Anderson .Paak Lets His Heart Guide the Way

In his music, his clothes, and his aspirations, the jack-of-all-trades funk-rap supernova is true to himself.
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Any way you slice it, it was the right move for Brandon Paak Anderson to change his stage name to Anderson .Paak. His career took off almost immediately after he made the switch. It was at that point that he honed his fusion of every genre under the sun, became a critical darling, and developed a cultish fanbase. Had he not done it, he might never have worked with Dr. Dre, he might not have a Top 5 album (this month’s Ventura), and he might not be getting ready to headline Madison Square Garden. Anderson .Paak is a good name, too. Different. It took pieces of himself and reconfigured them. And it was purposeful, with the period before the Paak reflecting a guiding principle: Every detail matters.

But, God, right now logic and results be damned. Anderson .Paak is wrong, and Breezy Lovejoy is right. It’s ridiculous, yes, but the discarded moniker is the only one that fits the man who comes bounding down the steps of his trailer just as the sun’s set on Virginia Beach. He’s wearing, from toe to head, blue Vans, silky leopard-print pants, a flowing, unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt with a white tank top and a couple of gold chains underneath, oversize circular sunglasses, and a bucket hat that looks like it was made of Big Bird’s feathers. His sentences are cushioned by man’s and you know what I’m saying?’s, and though he’s full of energy, it’s a mellow sort. When we talk, everything’s, well…breezy. But then he’s escorted to the main stage at Pharrell’s Something in the Water festival, which he closes out. And the man up there, drumming and dancing and owning the salty-smoky air that thousands of beach dwellers are inhaling, that’s Anderson .Paak. And there’s no two ways about it.

GQ: If you could design your own festival, who would be the first three acts you would book?
Anderson .Paak: I would have Sting! It would be super random. It'd be Sting, then it'd be Wu-Tang, and then it'd be Shaggy, and then it'd be Westside Connection, and then it would be Dre, and then it would be Alanis Morissette. You know, shit like that.

You can't just say those names and then not explain why them.
It would have to be the people that the artists are inspired by. We try to link them together, you know? Because a lot of times, the artists are inspired by artists people wouldn't expect. Like, I listen to a lot of different alternative shit. I like mixing it up and exposing people to all kinds of different shit.

Making cool connections.
Yeah. I definitely would have Jay-Z. I would have Weezer. I would have Radiohead.

I want to go to this festival.
It would be incredible. It would be at MacArthur Park. Right on the water. Build a stage in the water.

So, congratulations on the number four album.
Thanks, man. It's fucking amazing. I'm floored, man. It's great. To come out with something right so soon and just be steady. We always have somewhere to go. I feel like it's so awesome, to always have steady progress. And we're making our way out there, man. For me, you have a lot of respect, and you receive a lot of accolades from your peers, and you're the artist's artist, but when you put some numbers up, that feels great.

I have these goals set out, and first it was cracking the Billboard 200. Boom, okay, we did that. Then it was, okay, I want to sell "this many" first week, I want to get within the top 10, you know what I'm saying? And we just missed that with Oxnard. Then, boom, we’re top four. It's dope, it's like the goals are getting hit. But definitely, man, we want to get number 1, and I want to get something in the Hot 100. I’ve just started to get my feet wet.

Are you consciously trying to make music that appeals to the masses?
Well, here's the thing: We want to do things we haven't done before, right? So I think it's in my subconscious. Just like it's in my subconscious to eventually meet Charlie Wilson [whom I met today], and that happens, and when it happens, it's like, Oh, shit. You know, like, it felt natural. And, like, I want a number one, of course. Who doesn't want [a number one]? Anybody who tells you that is bullshitting. Like, eventually you want to be able to put those numbers up while still keeping your integrity and your artistry.

Maybe it's just because of their titles, but I feel like your first four albums are of a piece with one another. There are through-lines in the music and them being set in California. Do you see yourself moving beyond that universe, leaving California?
Yeah, the box scent is like, boom, that was that. So I'm excited to just leap into completely something different.

