Photography throughout including the cover art taken by the legend Richard Ross.
As someone who prides themselves on hitting as many shows as I can make, I feel like I am running into Wavy Bagels everywhere. He is a film and television sound man by day and by night he seems to be one of a few people hitting more shows than I am. Even when Wavy isn’t performing on a show himself half the time he’ll be DJing for a friend or helping the host in some audio visual capacity. I feel the exact same way when I flip over underground rap records these days and look at the credits. More often than not if a tape from a Tase Grip affiliate wasn’t recorded, mixed, or mastered by Wavy, he’ll almost definitely at least have a beat on there. He recorded AKAI SOLO’s landmark 2020 record Eleventh Wind and produced the entirety of S!LENCE’s phenomenal record mutatis mutandis. He is in a way the grease of NYC’s underground, applying himself wherever needed to help keep everyone moving. He’ll even be DJing and doing a comedy set at GSC’s upcoming show on July 27th so he’s even doing me favors.
In the time between helping his friends get their records off, Wavy has cultivated a sound for himself both as a producer and as a vocalist. He started producing after getting his hands on a cracked copy of FL Studio and just kept at it until he felt like he wasn’t ass at making beats anymore. In his estimation that took about two and a half years of playing around with beats every day. Wavy also cultivated several crucial mentors who helped him hone his skills during this time, including one of his older brother’s friends from their Strength Records collective. The kindness shown to him by so many as he was getting started seems to be why he’s so willing to lend a helping hand to a friend in need, though as “San Juan” makes more than clear, he does not have that kinda time for any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Well, maybe a Harry.
Inspired by the steady output of producers he sees as legends like DOOM, Dilla, and Knxledge, Wavy built up both a steady beat tape catalog with his Bagels for Dagels series and a deep collection of off kilter club ready remixes and mashups via his Wavy Reworks series, where he tries to use his vast knowledge of music to give people on the dancefloor something new to shake their ass too. Every time I talk with him Wavy seems to be working on something if not multiple things at once, even if he doesn’t know what project the piece may eventually fit into.
Recently Wavy has also developed a singular sound on the mic. His first solo effort as a vocalist BAVY saw Wavy singing soulfully over laid back rap production. Wavy sounded like his vocal stylings were inspired by Luther VanDross as much as he was someone like Future, as tracks like “SLICE” featured an auto tuned warble that the 70s singer may have approved of. The tracks are as distinctly Wavy lyrically as they are sonically, as this is the only love song about a slice of pizza that I am aware of. With every one of his projects Wavy expressed a desire not just to outdo himself but to surprise people with what he could do, and set to once again reinvent his sound for his next record. He wanted to take what had worked with BAVY and combine it with the rapping he’d been doing elsewhere for his next project. He also knew that this wasn’t a solo mission.
Over the years, Wavy had developed a kinship with Jersey City producer DriveBy, who is similarly prolific in the New Jersey underground scene across the Hudson. Wavy’s Tase Grip collective had become close with the Jersey crew, and the two men began trying to fit an EP together in between other projects. While DriveBy had become known for his heavy production work, Wavy knew that DriveBy could make some incredible laid back beats all the same. Their first track was 2020’s “French Bagels” which dropped a full two years before BAVY, a laid back track celebrating the then budding connection between the Jersey and NYC scenes. From there one song became three then five then seven. DriveBy just kept sending Wavy beats and they kept inspiring Wavy. This was capstoned by one of the last beats DriveBy sent, a beat he’d labeled “Wavy 1” knowing how good it’d be for his comrade. That beat ended up becoming their collaborative record A Carfull’s stand out single “San Juan”. After years and years of helping musicians get the most out of their art, Wavy finally had a friend helping him get the best out of his.
A Carfull is the most fully realized version of Wavy’s artistic vision to date despite not featuring a single beat he produced. It allows time for both the thoughtful whimsy of the “Carfull Theme” which was Wavy’s homage to television shows growing up who were made better by a good theme song, to odes to both friends and loved ones. Also nowhere else will you hear both songs about how people love lying about being “Outside” before flipping to a song where Kermit the Frog ends up on trial in a skit. It is as fun and inventive a tape as I’ve heard this year, you’ll likely find yourself cracking up and rapping along in equal measure. Wavy is a music lifer and while this is far from the last project he’ll release this feels like a landmark release for him all the same, as it feels like he has truly found his voice as an artist.
