Fine Lines
A Vulture series in which artists break down lyrics to their latest album.
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The rap world knows Rapsody can rhyme with the best of them.
The family I grew up in, you dont tell a lot of business, she says.
The era I love, its a code: You dont give people too much.
That changed on her new album,kindly Dont Cry.
.hey Dont Crytracklist
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The lyric was just me having a moment as a creative, and talking about how were human too.
You know, you gotta unplug sometimes.
I took my first vacation ever in life in 2021.
I went to Anguilla and sat on the beach for days.
You have to create peace for yourself.
Why hadnt you been on vacation before that?I didnt know that life.
I grew up working.
My mom and dad, I watched them work hard.
They dont take vacations.
Their vacation is my mom is home on the weekend, doing the yard.
Also, coming into this profession, I wasnt satisfied with where I was.
It wasnt the level of success I wanted.
So for me, it was a the job isnt donetype mentality.
you’re able to rest when you reach a goal, but until then, go to work.
Because while you rest, somebody else is in the booth.
Thats just how I looked at it.
But now I know its important to continue to refill your cup.
I put it in the music without needing to name names.
They know who they are.
Some things I have to keep for myself.
You have to validate yourself and also protect your energy and not carry what other people do to you.
I started working on this album in 2020.
But I had gotten in the space of, Do I still want to do this?
Is there still space for me?
Do people even care?
Its possible I may never have a hit single in my life.
Im not 19, Im not 20.
What does the age-out process look like?
I just had to get through that.
I grew up on the BET Awards, Soul Train Awards, NAACP Awards.
So that was the height for me.
But the Grammys were the first ones to nominate me.
It was like, Im so appreciative to have that moment.
But damn, I wish my first nomination could have been from a Black awards show.
To be celebrated by your people and your culture, it just hits different.
DND (Its Not Personal) feat.
Even when I didnt have, I figured out a way to give in some way.
I remember splitting four-piece chicken nuggets.
It was never really about me; its about making sure we all were good.
Maybe its what they define as survivors guilt.
I felt like they deserved it.
Ive gotten a lot better with saying no.
Black Popstar, feat.
Where did the idea for the track come from?
Before Dixson got on it, I think I called it Pontiac Flow.
I didnt have a real direction, I just loved the beat and I wrote whatever came out.
Dixson approached it more from the Black pop star angle.
He would always have this conversation like, Yo, we need to bring Black pop stars back.
The record just felt good, and I wanted to add that energy to the project.
But you know, Black pop stars, its just Black popular music.
Thats how I look at it.
Lets bring back Black popular music that stands the test of time.
Do you aspire to be a Black pop star yourself?No, I dont.
Its never really been a big aspiration.
Ive always been a tomboy.
Ive always dressed a certain way, rapped a certain way, walked a certain way.
So thats just what it was.
I approached that by talking about how judgment is just wack.
Get to know people!
Because I have anxiety attacks, I have family thats sick, and Im living in real life.
But it didnt change me and what I thought about myself and how I move.
You see me, Im still okay.
I just go about my day.
But I just look at it like, people are so dumb.
How can you be that ignorant?
You have to have some resolve.
But theres still so much more healing to do.
This was just in the midst of it.
I learned so much more after that.
I talk a lot to my friends about allowing people to see youre not perfect.
Do you have to get this personal?
But this was for me.
I want to be fearless.
I want to say, this is the human part of me.
Im not, like, this golden, perfect person who makes all the best decisions.
Im living life and going through the things like you do.
It was scary not so much for the world or outside people, but the people closest to me.
You dont want to disappoint with some of your decisions.
Theyre like, thank you.
I went through this, I had this experience, I did that.
Its really about me being a mirror for other people and being fearless in being that.
3:AM feat.
Appreciating the experience and what they taught me about what love feels like.
Even though it ended, this is what I know the standard is for me.
I was telling a complete story.
Man, this experience is so beautiful.
I learned this, they made me feel accepted, I felt safe with them.
I was able to give everything and be comfortable.
You love them, but youre not in love anymore.
You still grieve people.
Thats just thats just the reality of loving.
Loose Rocks feat.
How did you meet her?Shes my aunt, my moms sister.
I come from a huge family.
My grandparents instilled in us the importance of showing up for family.
My cousins are like my brothers and sisters.
All my aunts are like my second mothers.
But she also helped raise me.
I didnt go to day care, I went to my aunts house.
Diary of a Mad Bitch feat.
Why was it important to mention both sides of that?Because I think its a complete story.
Two things can still be true at the same time, right?
Its like yo, Jay gave us the blueprint.