So what does that mean?
Oh, man, I'm excited. I'm always pushing to just do something that doesn’t feel like what anyone else is doing. I don’t feel like anyone's really paying attention to the rock right now, so I think that's the most natural thing to do. Everyone has the style of rock 'n' roll or punk, but they don't play instruments, and so you have this whole generation where hip-hop is the new rock, trap is the new hair metal. But then there has to be that other void to make that, like, Nirvana or whatever. So I think that's where I'm at, too, with what I want to jump into next.

But honestly, outside of that, I just want to receive shit. I just want to go and travel, be with my fam, I want to go and listen, learn. I’ve just been putting out, putting out, putting out, and so you need time where you just kind of just receive shit, think about shit, see how people are doing it, get back tapped into what's going on now and see where there's a void, where something is missing.

What does that mean to you?
I want to help put out my band’s album. The Free Nationals have an incredible album that we've been working on. I want to get back into producing and making beats. That was so much fun. I used to do that with Malibu. I was in there making this stuff, recording my own self. It's time to get back in there and get your hands dirty and get weird again.

But that kind of all sounds like work. Is there stuff you want to do in terms of traveling and—?
Yeah, I want to take a vacation. It's tough, though, man. I feel I'm missing out, you know? It's tough for me to go and just, like, be still. Just thinking about it, I get fidgety, you know?

Yeah.
I got kids and [my son is] going to be two years old, and I've been on the road since he's been born, so yeah, getting back tapped in with the fam. And my [other] son, I know he's into music, I know he wants to do some acting and stuff, too, so encouraging those things and just, like, chilling with wifey and family, and eating. But it's always so tough.

Andrew White

I want to get into… it all does sound like work, but yeah, I want to just develop more into movies and maybe do voiceover stuff, helping to produce movies. I've been working on scripts and stuff.

There's like a lot of things that I still have to learn from besides music. So, like, kind of just throwing myself into something else where I feel like, okay, I'm starting at square one. Which is like family time in a sense, too. I'm away so much, that when I come back it's like, Oh shit. How do I just be chill, dump the trash, do regular shit, pay attention to my kids?

Have you always been a big cinephile?
I love movies, and I went to a magnet high school, and we didn't have sports. And one of the courses was film editing, so we worked on Adobe Premiere. And I loved it. I loved making my own home videos of my sisters and editing. So I would love to produce some flicks. Dre is always like, "Yo, you got to make sure you got something that's besides touring and doing music, like I got Beats.” And I’m like, “You right.” And after the last tour, I was like, Oh shit, okay, I’m going to be cool. You’re going to have a long career and you don't want to have to tour. But I love doing shows, I love being in the studio. But I've been thinking about that lately, like: What else are you going to do?

Your music is obviously very much of Los Angeles. But we're in Virginia, around Pharrell and Timbaland and all these people. So I'm wondering if and how Virginia and these different artists may have impacted your music.
Absolutely, hugely. Timbaland, Magoo, Missy, Pharrell, N.E.R.D, Pusha T, and Malice of the Clipse, Teddy Riley. V.A. is crazy, bro. Something was definitely in the water over here. I wanted to make beats coming up. My beat heroes were the Neptunes and Timbaland and Just Blaze, Missy. So much was coming from here. And that hometown love is something in unison with what I had going on in Ventura County and in Oxnard. It's a beach town, very sleepy, no one ever gets things over there. And I felt like with [Pharrell] putting this [festival, Something in the Water] on over here, it’s the same vibe. It’s like no one ever comes here, but [Pharrell]’s bringing Jay, he’s bringing everything. And I realize, these fools, they grew in sleepy towns and they were making crazy noise and maybe that was part of why they had such a big impact. Sometimes the hardest places to impress or the hardest places to get out of are these small places. And that's definitely how it was in Ventura County.

