Mustard On Creating 'Faith of a Mustard Seed' & More | Billboard News
Mustard sits down and tells us what it was like to create 'Faith of a Mustard Seed,' the creative direction of his album, how he chooses his collaborators and more! 'Faith of a Mustard Seed' is out July 26th.
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00:00And he was just like, well, if we gonna name this one that,
00:01you got to do an album called Faithful and Mercy.
00:03Y'all know that's insensitive to my kids.
00:06Shit, you ain't gotta pray for me.
00:07Just pray for them.
00:08Well, you took a break from us five years.
00:10So finally, you came back.
00:12Why wasn't that a time?
00:13I think just working out the kinks of, like,
00:15what I wanted to, wanted people to hear from me.
00:19Life, just lifin', you know?
00:21Like, life will, like, lifin' and, uh, just taking my time.
00:25Outside, boatin' beautiful for the summer.
00:28She don't wait on me, but waitin' here for the summer.
00:30And so you decided to name the album Faithful and Mercy.
00:32Now, do you feel like the energy from Nipsey
00:34and what you learned from those conversations,
00:35did that kind of, like, transfer into the music
00:37and how you created this project?
00:38Yeah, it kind of is weird how it came about
00:40because I had a whole nother title for this album
00:42and I was, I started making music going towards that.
00:46And then I was talking to my mom one day on the phone.
00:48She's like, you need to make me a song for my,
00:49like, something that I would like,
00:50something the older, you know, something for me.
00:52And she's a really big Luther Vandross fan
00:54and I sampled a song from Luther Vandross.
00:58But I grew up hearing so much Luther Vandross in the house.
01:00Like, I'm talking about diehard Luther Vandross.
01:03And once I made that song, Masego played on the song,
01:06Ty's on the song, Charlie Wilson's on the song.
01:08And once I did that, I was just like,
01:11ah, this album ain't going the way that I intended.
01:14I wanted it to be, like, really grungy.
01:17And when I made that song, it was so soft
01:19because it was for my mom.
01:21I think that that moment was like,
01:22okay, I can't call this album that.
01:24When I thought about that whole thing
01:26of, like, the faith of a mercy to my grandparents,
01:29both of my grandparents passed in COVID, from COVID.
01:32And it was just like, what was going on?
01:34And then, you know, I lost friends,
01:36I got divorced and all that type of stuff.
01:38So it was just like, I just feel like God was just like,
01:41there was so much going on at that one time
01:44or that time span.
01:45And it was just like, I don't know.
01:46I think this whole album has contributed to like,
01:49it's not a gospel album.
01:50I don't want people to think that,
01:51but it was like, I feel like right now
01:52where I'm at in my life is I can only contribute.
01:55And up until this point,
01:57I can only contribute my success
01:58and what I'm going through and feeling
02:00and how he's removed people from my life to God.
02:03And I mean, you got a lot of help on the record as well.
02:05You got some amazing stuff.
02:06You got, of course, Future, Ty, Splash,
02:08you got Kodak Black, Blue Bucks Chan.
02:09So when you have the connections
02:11and the weight of the hip hop industry with you,
02:14how do you decide who you want on the project?
02:15It's not as easy as people think.
02:17It's like, I think people think I can just call people
02:18and be like, hey, Future hit on this song.
02:20That's what I thought.
02:21Definitely not that easy.
02:21It's like chasing, like,
02:24I don't even know how to explain it.
02:25If I explained it, nobody would believe me.
02:27Well, do you, are you just texting them
02:29or do you got to hit up the label?
02:30No, no, no, no, no.
02:31We all got personal relationships.
02:32Everybody on my album, I got a personal relationship.
02:34It might not be as personal.
02:35Some are more personal than the others,
02:37but every one of them I can text and be like,
02:39hey, I need you to do this.
02:40Now, how long is it going to take me to text them?
02:43I don't know.
02:43How long is it going to take me to get a song?
02:45I have to just be persistent and persistent and persistent.
02:48Even Future, like when I talked to him,
02:50I'm sure if I was to text him right now,
02:51I'd be like, hey, I need you on a song.
02:52You always say you need me on a song.
02:54This is the one and this is the one.
02:55I've made them do five, maybe five songs for this album.
02:58I got the one that I wanted eventually.
03:00Oh, so that's a bit of your workflow.
03:02You kind of like try to get a lot
03:04and then decide what you want.
03:05Get the best one.
03:06And then as far as like putting people on the album,
03:08it's like, okay, I think that's a gift of mine too.
03:11It's like, I think Blue Bucks would sound good with 42 Doug.
03:14I don't think anybody ever heard that,
03:16or Yachty and Blue, but when I do that,
03:18you know, I try to go for things that people never heard.
03:20So I would go for like a Yachty, Blue Bucks and 42
03:24and put them all together and try to get the best thing,
03:26but I always keep it West Coast and stay to my tempo.
03:30I'm not, no, I'm not saying I won't,
03:31but I don't really,
03:33I typically don't do like trap music on my albums
03:35because I don't make that music.
03:36I make LA turnt stuff.
03:39So I kind of try to bring everybody to my world.
03:41Not to say I can't make trap, I can,
03:42but for my albums is a certain thing
03:45I'm trying to convey to everybody.
03:46I'm trying to build a sound here.
03:48So it's easier for our artists to then, you know,
03:51take this sound and make it as big as possible.