I met up with Wavy Bagels in his Brooklyn studio to talk about his music career and the process of putting together this excellent new record. DriveBy was even kind enough to drive over from Jersey for the convo to provide some color from his perspective.
GSC: What is your name, what is your artistry of choice?
Wavy Bagels: My name is Wavy Bagels, and my artistry of choice is music. I’m multi-hyphenate within the audio realm.
GSC: What are your earliest music memories? Where’d you grow up? Who’s playing music around the house? What are they playing?
Wavy Bagels: I grew up in Queens around a lot of women. My mother was a single mother. I had my younger sister and a lot of female cousins and aunts. Some uncles but hella aunts, so I listened to a lot of R&B and soul music. My mom every weekend when she cleaned up she played the oldies. My sister and my cousins were into Brandy and Monica and Ashanti. My older brother was the rap head.
GSC: How much older is he?
Wavy Bagels: He’s eight or nine years older than me. In the 90s, he was a teenager, heavy into the Wu Tang and Nas and everything going on in New York. He had all the cassettes and whatnot in his room. It was a little smaller than this studio, one wall was filled up with Word Up! Magazine pictures. One wall had all the R&B shorties, all the video vixens. The next wall had all the rappers. Then another wall had all the sports players. He had the big audio system in there with a cassette player, five disc changer and that was my escape. I’d come home from school and play Kiss The Game Goodbye by Jadakiss and rap along to it like I was on stage. But also my uncle was a drummer, and my grandfather played a lot of salsa because he’s Puerto Rican. There was always music around. I also foundationally remember hitting the library to print lyrics off Lyrics.com to memorize them back as a kid.
GSC: I think I heard you say in another interview that your brother rapped and he played semi pro football too.
Wavy Bagels: Yes, yes.
GSC: What team?
Wavy Bagels: He played for the New York Venom. One of his friends who is an engineer ended up being my mentor too, shout out Just One. Shouts to my brother and all his friends I looked up to then. Ev, Richardson, Dawnby, they were a unit.
GSC: They have a crew name?
Wavy Bagels: Strength Recordings, those guys were a huge influence, as was BET and MTV. This is at the height of music videos. I remember watching the “Fantasy” video with Mariah Carey and Old Dirty Bastard, which blew my mind. How the fuck these two get together? How the fuck did this happen? We did a lot of watching as a family too. I remember we watched the entirety of The Jacksons: An American Dream as a family, all like six hours of it.
GSC: When did you start making beats and whatnot yourself? What were you making them on?
Wavy Bagels: FL Studios. Before I was rapping, I was wrestling though. WWE style. In the “San Juan” video, there’s a clip of me body slamming someone.
GSC: Not like high school wrestling right?
Wavy Bagels: No, outdoor WWE style stuff. I had no previous background. Me and my cousin, we lived in the same complex and we started wrestling outside. There was this one Puerto Rican dude who saw us and told us he and his friends had developed a Federation in the park in Brooklyn.
GSC: Oh, shit!
Wavy Bagels: The dude spent a month training us how to properly wrestle. We had a little Lumberjack match as an initiation. He eventually went to the army, the guy who put us on. I still kept in touch with some of those guys though. Two of them are brothers and they bought a ring and we just started doing shows for a while.
GSC: Were you Wavy Bagels then? Or did you have a different name?
Wavy Bagels: I was Razor Sharpe. I had some dreams to pursue it as a career for a second. Meanwhile my older wrestling friends were putting me onto Army of the Pharaohs and shit that ended up leading me back to music. I had always had an interest in making beats in particular and then I saw a video of Just Blaze making beats and knew I needed to do that. I got the cracked version of FL because that shit was too expensive.
GSC: I feel like your beats are worse if you paid for Fruity Loops.
Wavy Bagels: Amen to that. The key was messing around every day and allowing myself to be trash for a long time. That was 2008, I didn’t feel like I got any good till 2011, which was a real transformational year for me.
GSC: How so?
Wavy Bagels: I lost a lot of weight, I was working out a lot. I was very focused that year. I started learning from my mentor how to engineer. I was going to school for video arts and I found a friend in the scene who taught me how to be a sound person. So I was meeting a lot of people and learning a lot of new things.
GSC: I find a lot of musicians start off in visual art, both Nat from Arcadia Grey and FiFi Zhang both talked with me about their film school backgrounds too.
