“The hardest part is writing a song as a story. A song is so short and there are …” — Giveon

In the studio, I like to have the music first: I'll sit with the music for like an hour, on loop, and just let it tell me what it feels I should do.

I have such a personal life history with R&B - it's the first music I remember hearing, and it feels like a family tradition.

I think if you go back to the '60s and '70s, that music felt newer, you were hearing stories told for the first time.

To have the sound I have, to pretty much close out a festival, it's something I didn't see much of in school. It was always pop singers and rappers. It's so cool to see that space for R&B getting bigger.