First Look Friday: How Starchild Went From Rapper To R&B’s New Romantic [Interview + LP Stream]

Photo by Jon Shugarman

Bryndon Cook is a rare breed. Relentless in his work ethic, dynamic as a performer and musician; the kid’s practically plagued by productivity. Which, in itself, is a departure from the bedroom beatsman of our day. His stagename, Starchild, is one that instantly recalls black excellence and unbridled strangeness; paradigm-shifting badges that Cook deservedly wears. He’s reserved, but never lets mention of Prince’s name go without chiming in with a gem anecdote of his own that somehow, even in his early twenties, rivals the most astute of purple patrons.

He’s paid his dues as a seasoned guitar player with a broad range of acts. Solange, Kindness and Chairlift can all proudly say they’ve tapped into the voltage Cook wields with each strike of the six-string or caress of the keys. But with such a shockingly deep resume and a freshly-unveiled debut record in the lavender-soaked Crucial, one can’t help but ponder the origins of Starchild. By way of the mothership or some subterranean funk incubator, how exactly did this storm of washed-out synthesizers and pop-perfect leanings come to be? Well, today we bring you precisely that origin story; the tale of a fledgling rapper-turned-studio-and-stage-rat.

And while we can’t rightfully say where r&b as a whole is going in 2016, one things is certain: for Starchild, the ascent’s only begun. And we can only hope that he’s taking the whole game with him. Stream Starchild’s new album Crucial below and flip through the pages to find out how a chance meeting with James Blake transformed this adolescent rapper into r&b’s new romantic. Grab a copy of Crucial on iTunes today.

OKP: Starchild.

Starchild : Hey, yo.

OKP: Is that your government name? Are you, in fact, from another galaxy, or actually the spawn of one George Clinton? What are your earthly origins?

SC: I was born in Washington DC and raised in Maryland. Government name is Bryndon Cook. The Starchild thing, well, when I was young I was an imaginative, kind of creative kid. Not in terms of the dude doing nuts arts and crafts or anything, but I could always entertain myself and construct these stories, ya know?

OKP: So one day you just looked in the mirror like, Starchild.

SC : It kind of happened like osmosis. I was listening to Parliament and the deeper and deeper I got into it, and the deeper I got into George Clinton’s stuff,  the more it just felt like I felt a home, ya know. I was like these people construct a whole mythos behind just one feeling. That’s crazy.

OKP: Is that something you try to carry over into your own music?

SC : Not exactly in the same execution, but I think in the same principles, you know?

OKP: As far as the writing itself is concerned, has that always been a solo venture?

SC : It’s crazy to talk about this one in the process, because it’s not the same anymore. From what I know, this one, the song writing,  When I started working on this one, I was still rapping.

OKP: Wait, really?

SC: Yeah, man! I was working on Night Music, and that came out February 2012. We had to like, the key port was up, and in between these takes. I started playing on the piano, the hook of All My Lovers. The chord progression, and the chords melody all with my right hand. Then RAJA was just like, “Man, what’s that?” It sounds like it could be a Beyonce song or something like that. This is in 2012, so Beyonce was very different from “Partition” Beyonce.

OKP: No this is a solid year before “Partition” Beyonce.

SC: For a lot of the songs on Crucial, because I was rapping and singing, I was trying to come up with these dynamic hooks, and then for the verses I was riffing off the old school R&B template of a melody that’s derived from the hook. Everything comes back to that.

OKP: Your hook is your rock, and you’re working out.

SC : Exactly that. So Crucial definitely has that kind of approach to it, you know? Stephen Sondheim told a story about the dude who wrote “All the Things You Are”  (Oscar Hammerstein II.) He sat down at the piano just (singing) until he just brought it into existence. The feeling that you’re trying to get specifically, or the essence, is trying to match that song’s journey.

The post First Look Friday: How Starchild Went From Rapper To R&B’s New Romantic [Interview + LP Stream] appeared first on Okayplayer.

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