BoyWithUke is back to sit down with the Genius team to discuss his hit “Migraine,” which has been streamed over eight million times on Spotify to date! The hot is the first track off his album fourth studio album Lucid Dreams where he sings about not caring what people think of him. On today’s episode, the singer-songwriter shares why he kept his identity a secret for so long and how doubters have told him unveiling his identify is a mistake.
“I don’t need the training wheels anymore. I should be happy with who I am and I should be able to express myself.”
“I don’t need the training wheels anymore. I should be happy with who I am and I should be able to express myself.”
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MusicTranscript
00:00 So I originally started wearing the mask
00:02 because I'm a very anxious person
00:04 and my friends, if they had found out
00:07 that I was the one making music
00:08 like the music that I was making,
00:10 they would have just roasted me to death.
00:12 Three years later, I've reached a point
00:14 where I don't need the training wheels anymore.
00:16 I should be happy with who I am
00:19 and I should be able to express myself.
00:22 Everyone has told me this is a bad career choice.
00:24 Maybe it is, but fuck it.
00:26 Like, this is what I wanted to do.
00:28 (upbeat music)
00:30 The feeling of wanting to take the mask off started
00:37 around the time I wrote "Migraine."
00:38 It was me taking control again of Boy With Uke.
00:42 I felt very good about the decision.
00:44 Obviously I felt a lot of pressure.
00:55 It felt like I needed to just continue blowing up on TikTok.
01:00 If I didn't, I would fail and I'd lose everything.
01:03 Obviously that's not true.
01:04 It's an irrational fear, but when you're in the process,
01:07 I feel like a blowing up really fast,
01:08 one slip up and it's like, you're gone.
01:11 You fall like when you're on a tightrope.
01:13 I've never been on a tightrope,
01:14 but it was ultimately just like a fear of losing it all.
01:18 ♪ I'm on a tightrope, can't hit the high notes ♪
01:20 ♪ Baby I need Iboprofen, I know ♪
01:23 ♪ That you'll take me back home ♪
01:24 ♪ Don't leave me alone, I need a friend ♪
01:27 It's literally impossible to make new friends.
01:29 I can't talk about what I do.
01:31 Few months ago this summer, I met a new person.
01:33 It was my friend's friend,
01:34 and he was actually a Boy With Uke fan.
01:37 And he had no idea I was Boy With Uke,
01:38 but we were talking and he was like,
01:40 "Hey man, what do you do?
01:42 Why are you here?"
01:44 And I was like, "Oh, I'm a project manager for Snapchat."
01:46 And he was asking me questions.
01:47 I was like, "Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah."
01:50 I'm not actually supposed to talk about this
01:52 that much it's not supposed to be public.
01:53 And he's like, "Oh yeah, I understand."
01:55 But it's so funny 'cause he's a fan and he had no idea.
01:58 That was what I genuinely felt like a few years ago.
02:11 It was really in theme of who I was
02:14 and what Boy With Uke was at the time.
02:16 It didn't matter if people knew Boy With Uke
02:18 or knew the person behind the mask.
02:21 It was just this desire to be heard by everyone.
02:24 But if I could rewrite that line,
02:25 I'd probably say like,
02:26 "I'm not stressed that you've never heard of me.
02:28 You can listen to me if you want."
02:30 When you hop off the highway,
02:44 the highway is a metaphor for, I guess, the music industry.
02:47 You can't stop.
02:49 If you stop, other people will start,
02:51 they'll go past you.
02:52 You can't turn around.
02:53 It's just nonstop.
02:55 Sometimes you just want to like, get off of it.
02:58 I was supposed to sample the Roblox "oof."
03:08 It is like a dying sound.
03:10 Like when you die, it goes, "Ooh, ooh, ooh."
03:12 And I wanted to use that in a song.
03:13 The paperwork would have been a headache
03:15 'cause it's not even Roblox's sound.
03:17 So I just said "oof" with my own voice.
03:19 Looking back now,
03:39 the biggest thing that was trapping me,
03:41 I think, was the mask.
03:42 Even if it was just in my own head,
03:44 it was like, I couldn't get away from that.
03:45 Without the mask, I can breathe a lot easier
03:49 and I can see a lot better too.
03:50 It's a nice change to be able to see my hands.
03:53 Inside, I feel like relieved, you know?
03:56 Free, I feel free now.
03:57 The beginning of the third verse sort of comes from,
04:10 I guess, a more youthful side of who I am
04:12 and just wanting to do as many things as I can
04:16 before I die.
04:17 So the ending of the third verse,
04:30 first of all, it's very difficult to perform.
04:32 There's no more air in my lungs
04:34 by the time I'm done with it,
04:35 which I think is cool 'cause it sort of reflects
04:38 how I feel in my career.
04:39 Now, it's not about having the most numbers.
04:43 It's more so just making what I personally think
04:46 is really cool.
04:49 It sucked wearing it.
04:50 Like, I get physically ill from thinking about putting it on.
04:55 It didn't smell very good,
04:56 especially after hot days.
04:58 It's like sensory deprivation
05:00 when you need all your senses.
05:02 Like, I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe,
05:04 I couldn't smell, I couldn't hear.
05:05 I couldn't keep doing it.