FSD: So you’re opening for Future tonight. How did you nab that gig?
Saba: Ya boy! [Points to manager Jonathan Cuevas]
Johnathan: That happened because I used to work for React Presents, so I’m always forwarding the music over that [Pivot] would pass to me and finally one of the guys listened to it and started loving everything. Big fan of “Jimmy”, big fan of Get Happy 2.0, and Get Comfortable. So the gig opened, he hit me up like “I’m going to forward it over there so get ready we’re going to get this shit.” And that’s basically what happened.
FSD: [To Johnathan] When did you start management?
Johnathan: It happened over a year and a half ago. Started off us just hanging out and working together, just started doing more and more stuff and transitioned into all this.
FSD: Last time I saw Pivot, you were opening for another artist and I noticed that the crowd was more into your set than the guy who was headlining. Where do you attribute your stage presence?
Saba: For me, personally, my live show changed when… I used to be a really shy kid so my shows would suck cause when I was performing I’d look at the ground and not say anything. I’d seen Fatboi Fresh and Que Billah open for Wu-Tang Clan in 2011, and that shit was like, I’ve known them forever, they used to work with my uncle so I’ve known them since birth pretty much.
[They were] opening up for this big ass crowd and they was just killin’ that shit and in that moment I was like “Oh, okay well they made it look easy so fuck it”. And just now we try to interact with the crowd as much as possible like it’s a party and we’re apart of it.
FSD: Saba, on “Secondhand Smoke” you claim your neighbor got shot in the ass. True story?
Saba: They are not my neighbors anymore, they moved to Iowa. It was a rowdy house, lot of commotion going on next door to me, they was trying to shoot somebody they shot him in the ass. Accident. Wrong guy but he was shot in the ass.
FSD: Rap groups are notoriously hard to keep together. Have you guys had any problems between each other yet?
Saba: Yeah we definitely going to break up in like, how long would you say?
John Walt: I give us three years tops.
FSD: Okay, but if you’re Dru Hill only one of you gets a decent solo career.
Saba: That’s why I’m Sisqo, switches! Naw, I think it’s like most groups are an actual group and they do the group thing and they sign a group deal and they, like, just having an identity of their own is so difficult because they’ve never done it. But we’re all solo artists and the group thing just kind of happened. Like we were just a collective making music in my basement together.
FSD: Who created the Pivot triangle?
Saba: We used to go to Succezz, the boutique downtown, and we used to go there damn near every other day after school. One of our homies there, Jeff, was starting up a clothing company and he was showing us like hella designs and we asked him “Would you be down to make our logo?” And the next day he sent us the triangle. It was like, “Alright, perfect.”
FSD: Is there a deeper meaning behind it?
Squeak: After a while, like, you make it one. Like you make it a personal meaning.
Saba: To me what I got out of it is like, Pivot has always stood for one step at a time, and the original saying used to be “Pivot Gang, we movin’,” and it’s just like constant movement.
Squeak: With me, it’s more like, nothing ever breaks apart on the triangle, you just get closer and closer.
FSD: Saba, as someone who was caught in the Chance The Rapper updraft of 2013, do you feel like you have to field a lot of comparisons to him?
Saba: Yeah, unfortunately due to… like a lot of people have never heard me rap outside of [his verse on “Everybody’s Something”], so a lot of people are like “Hey man, why weren’t you in the video?” or like, I put out “Burnout” the other day, and this one blog “You may know him as the guy on Acid Rap on “Everybody Something” who kinda sounds like Chance, but the harsh realization that he is, indeed, not Chance The Rapper.” Like eventually the second paragraph was kinda decent but the first paragraph, like I couldn’t retweet it, I can’t support this. Lowkey I started a Twitter rant yesterday. And Chance is like, we’re cool, so you know I fuck with him.
FSD: How do you know Chance?
Saba: Open mics. We used to go to open mics together back in the day, and he heard a song that I did and hit me up to do a verse. But we’re not like, BFF’s, a lot of blogs are thinkin’ since they don’t know me outside of this verse like “This is Chance’s friend, here he is!” And that is not really the case. But I mean, it’s hard to break apart from, but I think once broken apart it will be easy. I mean, I only have two songs out from my new project which is post-Acid Rap so maybe, three or four songs out and it dies down. I just pretty much gotta take my time, do my own right and I think it will go away.
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