WHYTRI Isn’t Worried About His Place In Hip Hop He’s Prepared To Kick The Door Down!
WHYTRI Isn’t Worried About His Place In Hip Hop He’s Prepared To Kick The Door Down!
The rap game is DEAD! At least that seems to be the shared consensus held by its fans. But there is a small group of sub-genred artists that see the stagnate state of hip hop as their way to kick down the door and make themselves known. Massachusetts native WHYTRI seems to be one of the artists at the forefront of this new music revolution with his introduction of a new sound that he has coined as "Alternative Crunk". WHYTRI is an artist at heart, before he was breaking down boundaries as a rapper, he was a professional dancer. It's because of this profession that he gained the ability to sonically connect his music to what his fans feel. In 2022 WHYTRI released his full-length project "MOMMA i MAKE ART: SEE YOUR SON IS NOT A LOSER" and it has since been a turning point in the New England rapper's life. "A big reason why I didn't drop a lot of music this year, was a lot of personal development and spiritual growth and just figuring out myself as a person. And I was doing a lot of shadow work this year". After this hiatus he has returned with the heavy grunge esq alternative crunk record " Done Being Broke" featuring MalikElijah. I spoke with WHYTRI about his new record, his career, and what he has planned for the summer, and it's better than what anybody expects.
Last year before you released your tape [MIMA], you made a mini-documentary that introduced you as an artist and covered why you started rapping, I'm wondering if anything has changed as far as what you want out of your career. And why such a long hiatus?
Great question. Um, I would say yeah, definitely a couple of things have changed. I feel like the direction of where I'm taking my music and just figuring out how I want that to look and how I want that to be I feel like the blueprint has stayed the same, but maybe my ideas have shifted a little bit. A big reason why I didn't drop a lot of music this year was because of a lot of personal development and spiritual growth. I was doing a lot of shadow work this year, bro. I was just figuring out where my trauma was coming from. I was figuring out what was happening inside of me. I went to this spiritual journey thing in Houston called 'Mankind Project' that really shifted my thinking about what I want for myself and what I want to do. But I think the goal is still to be a touring act, I want to put out albums and feed my fans. I'm at a point now where you'll see me releasing records that are a lot more experimental and maybe a lot more alternative just because these were records that I wrote that I thought were really good. I think a couple of the new songs I have right now aren't really songs that I was expecting to do anything with. It's more of I want to give this out to my fans and just make them happy so I can be happy and really just express myself. That's what 'Done Being Broke' is. I thought it was really good. I wrote it. Like I wrote that in my room recorded it. And then I remember I was sharing the demos, with a couple of people, and people were kind of weirded out, but it was different from my usual stuff. And that's funny, the record almost got scrapped.
When you sent me "Done Being Broke" I was shocked because I didn't know what to expect. And as soon as I heard it I was like 'yeah, this sounds like some heavy metal mixed with rap, something maybe Death Grip would make or Paris Texas or someone along those lines.' When I saw that MalikElijah feature I was like he sounded great on it. The contrast of your super-aggressive flow and his more relaxed vibe made the song sound great. Is this the tone you're setting for future releases?
"Done Being Broke" was a song that was just very relatable to me and was just very "this is how I'm feeling". That's how a lot of these new records are. Just very straight to the point and very raw."
Yeah, I think I have more records in the tuck, to be honest with you. So I'm working on this sound that I call "Alternative Crunk". I have this project called "The Alternative Crunk LP". The sound is what I deem as this fusion of the Dirty South crunk music which is like Lil John, Three Six Mafia, Lil Scrappy, Ludicrous, like the dirty South and I've fused it with this heavy electronic crazy production. Think Three Six Mafia meets Mike Dean meets JPEG Mafia, that's kind of what this project is. I have this one single I hope to be rolling out soon called HyperCrunk. That's going to really give people the picture of the shit I'm trying to do.
And one thing I can say when it comes to features, I have is the ability to bring the best out of people. I have a very good ear and I can hear people's potential on the record. When I sent the record to Malik I could tell he had so much fun on it, and he was really talking his shit. I usually tell people "This is the song, I deselect the bullet points of what I need them to talk about, this is the realm of where we need to be." And he hit everything like on the fucking money. Love that kid. He's fucking great.
From what you describe Alt Crunk is definitely a very complex genre. You state that being a dancer helps you realize people's vibes. I'm curious to know with this new sound that you're creating, what is it you're trying to convey to your fans and new listeners?
It's really kind of my attempt at recreating the club music that I saw people enjoy so much when I was little. when I was a little kid I was coming home from school I'd go to my room and I'll turn on the TV to watch "Rap Basement" and Hot 97, this is when the Dirty South was really on top so I was always seeing Ludicrous or Three Six Mafia or Lil Scrappy or like fucking Eastside Boys videos where they had everybody in the community just fucking going crazy and the clubs were fire. I was like, "damn, this is some shit I'll love to be a part of." I really liked southern Hip Hop during that time because like I was kind of over East Coast rap and niggas talking about selling crack and moving weight and killing niggas, not saying that all East Coast rap did but for some reason I think I started really getting into shit when Outkast was hot and like Jeezy or Lil John. But it's coming together. I have some really good records on the LP and I think people are gonna really enjoy it. I'm excited to put it out once it's done.
It seems like the Alt music scene is starting to push to the forefront. Where we now have mainstream artists trying to tap into the genre. And I always artist the question of where they find themselves in today's music scene. Do you ever worry about where you fit in or are you just kind of saying 'Hey, if you fuck with me, you fuck with me and if you don't you don't?
I honestly feel like when it comes to music, people don't really know what they want until they hear it or they see it. I think it's fucking incredible the way people are starting to accept alternative experimental hip-hop and just music in general. It's gonna force people to create new stuff. AI and algorithms are already fucking up so much of the formula when it comes to music. So I don't think folks really want to deal with formulas anymore. The fact that Death Grip is still as prominent as they are and they barely drop music says something, the fact that Paris, Texas, Kenny Mason, and Teezo are coming to the forefront is crazy. I'm not gonna follow traditional hip hop, I'm gonna give you niggas me. It's actually very important and that is literally the beginning essence of what hip hop was.
So me personally, I'm never not worried. I feel like my time is going to come I feel like I make very good music at a root level. And when I say level I mean songwriting and hooks and my skill set as a writer is really good. I think my ideas are communicated very well and I think my presence in my music is felt shared and people understand it. I think when the right people come around, or I find the right people to hit, it will stick more and I'm gonna keep doing that and I've been doing that and I've seen things grow slowly but surely bro so it's cool to me like I said like the fact that I have really a lot of really big homies who are like doing crazy numbers and have the streams and do shows all that stuff. I work with them in different capacities and now you're going to start seeing like you were saying thought oh songs and other cool shit coming out
So like I said, I'm fully indulged in what you have going on I can't wait to see you know what you have coming up next man Thank you so much for taking the time and just letting me into your your creative world a little bit man thank you