Wavy Bagels: I met a lot of talented friends there I still work with. My boy Miguel started a thing called The Telly a while back. He’s amazing behind the camera. Another friend, Juan, also dope behind the camera. I met friends working too. Vera Quispe, she’s a great sound person. She’s an amazing sound person. My boy Alex does the Kermit voice on Carfull even. All are people I want to be working with for a long time.
GSC: Before we get into your music, I know you love comedy, stand up and sketch, and have an appreciation of anime and video games. What was your media diet like growing up? How were you finding art outside of music?
Wavy Bagels: Before the music you know, Pokémon got so hot and had all the commercials, I knew I needed it. I was tight. Mom hooked it up with the Limited Edition Game Boy Color eventually which was very hype but –
GSC: **Driveby Walks in** What up Drivey! How was the drive from Jersey?
DriveBy: It was aight until I got stuck behind a bus in East Williamsburg that was not moving.
GSC: Yea they have their own rules over there. We were talking about early Pokémon memories.
Wavy Bagels: I was about to tell a story about a time where a kid made me trade with him in Pokémon Gold but said to shut off our Game Boys at the same time and it’d multiply our Pokémon.
DriveBy: Don’t tell me that erased your shit.
Wavy Bagels: It erased my shit.
DriveBy: Noooooooooo! That is devastating bro, especially as a little kid. That game you gotta do sixteen badges too, that’s double the work.
Wavy Bagels: I was upset but I remember the dude being very apologetic at least. Pokemon was huge for me, as was Dragon Ball Z, but the absolute biggest for me was the Power Rangers hands down.
GSC: I was the exact same way.
Wavy Bagels: I wanted to be a Power Ranger. I wanted to go to space. I wanted to fight a monster. That’s one of my earliest dreams honestly.
DriveBy: Who was your favorite Ranger?
Wavy Bagels: Black Ranger, c’mon now. Tommy was close second though.
GSC: You talked about how one of your brother’s friends really helped you learn how to become an engineer, and hone in your production game. Do you remember a beat you sold or a moment where you felt like your ship was finally taking off?
Wavy Bagels: I’d say the first time I started working with Sick in the Head, who I’ve worked with for over a decade now. So at the time my mentor Morocco was working at WBAI, Chuck D had a radio station and Morocco had segments. I remember he did one episode on Staten Island to interview NYOIL. Staten Island legend, hip hop legend. He was originally a member of U.M.C.s, and he became NYOIL. He had a song “Get Lynched” which was controversial but impactful. At the time, he’s also mentoring young artists in Staten Island rappers, one of them ends up being Sick in The Head. Morocco heard about him and had him freestyle and knew he was tight so he told me to send the dude beats and that started our working relationship. Once we started working together I felt legit. He worked like a professional and I’ve taken that work ethic with me.
GSC: You are also in Tase Grip, one of five producers I believe.
Wavy Bagels: Lets see so it’s me, Lungs, he makes beats. ctyzn makes beats. SitchBeats makes beats, $hayButta makes beats. Ibliss makes beats. I felt like S!LENCE got one beat on his latest album AGUADURA. So I guess six.
GSC: How did you first get connected with the Tase Grip crew?
Wavy Bagels: I always love telling these stories. The first person I found out about was probably Lungs, in like 2014,15,16. He had made a record produced by my boy, Hajino. He and I went to school together and connected over music. DOOM got brought up, beats got brought up. I go, “Oh, you make beats? I made these.” So we became boys and then I heard the “Off Safety” joint, I was like, this is fire. Then I see a picture of Lungs and I am like who is this white boy? After that Hajino invited me to a show that they were performing at with Lungs. I introduced myself and said he was fire and everything was cordial. Then Giovanni, Gio, he reached out to me, he was in GRIP at the time. They were doing a powwow show at Ibliss’ crib at the time in Brooklyn. And that’s where I met all of them except Gam. After that I sent AKAI a pack and he ended up using two of them on The Burning East With Love, his first record. I got the first and last song.
GSC: Beautiful cover on that one too.
Wavy Bagels: He’s always got his cover art on point. I’ve had this studio space for six years but it was touch and go with COVID. After COVID AKAI hit me up one day asking if I still had the studio, and he came through and recorded a good deal of Eleventh Wind here. I mixed it, produced one joint on that. That’s when it started to solidify a little more. Then we did the infamous trip to Tannersville. You were there right Drivey?
