It Only Gets Better From Here: A Conversation With Deante’ Hitchcock
Deante’ Hitchcock wants you to know that waffles are better than pancakes, and that he plans to be around for a while. Despite being immersed in music since a young age — and having a catalogue of mixtapes dating back to 2012 — the Atlanta artist considers this to be his first official year in the rap game. “I got 10 years, and I think this is my first year,” he told me during our Zoom call on Monday. “I would officially count this as year one.”
Deante’s first studio album, Better, arrives on Wednesday, and it will also be the second installment in a three-part trilogy that proceeds his 2016 mixtape Good.
Deante’ is a pure product of Atlanta, with a sound that is reflective of its constantly evolving rap scene. While some were first introduced to his slick wordplay during his guest appearance on the song “PTSD” off the massive J. Cole and Dreamville collaborative album Revenge of the Dreamers 3, long time fans will remember listening to him kick freestyles in the passenger seat of his car and posting them to Twitter since 2015. He’s come a long way since then, and Better is poised to be the album that erases his previous categorizations of being “the guy who does the car freestyles.”
Deante’ knows he can rap, and so do we, but he wants to shift his brand and make music that people feel like they’re a part of, not just listening to. “Just making songs more call-and-response based, just more of a soulful feel,” he said about changing his approach while making Better. “So people can feel it, versus just watching in amazement.”
He said that this album “feels different” compared to anything that he’s released previously. “I’m excited just to give it to the world and see what happens.”
Deante’ hopped on a call with me to talk about his feelings surrounding the upcoming release of Better, what it was like working with JID, 6LACK, and Miguel, and what type of legacy he hopes to leave in music. Read the full interview down below.
First off, I’ve been keeping up with your Better Living series on social media, it’s dope. How have you been holding up during quarantine?
Just trying to avoid thoughts, idol thoughts, you know what I mean. The idle mind is the devils playground, a lot of negative thoughts was coming in earlier in this shit. Niggas was going through not only the realization of the quarantine shit in general, the COVID crisis in general, but feeling like our industry in particular was at a halt. So my livelihood in itself was kinda fucked up. So I’m supposed to be butterflies and rainbows right now cause we’re finna drop an album and shit, but then its like, na nigga the world stopped. So all that touring shit, everything that you was finna do, you can’t do, or you going to have to figure out a new way to do it. So that kinda fucked me up for a minute. But just being active and trying to stay busy, for the most part. Not even necessarily just dealing with the problem at hand, but just getting it out of my head, you know what I’m saying, with doing other shit. It made me feel a lot better.
Has this pandemic made you second guess the release of this album at all? I know you said you felt like it was overdue already.
It’s way overdue, fuck that, I can’t do that. If I hold this album back again, Corona’s not gonna kill me, my fans gonna kill me. I can’t do it.
Better is your debut album, and you’ve been working on it for about four years now. What are your emotions like now that you’re finally releasing it?
I’m excited, dog. Crazy enough, I don’t think I have been working on it for that long. We worked on a whole bunch of other different stuff. The majority of this project, I think like 70% of it, really came after we got off tour with JID. Yeah, so most of this shit is kinda fresh, some of it is older, but most of it is pretty fresh. But I’m really excited . This is my first album. It feels really, really good. All the, I think, scattered emotions are starting to kick in. The anxiety, the nervousness, the excitement, the wonder, all of that shit is really setting in. We only got like, what, two days left? I might just go to sleep for the entirety of tomorrow to get to that shit quicker.
I really liked the two singles you dropped with JID and 6LACK, “I Got Money Now” and “How TF.” How was it linking up with them to work on those tracks?
I mean, they just cool as fuck. Both of these records got back through email, and not actual studio interactions. JID aint never home, that nigga was on the road for like a year and a half. So after we got off tour with him and everything we talked about doing some records and shit. We actually have, I think, like four all together. I think that’s the first one y’all have heard. And the 6LACK thing, that was a no brainer too. You know we went on tour with him the year before, so yeah those are my guys. I appreciate both of them for even taking the time to hop on this shit.
Why did you end up choosing those as the singles?
Originally, I don’t think “How TF” was a single, and it ended up being the first one. I think it was between “I Got Money Now,” but that didn’t have the JID verse at first. So “I Got Money Now” and “Attitude” that has [Young] Nudy on it, those were going to be the first two singles. But we ended going with “How TF” because we had gone on tour with Wale and Jidenna, and it felt more of a similar vibe for those tours, compared to the harder “I Got Money Now” or the harder “Attitude.” Those are more gritty, so “How TF” just ended up being in the right place at the right time.
You know we need to get the IG Live Verzuz battle between you and JID.
Listen man, one of these days. Hopefully quarantine don’t last too long for me to say “one of these days,” but we’ll end up doing that even if we out of quarantine.
Another big feature on here is Miguel on “Flashbacks.” I know you really love that song, what was it like working with him?
Miguel is cool as fuck. Me and him are actually signed to the same people, RCA [Records] Bystorm [Entertainment]. So early on, as soon as I inked the fuckin paper, bruh hit me up like “bruh I fuck with your music” so me and him have been really talking on and off for, really, the last three years. He’s just been giving me insight, game, just talking regular-degular shit. So it was real cool for him to step on the track too. Like, I got Miguel on my debut album.
Not many people can say that.
Ain’t too many, this shits crazy dog. I showed my mama that shit, she lost it.
You said in an interview that when you blew up, one of the first things that you wanted to do was have a conversation with Frank Ocean and Chance the Rapper. Have those things happened yet?
No.
Are you prepared for those conversations though?
