AN INTERVIEW WITH YUNGMORPHEUS

Colby Campbell, otherwise known as YUNGMORPHEUS, is an LA-based rapper who continuously pushes the boundaries of originality and lyricism. States of Precarity, released on January 8, 2021, is YUNGMORPHEUS' newest album. YUNGMORPHEUS talks to Teresa and Sam about his college experiences, working solo on projects, and the importance of family.

Sam: We saw you went to school in Boston, and I saw in a profile that you kind of struggled with college—just not really liking it that much, and not getting that much out of it creatively. And I was wondering if you had any advice to people, like, in our position now, college students, on how to get the most out of their experience, like creatively or otherwise?

YUNGMORPHEUS: Shit, finesse them niggas man. Just straight up, that's the only advice I have to cats who are like, not white, who are in that environment trying to figure out what it is. Finesse them niggas for everything you can get. Like, any auxiliary scholarship so you can go out of the country and all that type of shit, run that shit up.

Because it's a game, you know, it's a weird game. It's a weird game and they want us to lose. They really want us to lose. I feel like most niggas who are, like, academically inclined, and wind up going to school and shit like year two, three, you start being like, Oh shit. I shouldn't have paid for this. Like, this was cool, and I learned some cool stuff, but I could have just learned this myself. You know what I mean?

Teresa: Dude, with online school that's like amplified times -

YUNGMORPHEUS: I can't even imagine how it feels for y'all now, I was thinking about that shit.

Teresa: It feels like I was… like, I could be reading a Wikipedia page and get - Yeah. Also, for the purposes of this show—so we are called Two Virgins because we usually drink a virgin drink on the show—so what type of tea are you making?

YUNGMORPHEUS: It's some ginger honey tea and shit. Know what I mean?

Teresa: Nice. Very detox.

YUNGMORPHEUS: Nah that’s my shit, much as I smoke I gotta run that. You know what I mean? Straight up. Gotta balance it.

Teresa: *Laughs*

Sam: And to pivot over to the music, I know that you're just productive in general. You dropped a bunch of albums recently. But, I know that you said that States of Precarity has a special place in your heart, what made this project so special to you?

YUNGMORPHEUS: That's a good question, yo. Cause nigga has been doing a lot. It's the first one since basically, if you don't count Black Schemata, that's the first joint since like, 2016 that I did by myself. It's just a YUNGMORPHEUS solo record. And I've been sitting on that shit for like, maybe a year and a half to be honest. There's two songs that are newer that happened during that time period, but the bulk of that stuff was recorded at a very wild time in my life. 

Like a nigga didn’t have a crib. Was having very serious bouts with mental shit. It was a wild moment. And that's just a snapshot of maybe, eight months, where I was just out here fucking figuring it out. Getting to the meat of it, really. So that's the main reason, because that’s all me right there. Like the other shit, that's also me, but it's me with somebody else for the most part. So you see myself, but complementing or supplementing someone else, or having a dialogue with a close friend of mine or something.

Whereas I did 60% of the production on this. This one’s my baby - and all of them are babies but - that's like, if I was to asexually reproduce, that’s that baby. 

Teresa: Thank you for that visualization of that.

YUNGMORPHEUS: Like separating in two! *Laughs*

Teresa: I can see it now. And what kind of qualities or values do you derive from working more solo and collaborating with artists you admire?

YUNGMORPHEUS: What do you mean? What's the difference?

Teresa: Yeah, for you, what do you take away from those different experiences?

YUNGMORPHEUS: Okay. Word. I guess I'll start with the solo shit. I guess the best way to say that is…  that shit feels the most cathartic, in a way, to me. When I'm doing a project that’s just a solo joint, I'm really, for the most part, totally isolated. Removed from this social context right now or not. I'm in my room, I ain’t seen niggas for like, two months. I'm trying to figure it out right now. 