Pharrell's probably one of the biggest impacts on my career, and just on me being a black artist being different. I’m someone that was obviously inspired by R&B and soul music but didn't want to make music like Jodeci or H-Town or traditional R&B groups. I grew up watching those, and I thought you had to dance, you had to sing, you had to talk about sexual things--and I have done that in my music--but when I saw Pharrell, I was like, Okay, you could be different, you could be creative. Timbaland, Missy and all them, they came in the game with a different sound. They took R&B and pop somewhere else. Timbaland had a distinct sound, the Neptunes had a distinct sound. So that consistency, that was it. That's how I built my shit. I wanted my voice to have a distinct sound. I wanted, boom, boom, boom, 'Yes, Lawd!'

And it was like, you could do whatever you want. You could wear trucker hats. I grew up in Ventura, skater, surf culture. And to see Pharrell out here looking like a skater around all these thugs, and being able to be the musician to bring everything together, that was me. I was the drummer, I had my own studio. But I realized that when you have that love for your city and you have that ability to play, it's going to make you the glue to bring [together] people like Clipse and Jay Z and also N.E.R.D. So I have NxWorries, I have the Free Nationals.

So we’ve got to talk about your style a little bit. How did it develop?
My style's similar to my music: it has a wide range. And it's very colorful. I don't like to do shit normal. Sometimes I fantasize, like, okay I'm just going to do like a regular thing. But I think I’ve got to be extra in some way. I don’t like wearing shit if it ain't turning heads or if it ain't a conversation starter. And I feel like as an artist, you have that luxury of being bold and doing something crazy that’s going to pop from the stage. And some people have costumes and then they're different when onstage, but as I’ve developed and have gotten older and more confident in myself, there’s no costume. It's just me. [My clothes are] a reflection of my personality, a reflection of my music.

And being a drummer, it has to be loose, it has to be something that feels good. It can't be constricting. And I'm from the West Coast, so I love Vans and shit. I think it's just all those things from how I grew up and being a representation of the music. It's not boxed-in and it's colorful and it's happy, it's positive. It's free, it's free. Free. You could do whatever you want.

I’ve been thinking about live bands lately. Do you think that fans are craving live music right now?
Absolutely. People that can really play. Now I feel like there's a big movement towards moving away from that, with hiding the bands. The thing is, people are competing with DJs now. There are huge acts that are just all visual acts. And so it used to be you playing your instrument was enough. Like, Oh they're rocking out, they're jamming. But that's not enough no more for some of these kids. And especially if you're not ripping like that, if it's just kind of a gimmick, and you can't really play. Like Earth, Wind & Fire, those motherfuckers was playing, you know what I'm saying? Jimi Hendrix, that motherfucker was a virtuoso, he was just playing, he was ripping, he was a rock star with that. But it's like a whole movement towards hiding the bands so we can make way for the star and the screens, because these kids need something more than that.

But whenever there's something like that going on, there's got to be a void on the other side where the people are really amped to see and to feel some real music. We just have to drive it home and be on a mission to bring both worlds in. That's where I'm at. It can't just be us playing and that's it. We’ve got to all look fly. So I'm breaking my neck with my band, trying to get us to that level, and we're slowly getting there.

Do you feel like you’re nostalgic?
I'm fighting against it. Some people run away from the change. Some people embrace it. Some people are nostalgic at heart, but they want to be hip, so they think, Okay, the solution is, I'm going to just hang with young people and do whatever the young thing is. But I fight against the nostalgic shit of, Okay, let's just make some jams that sound like the shit we used to listen to. And that's something that Dre is for sure advocating. He don't wanna do nothing like that old school shit they used to do. He's trying to push for something that he never did before.

But I'm for sure nostalgic at heart. I grew up in the 2000s, '80s, '90s, and I still feel like that's the shit. When the DJ is playing that shit, I'm like, "Oh, I'm chilling!” The other shit is almost like a chore, you know? I do love when I find new shit. But at the heart of me, yeah, I'm an old soul, bro. When you get older you embrace that shit. I embrace that shit. That's me. I'm an old soul. But I feel like you can't give into it.