DriveBy: Yes but in the middle of the night on that trip I went to pick up OSO at the Newark Airport because I forgot I had to do that and when I came back S!LENCE got bugged out because I’m rolling up to the cabin at like, two in the morning.
GSC: What brought you guys out there?
DriveBy: TASE GRIP rented an AirBNB to do some writing and beat making and recording and they invited me and Roper and the Jersey crew too.
Wavy Bagels: After that trip is when I felt like I was officially in GRIP. It wasn’t official until AKAI showed me the handshake.
GSC: I love organizations with handshakes. That track you produced on Eleventh Wind too, “Tetsuo”. That’s an iconic AKAI track he plays live all the time. Do you remember making that beat?
Wavy Bagels: I remember making that beat here at the studio. I called it that because of Tetsuo the Iron Man, a really sick movie.
GSC: I was thinking Tetsuo from Akira.
Wavy Bagels: That’s my favorite movie ever. I got a poster in my room of it, but it was not that Tetsuo.
GSC: Going into your solo work, Bagels for Daygels Vol 1-3 which started in 2017. I love the second particularly because Bartolo Colon is on the cover. You also have Infused Bagels and a sub.mergence, which are more remix EPs. What was the intention with those projects?
Wavy Bagels: I was tryna be conscious of how I was packaging my craft as a producer, tryna be like DOOM or Dilla, humbly of course. When Dilla did Donuts it was an event, there is some real lore there. I’ve heard the album is actually backwards, there’s all these secret passageways. DOOM had Special Herbs Volume 1,2, and 3 and he named every track after herb. There’s a thought process that he put into this, it’s conscious. Knxwledge was a huge influence in that regard too, especially seeing him do it in real time. People talk shit on him like he isn’t great and I don’t get that at all.
GSC: People act too cool for school.
Wavy Bagels: Knxwledge, at the time, was dumping like crazy. Every two weeks he was dropping. He had the HX series, the video game shit he’s doing now. He has volumes. So I was like, wow, that’s how you have to do it. You have to categorize your music. For one, it is easy to find, and there’s a theme there that somebody can track over several tapes. The cover art was the shit I was feeling at the time. Akira, Bartolo Colon because I’m from Queens. Tim Duncan because I am a huge fan of the Spurs.
GSC: The Wavy Reworks meanwhile were more for the club, you were getting the people moving. Have you done that nightclubby stuff before?
Wavy Bagels: I try to be as eclectic as possible. I also DJ and wanted to make music for that environment. As a producer I wanna take my knowledge of music and bring that to the people in as fun a way as possible with those tracks. I remember being in the crib, listening to XM Radio all day, and writing down songs I didn’t know and many of those got reworked in those tapes. Now you see a lot of blends and mash ups on TikTok funnily enough, it’s like an economy unto itself.
GSC: When did you start rapping and singing on tracks?
Wavy Bagels: 2020 was when I did “Force” my first joint. I was like, okay, I can get used to this. So I started learning to write tracks like that, which became the beginnings of BAVY. There was a lot going on then though. Right before COVID I was working crazy hours and couldn’t hit shows. Then I moved from Queens Village here to Brooklyn and was closer to the scene which made things easier, and I quit that job thankfully. Been out here for three and a half years now.
GSC: Around that time you, I think we’re roommates with S!LENCE for a bit, and you fully produced your collaborative record, mutatis mutandis, yes, a Latin phrase that roughly translates to “having changed that which needed to be changed” which I Googled I didn’t know for the record. How did that project come about?
Wavy Bagels: So like you said, I was living with the S!LENCE, Ctyzn, and Jaylevinson. We all dedicate a lot of time building on music, and we were just a ten to fifteen minute trip from the studio. I remember the nights we’d be there till four in the morning cranking out a lot of those songs. We did a lot at Gam’s crib too, he has a nice set up there. As long as there’s a setup somewhere, we can always flesh out those ideas. We realized we were close to having enough for an album and started talking about what the name and art would be, the throughlines and the vibe.
GSC: Who did the cover art? It is striking. It’s gorgeous, but it’s very visceral.
Wavy Bagels: Aaron The Great, he killed that. He does his art on cardboard. He did the art for Rich’s latest joint too AUGADORA. His artwork was a big backdrop for the music, because you see the art and you hear that in the music.
GSC: “Pistol Pete” is a favorite of mine, do you have a fave?