I'm diving within myself, ‘yo, I'll see y'all. And when I come back I'll have something.’ Whereas, when I tap in with my homies, it’s that, but more like, ‘hey I dipped inside my bag, here's what I have to offer to the meal, what are we making today?’ I like to think about shit in a cooking way a lot, so it feels like making an ill meal with somebody that you like. 

Yeah, I'd say that's the difference. What I get from both of them. You get a new perspective from someone that's not yourself when it comes to making work. There's certain shit that niggas attack in ways that I wouldn't attack that has me like, ‘yo nice, let me tweak it, let me erase that part of the formula and add something new because that's a good idea.’

Sam: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. On that note, it seemed like you were just talking about how you kind of go in your shell when you're making stuff solo, and I noticed that isolation was a pretty major theme on this project. And I thought it might have something to do with the pandemic, but I didn't realize that most of this was recorded way before that. Is that something that just naturally happens for you when you record music solo?

YUNGMORPHEUS: Pretty much. I got my close circle of homies, but I really be on my lone dog shit for the most part. So that shit comes out a lot when it's personal creation time, and I really wanted to shut off all the—like peel back the onion a little bit. Niggas know the character of YUNGMORPHEUS and that he smoke weed, he don't like cops, he don't like white people. [I’m] trying to give niggas a little more ‘why?’ Remember in that Shrek shit, where Donkey’s like, “ogres is like parfaits!” *Laughs*

Like, that shit. Nah, we like onions. Trying to get to the bottom of the onion. 

Teresa: Yeah, you really do think of things relating to cooking and food. *Laughs*

YUNGMORPHEUS: I'll be cooking all the time. Them shit’s is one and the same in my head, for real.

Teresa: Kind of pivoting a little, I noticed that family, and especially your chosen family, are kind of central to the project. So, can you talk a little bit about how family in any sense of the word influences your creativity? 

YUNGMORPHEUS: That’s a good question, yo. Because a lot of those voices that you hear—the only person that's on that joint is the good homegrown Joy Pastel. But the other voices that you hear throughout this shit’s—it's not the one interlude that’s a sister talking, that's very clearly some old shit. The rest of that shit is just my family. The dude at the end of niggas is my dad. The girl walking at the end of, I think it’s “Thutmose,” is my sister. And then the dude talking on the outro in Jamaican patois and shit is my uncle and shit, who got deported and shit. 

So, family's, very, very - I guess that's part of why this shit was wild, and I said the shit was wild close to me and shit, because I was trying to show niggas is that these are some of the pieces that made who I am. Yeah. The chosen fam part is interesting because I've found a lot of times when you choose your fam, sometimes them niggas just choose to not be your fam. 

Sam: Talk a little more about that. What do you mean by that?

YUNGMORPHEUS: I guess I'm jaded and shit, but I'd be very wary of [saying], boom, this is my, my friend. So that's part of why that giant just has joy on it. This is how it be for the most part, I'd be by myself, and just fleshing it out solo. Yeah, shit’s just happened, and nigga’s jaded, you know. Save it and not make it super long because I could go on forever.

Sam: Totally. I saw you tweeting about Doom a couple weeks ago when he passed. And I heard some of that influence in your work, tell me if I'm wrong, but in portraying this image of a villain at times. Did he influence your work at all? How did his work affect you?

YUNGMORPHEUS: That shit’s a given. That nigga is the father to all of our styles in some way, even the cats like me and all my peers and I mean, that nigga is your dad in some form or fashion. I heard that shit when I was, like, fifth grade or some shit. And I think it was The Mouse and the Mask, that was the first Doom record that I heard and like downloaded entirely off of LimeWire. And it was bugging because I was on that Adult Swim shit—and that's the joint that has all the Aqua Teen Hunger Force shit in it. And it was my first time being like, yo, you could really do whatever you want. 