We know theyre always out to get us, always out to villainize hip-hop and villainize you.
So dont make it easy for them.
Dont put it all out in the music.
Be an artist, be creative, and protect yourself.
If you really do raw stuff in your life, dont confess to an on record, bro.
All those stories are not true stories.
The same way you go to the movies, its not all true.
So how can you use hip-hop and no other genre?
Country music, you dont go get them.
Never Enough feat.
What inspired it?I had to learn a lesson that you cant buy love.
Love shouldnt be hard in that way, it shouldnt be challenging.
LeBron James once said,You have to sacrifice loved ones to be great.
Do you see yourself making similar sacrifices?I wouldnt call it sacrificing loved ones.
Maybe the opposite: loved ones that sacrifice themselves.
I just look at it as sometimes you outgrow people.
It doesnt mean you dont love them anymore.
Again, you have to be okay with saying no.
I think those are the two biggest things.
I think the case happened in 2020.
Breonnas case has been going on for years.
We saw the trial was one part of it, but theyve still been fighting for other things.
So its been at the forefront of my mind.
So I wanted to do a song specifically mentioning Breonna Taylor because I was so close to it.
How do you identify with your faith now?Im more spiritual than religious.
So I just practice spirituality, and my relationship with God is my own.
I think it was a beautiful foundation for me, of whats important in life.
And the things that are of man is really not Gods work or worry.
What kind of grief were you dealing with that molded you?Grieving love and losing relationships.
I lost a cousin through this recording process.
Grieving friendships, grieving parts of you that change or that you have to let go as you grow.
It was a lot of things to process at one time.
What made you decide to create this song?It was just real.
I knew Nipsey, I knew Mac Miller.
I didnt know Dolph as well, but I got to interview him once.
I see them as human.
Its really heartbreaking when we have to experience tragedy in that way.
It shifts peoples whole world.
You dont outgrow grief.
It sits in you.
It doesnt get any smaller; you just get stronger, but you always feel it.
Thats the tragedy of it.
We like to find the silver lining That was their path.
But he didnt have to die for us to still be impacted and appreciative of his work.
So its just really capturing the humanness of how I felt.
It aint even just about rappers.
Were speaking particularly about violence.
You have Black men and women that are beefing, and they cant see themselves in each other.
Youre so much more alike than that whatever this disagreement is.
It blows my mind.
Raw feat.
Nick Cannon out here having all these babies is so irresponsible.
Im not here to argue if it is or if it isnt.
But what I see is that regardless, hes stepping up and being a father.
Meanwhile, were out here killing each other and taking life.
If hes gonna bring life into the world, at least hes pouring into that life.
Lil Wayne is on this song.
How do you approach those verses compared to other tracks?No different.
Its just, we have the beat, so what are we talking about?
And I just tell it in my way.
I dont overthink it.
It aint like Im going in like, Ima eat you!
But the music is the biggest ego in the room.
Im always going to give my best forme, because I know thats good enough.
I will say, Wayne is the only person that Ive worked with that I rewrote my verse.
And it wasnt even that I was trying to out-rap him.
The version that you have on the project is not the first version.
It was a different beat.
It was brighter, had a bigger hook.
My first verse was 16 bars.
But when I got his verse back, it inspired me.
I was like, Yo, he ate this so much.
I want to match that approach to the record.
Wayne is arguably top two, the elite of the elite.
I studied Wayne, hes one of my inspirations.
The whole thing about this album was allowing people to see my humanness.
I c’mon myself sometimes.
But whats beautiful is I get to show people that I am human.
But there are ways that we can talk about sex thats still different.
It can be raw, it can be creative.
you’re free to talk about sex in so many different ways.
So this is just my way and how I talk about sexual things.
Its going to catch a lot of people off guard, but its real.
A Ballad for Homegirls feat.
I have some friends that Ive known ten-plus years that have nothing to do with music.
I have friends that Ive met through people in the industry.
And I still have my sisters, and I have childhood friends.
Hes such a brilliant mind and producer.
We would go through premade beats and he sends me samples.
But this one in particular was a song that somebody had, the part that we sampled.
Im like, This is beautiful, you think theyll let us use it?
They really set the tone of faith.
Were all going to go through challenges; every day is not going to be sunny.
It was just a reminder for those that are currently having challenges: Dont give up.
This is the one most personal one up here.
I just loved the simplicity of it.
I just want to talk to you.
I want you to feel like youre sitting with me and Im just sharing.
You go through this journey, and you heal, but youre gonna continue to evolve.
You allow yourself to be human, have faith, feel, and thats it.