Wavy Bagels: “Tri-State Sex Symbol” is my favorite song. I love that beat, man. I was in the zone when that made that joint. I was like, Oh, we got something. Then he got in the booth and did it all right then. I felt really good about that song, like we both did our thing. I feel that way about the entire album, but that one in particular I couldn’t stop listening to it.
GSC: Then you drop BAVY, I saw Luther Vandross up here somewhere in this studio, you’re getting on his tip. What brought that energy out, what made you not just want to sing but do a kind of singing we’re not hearing in the marketplace?
Wavy Bagels: It was a reflection of that music I grew up on with my family. I used to write as a kid, poetry and short stories and whatnot. Once I had the first joint under my belt, I was always making beats, but I started taking them and saying okay, what can I do with this joint. I took the beat for “SLICE” and played around with it for a while till I had something.
GSC: Was it always a love song about pizza, though?
Wavy Bagels: Hell yea. My writing process is weird. I might not get it at the first strike, but I’ll start saying gibberish until I find something that connects. I’ll grab onto something and go let me build on that. “WANT” is a very personal record about addiction. Throughout my life, I’ve run across addiction, between family, friends, people I’ve known, and that was something I needed to get off my chest. I wasn’t even sure I could do it, but I said let me challenge myself, get outside my comfort zone. You don’t know your own limitations until you push them. I might not be the greatest singer in the world, but I have a voice and it’s an instrument I can use in a lotta different ways. It was about getting used to what I can do with my voice and coming from left field with something the people might not expect. People don’t sing about pizza or being a werewolf on their shit. I really try to be outside the box. Too many albums are like these relationship podcasts saying the same shit over and over.
GSC: People love negativity and RnB, they love cheating. How could you? Why did you?
Driveby: Trey Songz made a career off being the best toxic R&B guy out.
Wavy Bagels: I got sick of, like, the concept of writing about other people. Let’s write about a wall. Let’s write about a bag of chips.
GSC: One of my favorite tapes from last year was Absinthe from Jazzz and TenTen and I loved your track “How Can I?” So old school, really fit the vibe of the record. How did that come about?
Wavy Bagels: Thank you, man. Big shout to Jazz and TenTen. Ten has been dropping some fire in general, love his project with JayPluss too. Ten hit me up about it, and Jazzz already laid her vocals so it was easy. This is a duet, let me make this a duet. JayPluss and Lungs were already rapping on the tape, let me be different. I’m still learning too, you know? I feel like I’m a better rapper than I am a singer, so if I can find the opportunity to sing, I’m going to take it. Jazzz is amazing. Her voice is angelic. I’m so grateful that Ten thought of me, and that she fucked with the track too. That project in general was so impressive, they both killed that. I felt lucky to be a part of that one.
GSC: Amen to that. Jumping into A Carfull, the reason we are here today. Drive by is one of my absolute favorite producers working right now and I’d be saying that even if he wasn’t sitting here. How did you guys first link? When did you know you needed to make a tape with him?
DriveBy: So I met him on his birthday.
Wavy Bagels: Wow, you did, didn’t you.
DriveBy: Before I met him on his birthday, I was a huge fan. He was one of the people I saw doing great work that made me want to grind harder and get more intertwined with the beat culture and community. I knew I wanted to work with him even before we met or before I knew he did vocal work just as producers.
Wavy Bagels: We were at Gam’s crib and we were getting fucked up that day. Every February I take off smoking weed, some come my birthday in March I can smoke again. I did like an edible, a strong guy’s edible.
DriveBy: What was it called, the Num Nums?
Wavy Bagels: Yea, and then I think I got an eighth of shrooms.
DriveBy: He was on a different planet.
Wavy Bagels: There were a bunch of us in the room. Phiik, Lungs, Rich. Drivey was playing some beats randomly going through a pack, and we were chilling, freestyling a little bit. He played two or three joints where I was like DAMN, gimme that! Telling everyone else there like you don’t want that one. He played “French Bagels” that night.
GSC: Wow that night?
DriveBy: Was it that night? You also came up to me at one of my first beat shows asking about one.
DriveBy: I think I got “Struggle Meal” from you at that beat show.
DriveBy: That was my first beat show. I almost fell down this treehouse.
GSC: You’re playing up in a treehouse?
