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Photos: Hope Obadan

A gamer-gone-accidental-breakout-musician, d4vd is an artist for and of the people. Whether he’s tweeting his stream of consciousness or recording on his iPhone in a closet, he commands the world’s attention just to shock us with the final reveal: he’s just like us.

With his breakthrough track "Romantic Homicide" amassing millions of streams and landing him on the Billboard 100, a trained ear hears much more than a TikTok sensation. His ability to marry melancholy with liberation, to give form to an emotion so intense you grieve a heartbreak you haven’t yet suffered, is a specialty only a lasting artist can master. We are witnessing a beginning, and similar to artists like Lil Nas X, we can rest assured that it’ll be a long ride up to the top.

For someone that stumbled into their fame, d4vd stands on firm footing. He’s sure of himself, unwavering in knowing there isn’t a world roped off to him. This unabashed confidence is a gentle head nod to the blooming creative spirits wondering if it's safe to take their own leaps. As a child bred in a devout Christian household, what he's serving the eyes that watch him goes way beyond the music. He is embodied permission and faith in your own potential. 

As he continues to push beyond his own edges, we sat down with the rising star to explore his journey thus far, what it means to be Black and alternative, and the truth behind coming up on TikTok.

Ones To Watch: People relate to your music because of how raw your lyrics are and how easily they can see themselves in it. How do you approach songwriting?

d4vd: I try to keep it as vulnerable as possible. The raw feeling and the storytelling aspect to contextualize the feeling has to be there. Raw emotion and storytelling work hand in hand because it has to create an image when you hear it.

You describe your sound as “genre dysphoria.” Who were the artists that you saw be playful with their expression and encouraged you to do the same?

XXXTentacion for sure. What he did was insane with how he blended and made new sounds out of old sounds, it was so inspiring. I love X.

That’s a beautiful example because he was a Black artist who lived outside of his musical expectation. Did you ever feel like you had to overcome that same kind of racial confinement?

I don’t think I had to overcome it, a lot of people thought I was White before I made the video though. But it honestly just comes naturally to me, I did rap when I first started out but that was in addition to everything else I was already doing. Every single genre is my artistry, I never had to come out of a box. It’s all me.

What’s so cool about your story is that you only started making music just to have a soundtrack to your gameplay videos. How did that come about?

There’s a whole world of royalty-free music on YouTube! I didn’t know about it! I thought I either gotta use this song or make something, I didn’t know there was non-copyright stuff out there because I was ignorant, haha. 

How does being from the internet age influence the kind of music you make?

I’m not sure if it does because I literally make everything, I wake up in the morning and don’t even finish what I was working on before because now I want to make this. I literally made some Frank Sinatra stuff the other day, some Elvis Presley old school, really mellow vocals stuff, so I don’t think the time that I’m in now is affecting how I make music, it truly depends on how I feel in the moment. And then you think about it from the standpoint of “Who is hearing this?” Maybe the Frank Sinatra stuff will never be released, but I still made it.

Do you find there are limitations in having a track breakthrough on TikTok?

If you go about it the right way, it can propel you. The oversaturation on TikTok is what’s killing it for most people. It can push something to the point where no one wants to listen to it anymore. It’s the best platform to grow music on but it depends on how you go about it, it’s all strategic in how you “promote,” which is such a weird word. It’s not like “Oh I’m dropping this on the 16th,” it’s letting the people tell you when they want the song. When I posted a snippet of “Romantic Homicide,” I wasn’t like “When do you guys want this?” I simply told them what the song was, that it wasn’t a cover, and let them tell me if they wanted it or not.

Totally, it makes things more intimate. And now Steve Lacy's “Bad Habit” is number 1 on Billboard all because of TikTok, so it truly is a strategy.

It’s such an anomaly! I personally saw the music video before I heard it on TikTok and was like “Yo, this is different. I don’t know if I like it.” And then I kept hearing it and it caught on and now I’m listening to it every day. It’s an anomaly but Steve Lacy is amazing.

So because you kind of “stumbled” into this, did you always have music in mind or was there a different vision for yourself?

I wanted to do gaming! Even when my stuff was popping on Soundcloud, I was like “That’s cool. Gonna keep playing the game.” Hahaha. Then someone DMed me and was like “Yo bro, you’re lagging all the time bro, just keep doing music.” And once my “Pluto Projector” cover started taking off I was like “Oh this might actually be something. Let me step away from the gaming just a little bit and focus on it.” And that’s when I made “DTN.” And then “Here With Me.” It came together that way. And now it’s my focus.

Since you got the people salivating on what’s next, can we expect an upcoming project?

Yes yes yes, new music is on the way.

And lastly, who are your Ones To Watch?

Destin Laurel and Chloe Lilac are the two I’m really resonating with right now.