Recently, d4vd found himself feeling happy – as it turns out, maybe a little very happy.
“Not that being happy is wrong,” clarifies the genre-blurring artist behind the Hot 100 hits “Romantic Homicide” and “Here With Me,” and who last year scored a tour opener with SZA. But, he says, “I started going to these sessions doing songs. I didn't make music. I'd come in and say, 'Let's make the best song ever.' But then I wasn't as introverted as I used to be, and I was making such superficial music. It looked like it wasn't even d4vd anymore.”
This story is part of Billboard's Genre Now package, highlighting artists who are pushing their genres forward — even making their own news.
And that's the irony of an artist like d4vd – when things feel too defined, he himself feels lost.
The artist born David Burke is a bit of an anomaly. Born in Queens, New York and raised in Houston, Texas, d4vd grew up with a range of influences from Mozart to Chet Baker and eventually Lil Pub. After a classmate introduced him to Soundcloud, he quickly became a fan of then-underground and sonically diverse rappers such as Lil Uzi Vert, XXXTentacion and Smokepurpp. (Even today, he says the platform's algorithm suits his taste “to a T.”) All the while, his obsession with gaming (specifically Fortnite) led him to discover more indie-leaning rock, which , he says, largely shaped his own approach to making music – a venture that initially began as a means of avoiding more copyright strikes on the game edits he would post to YouTube.
Having made his first two EPs (Petals to Thorns and The lost petals, both released on Darkroom/Interscope Records) in his sister's closet using his iPhone and BandLab, d4vd's music has a refreshingly stripped-down, DIY aesthetic – or, in his own words, an “ethereal nostalgia.” He believes that identifying his music based on mood is more important than being defined by any genre – a belief that his managers and label supported from the jump.
“There was an effort to keep things organic and not change the formula,” he says of his early communications with Darkroom. “To let the creativity flow from where it would normally come from… and not put myself in any of the genre boxes.”
Below, d4vd chats with Advertising sign about his own unusual relationship with the genre and whether he thinks the idea will have a big place in the future of popular music.
You said before Advertising sign It is an honor to be a gateway for music fans, especially young Black music fans, to alternative music. Why is this role so important to you?
I feel like the most important thing right now in the last five years of music has been image. The driving force of marketing and promotion and everything was [about] an artistic image.
[At first] I didn't show my face at all, because I knew the music I was making wasn't the kind of music black kids usually made when they were into music. I had so many friends that I tried to get into music and they would immediately go for the hip-hop sound or the alt-rap sound or whatever was happening at the time, underground. But then I started making the indie alternative stuff and I was like, “What if people didn't know what I looked like?” And that was the most important thing for me, because I wanted the art to speak for itself.
SZA spoke to her Advertising sign cover about the “luxury” of trying something new and how it's harder as a Black woman. When you toured with her, what did you learn from watching her combine so many influences into a seamless live performance?
We didn't talk that much about music during our time together, but I can see the career he's built. And now SZA has become this sound that everybody's used to, but it's all new people learning about it warning sign first, and then not to incorporate her previous works. That's the thing about music too, there are so many new ears listening to you every day. And your work isn't always fully appreciated because of where you started. And people always see where you are 1707007754. So it's interesting to see an artist so prolific be so passionate about making everything.
But there's a certain demographic that will only listen to one thing, so it's kind of hard to expand. I think Lil Yachty does this best now with his [Let’s Start Here] project, and always bringing new fans to these sounds that have been around for a long time but not fully appreciated due to the culture.
Who do you think is your fan?
I wouldn't say for sure that I have a target audience yet. Even though I've been making music for about a year and a half, I've done a few tours, we've seen the people that come to the shows… but I don't have a specific group of people that I'm marketing to. So that allows me to be somewhat free in the way I create. Right now, the people who listen to my music are people who are fans of certain sounds, not certain artists. So there's no need to compare me to anyone else because the fans like the sounds and not the person behind it.
Do you think this is a specific characteristic of Gen-Z and how they consume and even discover music today?
I mean, totally. There is no artist progression anymore. It's like, people market songs before artists, and that works sometimes. But the rest of the time it's like I listen to a song 50 times a day and I still don't know who made it. And it's on my playlist too. And I couldn't care less about the artist. We're in a weird spot right now, but I think more people are figuring out how to break through. And it's just interesting to see the internet kids taking over the music industry.
Do you think that in the coming years we will still be defining music by genre?
Oh, absolutely. I feel like there will even be new species. We have created so many subspecies that subspecies become major species. So I can't imagine, years later, how the music is categorized.
Have you ever created with your team or friends a subgenre that could be applied to d4vd?
You know what? No, I haven't yet. I should, to be honest. It would be like, super-alternative indiecore. I do not know. [Laughs.] We can hashtag it.
How do you describe your music to people who may not be familiar?
I like to make old sounds new, I did it best with “Romantic Homicide” and “Here With Me”. It's kind of like old Morrissey from The Smiths, a kind of Thom Yorke Radiohead rawness and passion lost to overly techno music. Now it's all laid out with like, 50 vocal stacks and 50 harmonies and this and that and the third.
And children's brains are oversaturated with so many things. When they hear raw [music], it's refreshing now – when it shouldn't be refreshing, it should be the way the music is. I feel like I'm just taking advantage of the fact that kids don't hear that kind of stuff anymore. I feel like Steve Lacey is doing it best right now. Dominic Fike, he's going crazy right now too.
And that's the thing with the genre. It's like we have to bring back the weird people who make music. I don't think I'd ever see Thom Yorke come on TikTok like, “Did I just do the song of the summer?”
Do you think some of that weirdness is being lost because of social media? Are people now too concerned with how they come across?
Yes, because people are very concerned about what works. Back in the day nothing worked. Nothing was employee. It's so many things employee right now. Even the way people approach different species in the same way. I don't like to see techno and EDM promoted in the same way as an acoustic song on TikTok… it's like I dance to it and cry to it, but they're released the same way I do. m confused.
Is there an artist or band you would like to work with that you think would shock people who have heard you before?
Deftones. I want to work with Chino [Moreno, Deftones frontman] so bad. So bad.
This story is part of Billboard's Genre Now package, highlighting artists who are pushing their genres forward — even making their own news.
Are there any producers you would like to work with?
In the end, it was all YouTube beats, 'cause I had nothing to do with anybody in the industry. So I would go on YouTube and look for this type of beat and that type of beat. And that's another thing, I wouldn't go looking for: “indie type beat”. It was like a certain sound or feeling instead of a genre.
Like, if I get [the top spot] on New Music Friday and a lot of new people are hearing this for the first time, I'd rather they ask, “Why is this on top of New Music Friday?” from saying, “Oh yeah, I see why it is.” I like my music to make people think about why they are where they are. And 'Romantic Homicide' and 'Here With Me' did that, and I loved it so much because people didn't know why [they were taking off]. I want you not to be able to understand it.
For artists just starting out, is identifying with a genre helpful or harmful?
It can be both. I feel like whatever makes you feel confident about your music and your sound, do it. But I feel like there's more freedom in not being associated with anything. And I feel like most people who start making music forget that there is freedom and go based on what they see around them. I see the advantages of saying, “Yeah, I just made this song, so now I'm going to make a hundred more and see if people like it.”
Whatever makes you confident about your music and your sound and helps you stick with it and not lose your passion for music… You can lock yourself in a box and also break out of that box later if you You want. So do whatever you want.