And you can go like very dark if you want to, because I was very influenced by a lot of the Viktor Vaughn shit. It was definitely influential on how I approach fucking with darker topics and shit. I mean, because that nigga got Vaudeville Villain album and Venomous Villain, he got like a couple of joints where he just talking about like, I'm in the future killing cops. That’s tight, why don’t niggas do that more? It’s tight to just be like, yo, I’m this good, evil nigga. Ain't no one or the other, that line needs to be blurred and I like doing that shit.

Teresa: And I kind of see that kind of abstractness in your cover for States of Precarity. You talk about where this piece of art came from and why it's centered in the middle amongst my white space.

YUNGMORPHEUS: My homie, Fermata, who goes by Steven. He came up with that piece. I sent him the album when it was, maybe, 45% done, honestly? And told him what was on my mind at the time. And I had just read a book—I can't remember what the name of it was, but it was some like black anarchist book that had that phrase in there, “states of precarity”—and like I said, that time in life was wild weird.

And I was thinking about how like niggas have to always be in a state of precariousness. Like, you always have to be cautious of what the fuck is going on, no matter what scenario that is. So I told him that shit, and then I was like, ‘yo, listen to it and think about that, but do whatever you feel after that. Like, I don’t need it to look one way, just do whatever that looks like to you.’ 

And then he fucking send me that shit, I was like, yo, there it is in a nutshell! The dude looking to the side at the top, all the different shits going on, that one nigga with his head turned… That was one of those moments where I didn’t really need to say nothing. I told him what I wanted, or what the themes were. And we're pretty cool. And he's kind of my favorite—not kinda—definitely my favorite artist right now. So that came together pretty seamlessly. For real for real. 

Sam: It's a beautiful piece of art and I loved how it tied into like the singles too, and how it was this whole package that came together. 

YUNGMORPHEUS: Thanks, yo.

Sam: Yeah, and I was wondering, when you were working with an artist on one of your projects, like Joy Pastel, how is it different than doing your collaboration with a producer or collaboration with another artist?

YUNGMORPHEUS: Word, word. Like having somebody on one of my albums and shit?

Sam: Yeah, yeah. 

YUNGMORPHEUS: I guess it's different because when it's my shit I know what I want. Like, I have a very clear idea of like, yo from top to bottom it’s gonna sound like this, I want it to run like this, your place in this is here. Whereas, like with other niggas I'm pretty down to flesh it out and go wherever it might take take us. But with Joy, I was definitely like, ‘Yo, I made this beat, I rhymed on this, you need to be on this. I don’t want nobody else on here if you're not on this, nobody's going to be on the album.’ 

So I guess to answer the question succinctly is, when I'm doing some shit like that, I know what I want from the person and just like, tell them like, ‘yo, rock this joint,’ as opposed to like, ‘let's listen to some shit and figure out what we gonna do.’ 

Sam: Yeah, I mean, definitely.

YUNGMORPHEUS: Yeah.

Teresa: And one thing that I really like about your songs in general are the song titles, and the one that struck me with this album was—I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right even though I took French for five years—Chateau de Chem. 

YUNGMORPHEUS: Yes, that is right. 

Teresa: And it was like this bougie wine, and then I listened to the song and I was like, I don't know! So can you explain, please?

YUNGMORPHEUS: For sure, yo. I dunno, that shit just sounded expensive to me. High key that was the main shit—that was the reason that I named that shit. I want niggas to be like, ‘what the fuck is Chateau de Chem, what the fuck?’ Cause, I don’t know, certain joints niggas be talking about manifesting stuff. Sometimes in they raps in ways, it’s like, ‘I was talking about this thing that I didn't have because I wanted to manifest it and then I got it later on.’ 

And I don’t like that shit a lot, because I don’t be liking a lie even if it's to say that ‘soon I will be there’ or whatever. So niggas gonna throw that shit in the names and shit like, boom, we just gonna name that title that, because one day I'm gonna a cop a bottle of that and be like, yo, remember the first album had that Chateau de Chem—look at his bottle nigga, 1836!