Yes. I’ve met Chance [the Rapper], I met him at the Grammy shit earlier this year, but we didn’t get the chance to really talk at all. It was at a party for the Dreamville joint, so it was a quick “whats up, I’m a fan of your shit.” I don’t even know if he knew who I was, but we’ll have that conversation eventually. And I haven’t even seen Frank [Ocean]. You know that nigga a hermit, no trace of Frank at all.
You also said that getting a call from J. Cole would be really important to you. Well, you didn’t just get the call, you got to work with him and Dreamville on ROTD 3, and it wasn’t even your first time meeting him. What did you take away from those wild studio sessions?
That there’s so much more to learn, there’s so much more to give. I’ve been watching [J.] Cole since, what, 2009, so to see him kinda like cement his legacy as time has gone on, it’s been incredible just to watch and kinda learn from afar. So, especially to learn while in the same vicinity as bruh, just to watch him move, watch how he’s doing shit, that’s legacy in it’s finest form. Bruh gave, it was like 200 plus people I know for sure. We got our first No. 1, our first platinum plaque, our first Grammy nods, all of that shit. Just based of an idea that bruh had. Just to watch all the moves that they’ve made, and to be a part of it, it was a real full circle moment for me.
Have you been able to get tacos with him yet?
Na not yet. We had studio dinners and shit, but we haven’t had tacos yet.
That’s got to happen though.
Yeah, for sure. All that shit’s going to happen. I’m giving it time. This early on, I didn’t think half of this shit would be done this early on in my career, so we off to a good start.
You started working on Better after you released your mixtape Good back in 2016, which was the beginning of a trilogy. Have you put any thought towards how you want the finale Best to sound?
Not necessarily the sound, I know it’s probably going to be the last thing that I do and I kind of want to put other things in between. I don’t think Best is going to be the next offering that I give, I think it’s going to be something else cause I know I want to do at least 10 years in this. 10 years, then I’m out. I’mma go retire on an island or some shit, watch my kids grow up. But right now, I got 10 and I think this is my first year. I would officially count this as year one. So I don’t know how I want Best to sound yet, I just know it gotta be, no pun intended, the best shit I ever do.
Are you starting to make conscious decisions in terms of spacing out your releases? I know you used to drop freestyles really frequently.
Yeah, I’m trying to figure out how to not over-saturate shit but at the same time still stay in the peoples eye. The more and more I get older, and the more and more I get further along into this shit I’m realizing that it’s the entertainment industry. Being an artist and feeling like you have all the talent in the world, that shit will kinda have you jaded if shits not going your way. It’s like, “bruh I feel like I can rap better than this person, I feel like I can make better songs than this person.” At the end of the day, it’s entertainment. That’s why somebody like, and not to put focus onto what he got going on right now, but 6ix9ine. 6ix9ine is as big as he is because of controvasery and entertainment, and people love entertainment. And it’s not necessarily the best reflection on our culture, but it is an eye opener.
Has your love for music shifted at all since you’ve gotten more immersed into the industry and seen how much of a business it is?
Not really. I think when I stepped into music it wasn’t just off of natural passion or anything like that. It was more of a competitive thing for me. Cause my uncle started me up when I was 11 or 12, and he put me in a group when I was rapping with this dude named New. It was our group together but my uncle was writing my raps. So rapping wasn’t, like, what I wanted to do with my life since I was a kid or nothing like that. It was just something that kinda just fell into my lap, and I wanted to be better than the person standing next to me at this, just like everything else. Like I played football, I ran track, I did all these sports so that I was kind of ingrained in me, to try and be the best. So I don’t think my love for music has diminished, it’s probably increased forreal. And all the avenues that music can take me, and meeting all the people I was a fan of before all of this shit really popped off, I’d say it’s increased if anything.
You’ve come a long way. You once said you “don’t want to be remembered as just the guy who can rap. You want to be remembered for the actual music you put out.” Talk about how you hope Better will build on that legacy you want to leave.
I hope it sets the foundation cause, like, even going into the Dreamville sessions I knew damn near everybody that was in there, but they didn’t know me. And if they did know me, it was kinda like: “oh shit I’ve seen you rapping in the car. You was the car freestyle guy,” and that’s not how I wanted it to be. I do that, and that shit was fun and it is what it is because sometimes I’m still going to go back to that, but I wanted to be so much more, so much broader. Like the people I look up to, [Lil] Wayne, [Andre] 3 Stacks, JAY-[Z], [J.] Cole, all these guys. To be up there on a stage and folks watch you rap and to be like “damn, that’s amazing but I can’t interact with that at all” is one thing for me. I liked that, but I wanted to be more of an experience than that. I wanted to be something the people in a crowd can be like “damn I can call-and-response, I can feel that,” it’s not just me watching you perform, it’s me being a part of the performance. I want that, I can do the other shit too all day. We can battle rap too, but I want the ladder.
And you saw that when you were on tour with JID, right? How interactive those concerts were, and that’s what made you shift how you approached this album.
Hell yeah. Me and him had a couple talks about even his shit. I think one of the third or fourth interactions I had with JID, it was also the first time I met Cole. It was at I think the 4 Your Eyes Only concert, whichever tour that JID was on. That was the first time I met Cole, my partner got me tickets and got us in. I talked to JID there at the concert, and he was telling me how he was shifting his shit cause, like, the same conversation I just had about being able to rap and being real lyrically inclined and folks can watch you and be like “damn, that’s amazing, but I can’t do that from the crowd. I can’t interact with you on that level.” So we had a couple talks on the tours as well just about changing that style. Just making songs more call-and-response based, just more of a soulful feel. So people can feel it, versus just watching in amazement.
What is the most important thing you want people to know about you going into Better?
That I think waffles are better than pancakes. Waffles are like, literally designed to be better than pancakes in every way, fashion, and form. They have a pocket for syrup. It’s different. That’s my character test. If you like pancakes more than waffles, this album aint for you.
