SXSW, the week-long music and film festival in Austin, Texas, is attended each year by musical artists of all genres. One in particular remains on the radar: critically acclaimed rapper, songwriter and producer Cyhi The Prynce.
HipHopDX had the pleasure of catching up with a very high-energy Cyhi The Prynce at the J.W. Marriott, inside the Corner restaurant. Entering the private room provided with food, drinks, and all of CyHi’s squad, the longtime GOOD Music rapper played us cuts from his new album, No Dope on Sundays. CyHi reported feeling “great today. The Lord is in the room.”
After the release of his ear-catching single “Elephant in the Room,” which takes seemingly takes jabs at Ye, fans were teased with a debut album, and then let down.
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“I just felt like shaking up the game. Sometimes I like doing that, just to see how far I can piss. Can I get to the rock? Yeah, I can get to the rock.” That was all that was, seeing how good I was and how fast I could shoot up the trenders. I accomplished that.
Speaking on the GOOD label, “Most labels never been to Atlanta, so they don’t know what a real trap nigga look like. They just think he’s got a bunch of tattoos on his face. That’s just a decoy. You don’t scare me with that. This is a real story. I’m from a real place. I was raised the correct way. I was a legend before rap. I was the most popular person in Atlanta before rap. Most people look at me like, ‘What up Cy!’ They so starstruck, because I grew up with these people. In a nutshell, that’s what it is.”
Cyhi then explained the vision for his new project, scheduled to be released in the summer.
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“It was really a lesson and a vision. The vision was a week that I had in my life when I was younger, that was just turmoil. My partner had got shot that week. A lot of people know him as Butchy. A lot of my partners wanted to take him to the club, take him to the strip club, bitches wanted to take him to the movies. . . I took the nigga to church. Let him get prayed for. I could have lost my best friend. And you know, nowadays when I talk to him, he tells me that’s one of the best experiences, some of the best things a friend’s ever done for him.”
He continues, “We got back to it the next week. We had to bag up what we had to bag up. That Sunday, we had to access our situation and understand how we would move forward. That’s a real story. I don’t make shit up.”
Cyhi recently returned with a brand new single called “Nu Africa,” a statement to the world today. Being the first new music released since 2015, Cyhi explains, “It’s just so much political stuff going on that I just felt like, man I just needed a knife to cut through it. Something to just get people to. . . getting that conversation going. ‘Nu Africa’ is more of a mindset, then more so than just picking up everything and leaving.”
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The music video features an innocent young man running away from the police, a frequent occurrence in modern America. Peaceful protests eventually lead to Cyhi leading a long list of celebrities (including Barack Obama) to his Motherland. “Me and my people were very instrumental to the building and creation of America. I feel like if we put those same resources and the resources and people we have now, we could do Africa like that in 30 days.
The record is described as a “threat of people getting their shit together.” Adding to the vision, “All LeBron gotta do is say, “I only play in Nigeria.’”
The conversation quickly turned to Kanye West, who will be executive producing Cyhi’s new project.
“Kanye’s very well. Y’all giving him an excuse for being lazy right now. Like, everybody thinks he’s crazy. So the world. . . he’s just getting to sit over there, and chill with the fam now, ‘cause everybody feel like that. But no. Kanye’s good. He’s in good spirits. I talked to him last week. I’m going to bring the album back out there next weekend, and we’re going to finish it up together.”
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DX asked for an exclusive on GOOD’s long-delayed compilation Cruel Winter, in which he answers, “Man, there’s a record with me and Big Sean on there that’s crrrazzzyyyy!”
“I’m the best rapper in the room. You lock me and the top 20 rappers in the room — I’m talking about lyricists, whatever — I’m going to be the last one to walk out the room.”
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It doesn’t end there. When was asked who the top rapper in the room was, he responds, “There’s three guys, and I’m all of them.”
Reverting back to his project, Cyhi concludes, “It is everything you can expect and more. It’s going to touch every emotion: it’ll make you angry, happy, energetic, sad, there’s gonna be some couple tearjerkers on there. It’s a real movie.”
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