They’re trying new sounds every day, I’m coming up with new flows and rhyme schemes every day and it’s not like any of us have a Grammy. We’re not at the top right now so why not just keep building with the guys I started from nothing with and just build our sound together? 

Can you talk about High-Volume and what you hope to do with that entity? 

It started with the phrase “Play this at high volume”. When I was in Europe I was shooting a lot of videos for my EP Bombs Away and in the videos, I would always say “Play this at high volume”. I was like man, I should keep saying that. It’s something I created that is an ill catchphrase and I can turn it into a whole brand. I linked up with my guy Marc in New York and he came up with the logo so I ran with it from there. I would always put that phrase in my captions because I was trying to tell people, in order to get the full experience of my music, you have to play it at high volume. My music is so detailed that if you don’t play it at high volume, there’s shit in there you might miss. We did not mix these beautiful 808s for nothing so turn my shit up, that’s what High-Volume is all about.

Credit: Alex Inez

You mentioned your Bombs Away EP which features the song “Singapoor” where you explain how your talents can feel like a curse. Can you talk about that a little? 

It’s a gift and a curse. Not everybody is talented enough to make songs that millions of people can listen to and relate to. At the same time, you lose yourself in the process. You’re creating all of this music and killing yourself in the studio to create music that everyone else can heal with. It’s a healing process but you’re killing yourself at the same time because as an independent artist, it’s never easy. I was really talking about how I grew up, I’m from a low-income community and everybody is poor. Sometimes you can sing your way out of the hood, some people made it out of the hood just on their musical talents so that’s really what “Sngapoor” is about. In terms of the gift, God has blessed me with a vision and I’m able to create music with ease. I’m able to talk about things in the Black community that others can’t. Everybody can’t rap, some people have to go to work every day and that’s life. That song represents the poor, I’m telling myself that I’m going to make it out of my situation one day with this music. 

You posted a story to your Instagram saying that you only want to make another two or three albums. Can you talk about that? 

My mission has never been to drop a bunch of albums. I’m a minimalist guy, I like to say a lot by saying a little. It might take a rapper 24 bars to say something that I can in 12. I think about it like, how many more albums do I need until I feel like I said everything I have to say? If I can make these incredible bodies of work in a little amount of time and have success with that, then I can live my life when I’m older. I won’t have to chase whatever is hot in the game, I look at people like André 3000 and Kendrick Lamar. Outkast only put out something like 5 albums and they put one out every year and every album was successful. If you listen to them, they’re really saying everything that needs to be said. What else do you have to say after an album like The Love Below? Look at D’Angelo, he put out Brown Sugar and Voodoo 5 years apart from each other but you can tell he was living his life to get to that point. I have to be able to make these great bodies of work and give everything I got for what I’ve been going through at that time because I feel the best albums represent a certain place in time. When Frank Ocean dropped Blonde, you remember exactly where you were when you heard it. I don’t think it’s going to take more than three albums to get my point across and cement myself in this game that’s just where I’m at with it right now 

I’m a young O.G. I still want to be involved in music, I can still hear and see. There are a lot of new dudes coming up and if I know them I’d want to help them and give them their shot. I’m not trying to be the older guy still trying to keep up with the young guys. I’m a grown-ass man, I didn’t start rapping until I was 23 and a lot of these guys have been rapping since they were nine or ten years old. I’m a businessman at the same time, I don’t have to be rapping forever to have a great catalog. I feel like Influenza is my first album, and I’m just getting started here so by the time I get to the fourth album, if that happens I plan on playing Coachella, world tours, and everything. There are so many avenues I want to explore.

Can you share anything you have planned for 2023? 

I’m working on my first tour right now, I want to get out there to support Influenza. Even though it’s been a minute since I’ve been gone, the album just came out. The climate of the game is crazy because you can put out an album and in two weeks it’s considered old. I’m staying focused on keeping Influenza out there and I’m working on the next project right now. I can honestly say I’m working on two different bodies of work right now, one with TU! and another with Oliver Blue, and for sure one of those will be out by late summer. I never want to wait as long as I did to release Influenza ever again so I’m getting ahead of the curb on that. I want to do more acting and more creative directing. I like being behind the scenes and letting the work speak for itself, it’s all I ever wanted to do. 

Related Content

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter