An Interview with Pray Vivendi

Dami: What inspired you to start making music?

Pray Vivendi: I ain’t had role models growing up. Pops was locked up a lot of the time. I was wilding out doing hoodrat shit with no aim at all. I was suspended from school a lot (this was around 7th grade) and the second time, they tried to expel me. I knew I wasn’t going to college that day, and we ain’t have the money to anyways. I tried thinking of what I could do with my life when this shit was all said and done, and the shit I was doing to make money didn’t seem sustainable. The only guidance I had were the rappers I looked up to. I had been listening to a whole lot of Kanye and I’m cocky like him, so I said fuck it, one day, I want to be Kanye to the future kids like myself because music was all I had. It was a hand in the dark. The odds been against me my whole life but I knew I could be like my role models eventually, and do my part to give back what was so gracefully given to me when I didn’t have anything. I couldn’t live in the monotony you see on TV- that miserable father who comes home from the cubicle wanting to die because he’s stuck running on the wheel every day. There aren’t many ways out of poverty, and there’s not many meaningful ways someone like me could change lives. I knew this was it for me, and I’m gonna shoot in the dark until I hit something.

Dami: Do you feel everything would’ve panned out differently if your pops wasn’t locked up?

Pray Vivendi: Nah, he was around a lot too. It was all over the place, but he’s played a massive role in my life and I will not understate that. I’d probably be locked up if it wasn’t for him having my back. Love that man. I see him every day now, and he supports the music big time, as long as I keep my money straight. Shit the other night, he smoked my ass on the highway in his big ass Benz truck. So, we all good these days, and we both changed direction. Came a long way from no running water and free lunch, but I stay wary because shit can flip to rock bottom again real quick with a misstep.

Dami: What was your first introduction to music?

Pray Vivendi: Shit my parents used to put headphones playing Mozart up to my mom’s stomach when she was pregnant with me, but when I was old enough to remember, my mom played a ton of Lauryn Hill, 50, Macy Grey, all of that. My dad listened to a lot of rock, but one experience that really stood out for me was the first time he played me rap. He was picking me up from my mom’s because I stayed with her and I hopped in his truck to “Nail in the Coffin” by Eminem. Keep in mind, this was like 1st grade for me. I was super young. Em said something about beefing with Vanilla Ice, and was telling him he was old and was rapping about fighting him on a roof and said “don’t try to lift me, you’ll probably fall with me and our asses will both be history, but then again, you’ll finally get your wish cause you’ll be all over the street like 50 Cent” and in my little elementary schooler head, the line clicked and I was super blown away by him meaning Vanilla would be all over the street because they would splatter when they hit the ground. That shit was groundbreaking to me. From there on out, I fell in love with the art form, and I was listening to rap and r&b exclusively.

Dami: Which of the artists did you listen to growing up that you can say influenced your sound?

Pray Vivendi: Kendrick Lamar was huge and I didn’t like him when I was younger because the artists that really got me into it were all niche at the time for kids my age at least. It was a ton of MF DOOM, Capital Steez, Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler, Kanye was obviously huge. Stuff like Big L, Big Pun, and Quasimoto too. It’s all there if you really listen into what I’m saying in these raps. Mos Def was also a big one.

Dami: How would you describe your sound?

Pray Vivendi: Man, that’s a tough one. I get really aggressive a lot of the time because I’m passionate about the issues of today and want to bring these things I feel strongly about to listeners attention, or let them know someone out there feels the same. Other times, I’m just trying to kick some dope shit. But generally, I’ve been told I sound like a golden era revivalist who’s young enough to navigate modernity. You get complex rhyme schemes and obscure references over trap drums, or you get an ode to substance abuse, poverty, and psychosis, like on my latest single, Red Velvet. I like to think I make music for the cultured outcast, and it sonically reflects all of the emotions that come with feeling like fighting insurmountable odds, and most of all, I think I make music that sounds like the walls won’t stop closing in on you. I think it sounds like everything and nothing all at once. I know that might be vague, but it’s hard to sum up. It’s everywhere.

Dami: When you make music, is there something you look at for inspiration or somewhere you grab inspiration from?

Pray Vivendi: Honestly, it just flows for me. I tend to absorb the cultures I involve myself in. The current contentions of life in America. I might be sideways in my beamer thinking about milli vanilli and come up with some line, four people my age are going to understand about fraudulence and vanity. It’s constant for me. This shit is all that goes through my head. I look outside my door and reflect that struggle. I think that’s what rap music has always been- a response to questions that should never have had to be asked.

Dami: You just dropped a single titled Red Velvet, what is it about?

Pray Vivendi: So, it’s a bit of a two for one, you feel me? My boy White Rum kind of freestyle flows about all sorts of trauma and upsetting circumstances he’s in or has been in. Me, on the other hand? my whole verse is a story about a really fucked up night at a busted ass house party. I pulled up, it was dingy. Ton of ghetto shit going on. They were breaking weed on a felt pool table with no tray, doing molly off the back of a fucking toilet in the bathroom. The girl hosting it had multiple children under the age of five that were up running around. Type of shit to make you eat your conscience alive. I was kicking it smoking and shit, and I had eaten an eighth of dust from the bottom of my bag of mushrooms I had been tweaking off for the last couple days prior. I felt like it wasn’t hitting me, until it did. I was posted on the couch kind of dissociating around like 50 people, when I looked up and noticed a real young kid staring me in the face. I turned to this kid next to me and was like “what the fuck is this?” and then processed the kid next to me was lighting a whole fucking spoon in front of this child. The cycle hit me and I knew immediately from experience what this kid’s situation was and why he was in front of me. I immediately went into a bad trip, then I reached in my bag and someone licked my weed while I was fuckin around. Long story short, it was nutty. I ended up lost outside tryna get away having an existential crisis because of this kid, and some weird ass redneck kid gave me a ride back to my boys at 3am and I stared at the ceiling till I felt normal again. The whole verse sums up the story. Shoutout that redneck kid. Fuck that night. Oh, and my boy John Nelson came through with the live guitar riffs so shoutout him, he made that loop possible.

Dami: What was the creative process like?

Pray Vivendi: I do all my music in house with my producer. He goes by Wilymill and he’s the goat. Tap in with him. Basically, it was myself, White Rum, John, Wilymill, and John’s at the time girl in the booth real late at night. John just bought a new guitar and started recording into logic with it. Rum was at my crib for the weekend because he lives states away and I scoop him once a year. We knew we had to bang out tracks together because that’s what the homies do and my biggest track yet was with him. We had cranked out two tracks the day before. Crazy tracks. I ain’t drop them yet so be tapped in for those. Once John finished playing guitar, Wilymill started going insane with the riffs, and once we had a loop, Rum and I started writing. I was in my bag that night and wanted to tell the story. Rum laid out the chorus, and even though he’s not traditionally a melodic dude or a trained vocalist singing wise, we all knew that was it. He banged out a mean sixteen, and then I took the reins and let blood till it was right. We were up till 2:30AM doing it. It’s always worth it.

Dami: What are 3 words you’ll use to describe Red Velvet?

Pray Vivendi: Depraved, psychosis, and destitute. All that for sure.

Dami: What should we expect from the next 2 tracks?

Pray Vivendi: Man, I got 100+ tracks in the vault right now. I don’t even know what I’m dropping next. First things first, I’m putting out a video for Red Velvet. But after that, I got some wild fun shit. Expect K-pop samples, expect some breakcore, expect my magnum opus so far. Might drop that 7-minute-long shit on them. Expect me to lay some nasty work down. We making breakthroughs every day and that’s no joke.

Dami: Ooouu you in your versatile bag for real.  Any new sounds you working on?

Pray Vivendi: Man, I’m running a lot of drumless beats right now. Just tryna make that right track on one. I know everyone doing that but I love that shit. As we speak Wilymill, just dropped a wild ass erratic, distorted, synth loop in my inbox. Shit sounds like Kaytranada. Might turn into Anderson. Paak in my sleep. Who knows but time? Oh, I’m working on tryna flip the Call of Duty World at War menu music into some nasty shit right now because we did Sonic Adventure 2 last week but I’m not sample snitching on Wilymill so I’m gonna keep it at that.

Dami: What do you hope to achieve this 2024?

Pray Vivendi: Shit, I’m just tryna play a show or two and put some alpina wheels on my beamer. It’s all up to fate in my eyes.

Dami: What are your biggest motivations to make it?

Pray Vivendi: I gotta follow through with this pipe dream I had since middle school. I gotta make sure that if I have kids, they ain’t grow up like I did. I gotta make sure the kids like me got someone to lend them a hand in the dark the way my favorite rappers did for me. I gotta do my part to make sure rap go further forward.

Dami: If you weren’t doing music, what do you think you’ll be doing instead?

Pray Vivendi: Man, the gains would possibly be ill gotten. That, and I’d probably have done something clothing or customizing cars. I’d be making something though, that’s for sure. Everyone should be.

Check out his latest release as well as his socials here