DriveBy: Yea, it was raining, that’s why I nearly crashed. I love how organically the collaboration between us happened though. I had wanted to work with him for a while and he’s asking me for beats? Wild. I was so shocked and impressed with how he approached it too, his pen game flows so well. The writing on “San Juan” is lyrically one of my favorite songs I’ve been a part of. My favorite track on the tape tho is “Low on Gas”.
Wavy Bagels: People have been saying that.
DriveBy: His singing on there is really dope. I’d been trying to find a home for that beat forever and I love what he did with it.
GSC: Did you guys do any recording together?
DriveBy: Most of the times we met up was when he was showing some of the mixing he was doing or coming up with ideas with the promo stuff.
Wavy Bagels: It was supposed to be an EP at first and he kept feeding me beats. I’d work on a little at the crib then bring it to the studio or vice versa. We put out “French Bagels” mad early in the end, and just kept building from there. Ten tracks, it felt cohesive.
DriveBy: When we did “French Bagels” in 2021 me Roper, Sharif, and the Jersey crew were tapped in with TaseGrip a lot. We’d go there or they’d come to Jersey. That’s how the log cabin stories came about.
Wavy Bagels: The album is an extension of the New York, New Jersey mutual respect we have. Hence the track “PATH” which connects us underground. I got fond memories of taking the PATH out and making music with those guys, it’s become a great community.
DriveBy: And vice versa, even when he comes through on the PATH I’ll drive them back to the city, especially if he’s leaving late cause the PATH is a bitch late at night. It’s all love with TaseGrip and Wavy, they’re all like family to us. I always have a great working relationship with Grip, they make it easy.
GSC: It’s funny too, because I was reading the bandcamp article on Tase Grip and the first thing that they linked to is Gandhi Loves Children. I’m like damn the Jersey guys need to get their own crew name ASAP.
Wavy Bagels: That’s how close we all are. We cool with each other, support one another whenever someone is doing a show. And it’s like, you see a lot of artists don’t even know each other.
DriveBy: Definitely my brother. One thing I learned from Sharif was whoever you collab with, you have to get to know them. It’s a personal exchange when you’re working on music. We’ve talked shit and wasted time just as much if not more than talked about and made music, like we just hang. I always feel like that makes the art better, you learn a lot about a guy bullshitting.
Wavy Bagels: Silly shit keeps your morale high. You want to make sure that the other person is equally invested as you in the art and that’s the only real way. I’ve been through those situations where I worked with people that I didn’t know or didn’t really care for and they always ended up to shit. I’m very grateful to be around people that are like minded, and for the most part on the same page music or not. Not that we don’t disagree but the arguments even can fuel shit.
GSC: So your approach with this album it’s more rap forward, but you’re still doing a lot of singing. What was your thought process putting this together?
Wavy Bagels: First thought was this project has to be better than the last project. What I did great on this album I carry with me, whatever I did bad I learn from it and leave it there. “Pancakes” was an elevated version of what I was doing on “SLICE” or “PHONE”. “San Juan” and “Ponce” I made later than the other joints, and I felt like those really helped bring the record together.
DriveBy: He blew me away with “San Juan”. It was the last batch I sent and what did I call that beat “Wavy 1”?
Wavy Bagels: Yep.
DriveBy: Because I already heard him on the beat when I made it. I made that on my MPC. I sent it to him and when he sent it back I was going crazy from the first bar.
GSC: So nonchalantly delivered too.
DriveBy: Like it’s just him being real. People get so annoying when they think you are popping in a way they think they can take advantage of, but he’s saying that on the track like he’s talking to you or me which is so fire.
Wavy Bagels: That kinda ties back into the first track “Theme to Carfull” where we’re tryna be both nonchalant and real with this tape. That first my homage to old TV, when if a show had a good theme song you knew it was a fire show. That beat was initially just a drum Driveby I sent me, and I played the instrumentation on top of it. I put the little, the vocoder effect on my voice and set the tone of the record. Meanwhile on “Outside” –
GSC: Which is a track you kill live by the way.
Wavy Bagels: Thank you! Cedric the Entertainer inspired the flow on that one. There is a section of Kings of Comedy where he talks about a reggae band singing about peanut butter and jelly, and legit listening to him imitating them is kinda where it came from. I was writing that during COVID when everyone was claiming to be outside when they weren’t. “San Juan” we talked about the first line and I stand by that.
GSC: Don’t need your Mom’s friend’s little kid sending you his mixtape.
