FSD: The second single, “Pale Rose,” is an interesting song. It has an upbeat driving bass, but the vocals and the visuals seem to suggest a sadder theme, so what really are you trying to convey with “Pale Rose”?
TheMIND: “Pale Rose” is a song that I thought I was making for my ex-girlfriend at the time, and it was just purely about me feeling like she broke my heart and left me out to dry. I just feel like a lot of people in the world feel alone after a break up. As soon as you get something, as soon as something good happens for you, that’s when bloodsuckers, you know, “those fuckers who love nothing. I keep stopping my heart because I keep wanting to love something.” It had just gotten to a point where I was changing myself, or compromising myself in order for people to be comfortable or in this case, for my ex to love me. When I started to love myself, that entire thing changed.
The “Pale Rose” concept comes from Adventure Time, Marceline, the Vampire who sucks the red out of everything. I look at my ex as kind of this, I don’t want to say succubus, but yeah. Sucks the life out of things the same way vampires do. There’s still light at the end of the tunnel though because I wrote that song at that moment, and the whole discomfort I had wasn’t directed to her, it was at my mother. That’s where the whole reprise at the end of the song comes in, “Stop saying you love me when you take the air out of my lungs to breathe.” That whole part is more of a conversation between me and my mother.
FSD: Let’s talk Coloring Book. You’re on “No Problem” and “Finish Line/Drown,” both songs are stacked with legends in the hip-hop world: Wayne, Chainz, T-Pain, how does it feel being in the mix of those artists?
TheMIND: Crazy. Surreal. I think when I first did vocals for “No Problems” it was just me and Chance, and I was like, “Oh cool.” Then the next time I heard it, my bridge was removed, but all of my background vocals were still on there because it ran too long with the bridge. They took the bridge out, but they left the background vocals that Wayne and 2 Chainz rap over and it’s a surreal ass feeling every time I listen to it. It’s like I grew up listening to these guys. THAT’S TITY BOI! I remember “Duffle Bag Boy” with these two guys on it. “Finish Line/Drown” with T-Pain and Kirk Franklin, like, we all have this gospel background, but me and my twin sister and other sister used to dance around the house listening to Kirk Frankiln. It’s insane every time I think about it.
FSD: You recently tweeted an article saying that Chance was going to be at 40K for his first week sales. You said that was sad, and that it should instead read 60,000,000+ Streams. How do you think streams should translate into sales, or do you even think they should count?
TheMIND: I think that, especially for an artist like Chance who’s revolutionizing the way that we view a new artist or the way we distribute music, I think we should change the way people read. If you look at 40K in a week, yeah that’s impressive, but it’s an artist with no label, it’s an artist with no backing. You look at Joey Badass who did like 54K, you know the same thing. But those artists, Drake and Joey, sold their project, so some of those numbers are actually sales. When you look at an artist like Chance, all of those numbers are streams.
So, when you look at like 1,500 streams to add up to one album being sold, it’s kind of unfair when you look at the grand scheme of things and you compare those numbers because honestly, the only thing he’s doing is streaming. So you look at all of those numbers compared to the other guys, I think the numbers are a little bit closer. So, I think it should read 60,000,000+ streams in a week, more so than 40K in sales because the age of people buying music is dieing. I don’t think we exist in that time anymore. Everybody has some type of streaming account, whether they’re on a trial period or they illegally download it. It is what it is.
I think now we have to move forward because downloads are the new sales. A download is how you justify who bought your album, and not actually paying for it, but just being able to put it on their mobile devices and being like, “Oh I listen to this every single day because I wanted it on my phone, I didn’t want to stream it from the web. I need to listen to this without the internet.” I think that’s the new way to show that people are buying something.
I said on Twitter it was sad, but I don’t think it’s a sad thing, I think it’s just we haven’t adjusted to the way of the new industry. Showing that independent artist that what he just did was hella impressive. I think a lot of independent artists are looking at that and going, “Damn he only did 40K? I thought Chance would’ve done a million.” We have to stop looking at those numbers like that. We have to break down those numbers to actually look at every single soul that streamed that tape, and I guarantee we’ll be thoroughly impressed.