Teresa: I feel like you're setting yourself up for like success. Remember back when—as someone who likes to flex their French when I can—I was like, ‘Sam, how the fuck do I pronounce this?’ So you got the reaction you wanted?

YUNGMORPHEUS: Ey, fire, boom. Hell yeah. 

Sam: But yeah, just wrapping up the conversation on the album and then we want to talk a little bit about the future stuff. What is one thing that you want people to take away from States of Precarity?

YUNGMORPHEUS: Shit. That honesty is key. I think that's the main thing, you know? Be honest with yourself, be honest with your surroundings. That's the whole point of that. That was me finally being honest with myself with the platform that I have. So, I hope niggas can hear that and be like, ‘yo, do you!’ And there's a lot of shit going on that makes you not want to do you, like—‘maybe I shouldn't do that because of this’—don't do that. Do you. That's the one thing I want niggas to take from this, for sure.

Teresa: Yeah, I see you talk a lot about not being a follower, like, a participant. And what type of artists influenced you to do that, and what type of artists you think do that really well?

YUNGMORPHEUS: That’s a good question, yo. The people that come to mind, for real, like the nigga who did the artwork for the Black Panthers and shit, who did the symbol and all of those—damn, I wish I could remember the brother's name right now, but there's an entire book of all of his drawings and stuff that was in the Panthers’ newsletters and shit like that. That brother. Musically, cats like JR to Damager. That was like one of the first times I heard shit and was like, ‘ooh, he just going kind of crazy about whatever.’ That's on the frustrated nigga, is just like about being an angry nigga, like hard. Moor Mother. Queen from Philly like… like that's the work right there that niggas is trying to do, for real, for real. 

I know there's names escaping me right now, but a part of that is because a lot of niggas ain't doing it, to be honest. There's only a couple that come to mind that, like—you know, niggas will do their nod to shit, like, niggas be throwing they fuckin’ ‘Black lives matter’ in raps and shit now, but niggas ain’t doing like the real, real work.

Sam: Yeah, yeah. We had Moor Mother on a couple months ago and it was incredible.

YUNGMORPHEUS: Sure it was. I really want to link with sis, she's the truth.

Sam: Yeah, she’s so dope. And normally - 

YUNGMORPHEUS: My bad. Sorry, Arm and Hammer. Fuckin’ Woods and Elucid, y'all. Them niggas. Yeah, my bad.

Sam: They never miss.

YUNGMORPHEUS: They don't. Impossible. I had to say that, I couldn't leave them brothers out. I’ve been listening to their shit a lot, recently.

Sam: For sure, us too. And normally we ask what can we look for coming up, but I feel like for you, it's a billion projects. But I know you have Thumbing for Foliage coming out in March. Can you talk a little bit about that project and what it was like working with Euwani?

YUNGMORPHEUS: For sure. I think, not for nothing, I was working on States of Precarity and that joint simultaneously. Like, around the same time, whatever that year and a half time period was, and I had always just wanted to work with Euwan from when I lived in New York and shit. I really just be fucking with beats man. I hope niggas fuck with it because it's definitely an important piece. It’s a little more brief, but that's for a reason, for sure. Like it's 12 joints, I named that shit that, like, I dunno. A lot of people was like, yo is that title just because of weed?

Nah. Like you gotta move through the fucking forest to get to the stuff. It's like a flip on the States of Precarity shit in a way like—what's the best way to say it—how you're moving through the world now that you have that mindset. So, I hope niggas fuck with it. It’s gonna be a good one. Buy them vinyls y'all. Shout out to Bad Taste.

Sam: I saw that the cassette just sold out for States of Precarity, right?

YUNGMORPHEUS: Yeah, just sold out first day, shout out to my niggas. It's a crazy time right now, I've been holding on to a lot of work, but it's time to finally give niggas that shit. I promise it’s gonna be a lot of just your boy rapping. I did my shit with my niggas, the next couple of things y'all gonna see is just me rhyming on somebody’s shit, for the most part. Just me and a producer. That's what it's gonna be for a while.