DriveBy: Funnily enough one time my mom actually killed it with one of those. She introduced me to this dude, Asar who was Kanye West’s right hand man before Kanye got big with Rockefeller. He also produced for Lupe Fiasco, he did “Hustlers and Customers” and when Ye was in Jersey this dude lived like four blocks away from me in Jersey City. When I went to his crib he had crazy equipment. He was a big time mentor for me too, so shouts to my mom on that one.
GSC: Speaking of family members doing things right, can you talk a little bit more about your uncle’s wings you mention in that song? Have you had them too Driveby?
DriveBy: Yea we had them in the video and they’re confirmed fire.
Wavy Bagels: Shout out to my Uncle Plinky, but me, oh. Shout out Art Morera for shooting that video too, he killed that. But my uncle does some catering.
GSC: He’s a chef chef.
Wavy Bagels: Yea exactly. When I wrote “San Juan” I was in Queens hanging with my uncle, so I was thinking about those wings when I wrote it.
GSC: He’s gotta love that track, I’d love to hear him play that for his boys.
Driveby: He dropped so many plates when we were recording that video too, it was like Christmas.
Wavy Bagels: Not gonna lie, the ones he had made at Thanksgiving were a little better.
Driveby: I feel lucky I got any at all.
GSC: Maybe you came into Thanksgiving hungrier? Or with higher expectations?
Wavy Bagels: That’s true, a lot of external factors, but regardless he does the best wings. Holla if you have the money right and I can get him connected.
GSC: Speaking of family, I love the Fatboi assisted “Struggle Meal”. I imagine you met Fatboi around when you met Driveby but how did you know you needed him for this track?
Wavy Bagels: I mean, he’s Fatboi Sharif!
Driveby: His name is Fatboi.
Wavy Bagels: Sharif is a big dude, I am a big dude.
GSC: I am a big dude too!
Wavy Bagels: For “Struggle Meal” I was a big fan of hip hop movies and this one was inspired by The Fat Boys from The Disorderlies, a classic comedy. It was about having fun and reminiscing, and I just heard the beat and thought of the track and knew Fatboi would have some fun with that.
Driveby: Wavy got Fatboi at his most playful ever, I don’t know how he got that out of him. Boog texted me so excited when he heard that track.
Wavy Bagels: I was glad to get that side of him. I love how dark he can get, there is nobody in rap like Sharif at creating those crazy soundscapes, but I knew he could bring as much energy to the fun of this track.
GSC: It’s like getting Bowser in Mario Kart. He’s done being the villain, time to hang with the boys.
Wavy Bagels: Him hitting the singing on that is one of my favorite parts of the record. He recorded that right here too. I wanna work with Sharif more too, I got an idea for him but I need to get in touch, so if Sharif reads this before I get in touch my bad but I’ll holla at you soon. Again it’s the record bridging Jersey and NYC. Speaking of which, let me shout out to Slim Carey who did her thing on “PATH” and got that joint back to me too ASAP which was hella appreciated.
Driveby: You impressed me getting Sandman too, that joint is fire. I am hyped to have him on my beat.
GSC: You toured with him right?
Wavy Bagels: Yea. Me, Sandman, and Gam are known as Team Brasica which is a long story. What track are we up to?
GSC: “Pancakes” which I love, getting Kermit the Frog. It’s like if that movie Waiting took place at a Waffle House, it’s so cinematic.
Driveby: When he first showed me that, the beginning is beautiful but the skits still kill me to this day. We sat here for like a half hour thinking of every name for pancakes and I don’t know where he found butter gutters. My favorite part is the end, the court scene, that fucks me up every time. You don’t think Kermit is coming back, then he’s like “YO SHUT THE FUCK UP!” That’s probably my second favorite track on the record.
Wavy Bagels: We def wanted that one to feel like a buddy comedy, like Cheech and Chong or Harold and Kumar or How High.
GSC: We were just talking about “Come with Me” shouts to Gam and Homeboy Sandman. How did that track come together?
Wavy Bagels: I made that at Gam’s crib. I wrote it while I was out in Cali about coming home, and when Gam recorded the hook he was like nah we gotta get Sandman on this too. Gam played it for him and he fucked with it enough to get on, and when I got it back I was like damn we got something here. Sandman has been a big, big, big pillar in my life. I met him out of nowhere, and going on the road with him I learned a lot. Both about being a professional musician, because I fucked up and he worked with me through it where I am definitely better on stage than I was, but non-music shit too. He’s such a pure soul. I feel very lucky to be as close with him as I am, he’s like the personification of Hip-Hop in some ways to me.
