DENZEL CURRY INTERVIEW: From the raw energy of Carol City to the global stage, Denzel Curry has carved a unique path in the Rap landscape. With a discography that’s both fiercely experimental and deeply rooted in lyrical prowess, he’s consistently pushed boundaries and challenged expectations. His albums are sonic journeys, blending hard-hitting beats with introspective themes, earning him critical acclaim and a dedicated fanbase. VIPER had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with the one and only Denzel Curry to delve into his creative process, his evolution as an artist, and what’s next for the ‘ULTIMATE’ MC…
Tell me about Big Ultra and Ultraground.
Big Ultra was really a personality I came up with when I was making ‘King of the Mischievous South’, but I don’t think it has no crazy characteristics or anything like that. I just feel like it’s me when you see the chains and the gold, the wicks and all that stuff. It’s basically me but a more elevated version.
You once said that it’s specifically not a “superhero” type thing.
Right, it’s literally just me.
But heightened.
Exactly. And Ultraground was just a term that was derived from “above the underground.” So that’s why we came up with this Ultraground shit, me and my boy Key Nyata. Me and him both used to be in Raider Klan and we came up with the term back in 2015, when we was in ThraxxHouse and when I was in C9. Then it was supposed to be ThraxxHouse and C9, but it just didn’t work out that way. Years later we started rapping with each other again because we’d been friends for years. We knew if we was to be a duo, we didn’t want to call ourselves Mr. Popular, and then we thought of the whole Ultraground stuff. At first it was 20 people but I ended up cutting it down and revamping the logo from the original logo I did. Then we ended up getting members like TiaCorine, Bktherula, a producer named iloveit!, of course me and Key!. There’s other members like Dylan Noir and this girl named Jazz and with heavy affiliations with Ferg, 454 and LAZER DIM [7000]. That’s basically how it formulated, after we deaded the original idea of it.
Groups have played a big part in your career. It seems that you really value the community aspect of all this.
Yeah, because you need the community to let you know. My community that’s around me is the homies that I’ve been with since day one, for the past 10 years. Having them as my council, they’ll steer me in the right direction. Or if they see something that I’m not seeing, then they make me hyper aware of it because I’m not the most attentive person to one little thing, but I am detail oriented. When it comes down to people, on the other hand, I’m very naive and oblivious. Them boys keep me in check with that kind of shit.
Like the saying goes, “You wanna go fast, go alone. You wanna go far, go together.”
Go long. You burn out too quickly, it’s like a sprint. This shit’s a marathon, like Nipsey said.
What’s your favorite part of your creative process and why?
Just the initial creation of the idea; the thought is the most exciting part of it. The scariest part is when I throw it out there to the world because it’s no longer mine. But maybe that’s just how I feel sometimes about it. But other than that, I’m more like “Eh, whatever.”
What’s your favourite feedback you’ve heard about how your music has affected listeners?
My favourite feedback now is when they apologise for not knowing. I like when they like, “Yo, I’m so sorry. I thought I knew everything about you and I come to find out I didn’t know anything about you.” So that was my best feedback because it proves a lot of people wrong who have misconceptions about my music or whatever the case may be. That’s actually the funniest feedback I got, “I didn’t even know he was this good. Everybody talks about him, I thought he made this kind of music. I didn’t know he made all kinds of music.” That’s the stuff people would be saying, and they be so wrong. I’m just like, “Man, forget all that.”
It’s funny you say that because I get the sense that a lot different areas of Hip Hop influence you, and Hip Hop has always had this interesting relationship between honouring what came before and moving forward. What does that balance look like in your music?
Shoot. So, obviously the way I honour the music is keeping the traditional aspect of it alive. But the way to move it forward is mainly like just being as innovative as I can possibly be. I feel like over time you have to learn from what’s new and what’s popping. I felt like I was struggling with that because I didn’t want to adapt to anything. But I know adaptability and flexibility is the key to always surviving every era.
You recently said that you wish Hip Hop had a Luke Skywalker figure. What does that look like to you?
What I meant by that, is everybody wants to play the villain. Everybody wants to be the heel. The heels are very exciting. When you look at wrestling, heels are very exciting. When you look at comic books, or these new movies and shit, everybody relates to the anti-hero, or the broken villain kind of thing. Or the whole thing of “the villain has a point.” I feel like there’s nobody that has been purely like, “Oh, I represent this and I’m gonna go full force with this, but I’m gonna make it look swaggy and cool.” And that’s what I mean by Luke Skywalker figure, because when he came back, he had the green lightsaber, but was wearing all black with the fucking Michael Jackson gloves. So that’s what I meant by that.
There’s this concept of feeling energy as a listener. What do you think comes to mind when we discuss energy and music? What artists, albums, performers?
Definitely Michael Jackson; DMX for sure. Energy that just brings stuff alive, you listen to the stuff that Prince does. It just comes alive, comes off the page. That’s definitely a lot of Wu-Tang. In new age, like the Opium guys, Ken Carson, Playboi Carti. People resonate with that; Bktherula. Shit, I could say my music. I’m gonna just throw that. Turnstile, Trash Talk, bands like that.
Going back from your career through Raider Klan to now, how would you say you changed or transformed as an artist and what do you think has contributed to that?
I went from being an artist that didn’t care about hits and the accolades to a person that’s like, “Oh, I need to figure this out.” I went from a person that was very non-receptive to criticism, to “I accept it and I move on.” I went from caring about what… actually, lemme rephrase that. I went from caring about what critics think to caring about what people think. If a critic likes it, I know all right, I got it, but I want people to enjoy it. Once I said fuck critics and stopped doing shit for them and started focusing on people, I feel like the tides changed and I was more loose and free from that. “Oh, I need to make a good album!” I know I’m gonna make a good album; I feel like that changed as I got older. Also lastly; listening. I never was somebody who listened a lot.
Listened to?
People. I’m hard headed as fuck. So I would say I went from fighting my managers on a lot of shit to “Okay, let’s see how we roll this and what fits Denzel Curry aesthetic and what doesn’t.”
Would you say you’re your harshest critic?
Yeah, I’m very hard on myself when it comes down to anything I do. Super hard on myself and I realise I just gotta have fun with this shit instead.
What did you start with with this new project? Did you have a concept in mind when you started?
Definitely had a concept in mind because I wanted to be blood in, blood out, reloaded, and that was the concept because the original one [‘King of the Mischievous South Vol 1’] was a mix. And all the tracks that didn’t make ‘Imperial’ on down to ‘Zuu’. That was it, but I was like, “Okay, lemme make something that’s gonna take it serious.” Then I started putting out tracks like ‘Blood on My Nikes’ and ‘WOO’, and ‘SKED’, using my fanbase as a focus group to see how it goes and see how they receive it. And ‘SKED’ was the only one out that bunch that everybody liked, so we just kept that and then we kind of went back to the drawing board to even make this project the way it is.
What was it like going back to those same inspirations that you had for the first volume? I noticed even as I walked in you were listening to Three 6 Mafia. What was it like going back to that mode?
I mean, I was working on two projects at once, so this one was purely like, “I’m just going to make some shit and give it to the fans,” and that’s what it was going to be. But I wasn’t like actively like “Oh, I’m going to make this project and make it the best.” I just wanted to have fun with this shit. Just in case they don’t get the real, real album, I’m gonna make this. And then it just so happened that all these tracks that I was making just fit and they put it together and they was like “Yo, this shit came out so fire, but you gonna have to change the name.” And then it sounded like a Part Two to what I did in the beginning.
If you had an overarching theme of your work, what do you think that would be?
Progression; it’s an overarching theme, like the progression as a musician and of course evolving as a human. The human experience, I feel like it is a progression. Through my music, you’re watching me grow up. I feel like with a lot of music, you don’t really get to see people grow up. If I was a child actor, you’d watch me go from Christian Bale in this one movie about Pearl Harbor [Empire of the Sun] all the way up to Batman; that’s how I see it.
I was talking with somebody recently about the value of that sense of growing with the audience.
My albums are really good, but there’s a lot of silly shit I said when kid, and I feel like the most mature I’ve ever sounded was on ‘Melt [My Eyes See Your Future]’, including this project. I say silly shit, but it’s not cringey you know?
You found out that you were related to Smino, how’d that come about?
His mom’s last name is Curry.
And y’all just went from there?
Yeah and I asked my dad, “Do we got family in St. Louis?” He was like, “Yeah.” Then they were saying, “Whoever last name is Curry in St. Louis, that’s definitely your cousin” and that’s how that happened.
The song you have together where he says you could be related, that came after?
That came before.
That’s crazy. What’s on your rider?
Toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, Dove soap, floss, mangoes, manuka honey tea, coconut water. Yeah, that’s on my rider.
What colour is your Magic: The Gathering deck built around?
Mines all colours and a Sliver Deck.
What’s your favourite card right now?
Sliver Graymother. Actually the one indestructible one, it’s like an indestructible Sliver. As soon as I get a whole row of them bitches going, it’s up.
Which anime character would you want to fight?
Want to fade? Like, am I winning?
That’s up to you. Maybe you just want the battle.
I’m gonna go with Goku ’cause he ain’t gonna kill me.
I feel that. He’ll let you join the gang, honestly.
Actually he’ll fade you and he’ll be like, “Just come back stronger!”
Anything else you want to say to, to sign off here?
Nah, just, this is Denzel Curry and this is Viper magazine. There we go.
Photos by Danny Blanco
Interview by PJ Gordon
Thanks to Evie the Cool