DriveBy: First time I met him it felt like we knew each other for ages just the respect he showed and knowledge he dropped.
Wavy Bagels: He has the vibe of, like, a really, really cool substitute teacher. Gam is like a brother to me too, the things he’s done for me. I lived with him for two months after me and S!LENCE’s crib flooded, he’s legit always been there when I needed him. A brother in and out of this rap shit.
GSC: It feels like a solidifying of that relationship how “PATH” is for the Jersey crew. We already talked about “PATH” a little but is there anything else you wanted to say about your intentions behind that track?
Wavy Bagels: I wanted to make it long but not too long. I was like, let me get four verses. I’ll be the middle person on the hook, let’s get two from Jersey, two from New York. The process was getting everyone’s verses together but everyone killed it once we got it all laid out.
GSC: I don’t wanna get you in trouble but do you have a favorite bar off that track?
DriveBy: Lungs calling himself the real Dirty Dan definitely made me crack up. People think of him as mad abstract and he does that shit well but he’s hilarious whenever he wants to be. OSO has that couscous line that had me cracking up too.
Wavy Bagels: Eating cooch like its couscous?
GSC: That killed me, he’s got great dexterity on the mic.
Wavy Bagels: Rich aka S!LENCE going, “You can literally hear the weed” is also such a bar.
DriveBy: And then Slim Carey brings that shit home with the PATH isn’t stopping bar and maybe the hardest verse outta anyone. It felt like everyone like got the concept behind the track and had as much fun with it as possible.
GSC: Then you close the record with “French Bagels” the first track you recorded. How did that become the closer?
DriveBy: I didn’t even think it was gonna be on the tape till Wavy told me.
Wavy Bagels: You know how it goes, you drop something and it gets some buzz but stays in that moment. This was us reaffirming it, bringing it back. I wanted it to be the last, like you journey through the new shit and the ride brings you back where we started. We re-recorded it though.
DriveBy: The French woman killed the re-record.
Wavy Bagels: Shout out to Chloe Noble. I met her at a film gig. She was an actress speaking French right when I was looking for someone for the French shit so I was like let me get that business card. I sent her what I wanted her to say and she translated it and said it and I really feel like she takes that track over the top.
GSC: Again it really makes the track feel so cinematic.
DriveBy: While I am thinking of it, shout out to the Untitled app. The best collaboration app. My car was breaking down a lot when we were working on this so I’d call him on the phone and he’d share a file with me and I could see him in the app working on shit and I could comment or add photos. Like you can moodboard the album as you are making it in real time. You can speed and slow the tempo down in the song. You can record in there, you can leave timestamped comments that’ll take you to the stamp. Steel Tipped Dove showed me that app, I’ve learned so much from him in general. He’s one of the best organized dudes I know.
Wavy Bagels: He’s both a great resource and really resourceful himself. In the era where artists need to be your own marketing team, A&R, social media team, street team, art director, all that. On top of all the logistical paperwork and whatnot that goes with just getting the art out and getting the people involved compensated, he can help with anything involved. He really shows this shit is all a matter of self determination. Nobody’s gonna make this happen if I don’t. He’s showing that it’s all possible with the work he puts out, and he’s always willing to help and workshop shit too.
GSC: How has the reception to the tape been? What are the people fucking with?
Wavy Bagels: “Come to Me” the Sandman joint and “San Juan” have been the stand outs. Shout out, Secret House Tokyo.
DriveBy: Mad love for them, they show our whole scene so much love. They really fucked with “San Juan”.
Wavy Bagels: Shout out Roni Sighs who got us in The Wire Magazine. Its been less strangers but mad peers have hit us up saying how much they fuck with the record and that always feels amazing.
GSC: The last question I always like to end on is, what is something outside of music that brings you joy that may surprise people?
Wavy Bagels: I feel like people know a lot of the things that bring me love because I talk about them, but one thing I doubt many know about me is I love doing Wordle and Connections. I love puzzles, especially word puzzles, and those get my brain going in a fun way. So a small thing that brings me joy there but joy all the same.
DriveBy: I’d say hiking and hacking. Hiking, I love getting out in the open and filling my lungs with fresh air, it is so good for your physical and mental well being. Meanwhile hacking makes me feel like a dangerous man.
