Steve Lacy, the Grammy-winning artist behind the 2022 hit "Bad Habit," says little has changed in his life since achieving mainstream success.
He bought a new home in Los Angeles but hasn't made famous friends, and he rarely gets recognized in public.
"I think my name is bigger than my face, which is great," Lacy says, sitting in a London hotel room.
He believes he has pulled off the trick of being one of the most celebrated musicians of his generation while remaining almost unrecognizable.
The Burden of Genius
Lacy was revered by music obsessives long before his mainstream breakthrough.
He taught himself guitar as a child, received his first Grammy nomination at 17 as part of the alt-R&B band the Internet, and produced Kendrick Lamar's "Pride" using an iPhone.
But the labels "prodigy" and "genius" that followed him for a decade have been punctured, he says, by a critical review of his debut solo album.
"I was definitely gassed the fuck up as a teenager, like I thought I was perfect," Lacy admits.
That negative criticism opened him up to collaboration. He began inviting other musicians into his process, falling in love with the communal aspect of songwriting.
The Making of 'Oh Yeah?'
Lacy's highly anticipated third album, Oh Yeah? , took four years to complete.
After the hype of Gemini Rights died down, he set a self-imposed deadline of April 20, 2024, but kept pushing it back.
"I had a group of songs that I thought were cool, but there were still things I needed to learn about myself and about music," he says.
He obsessively tweaked the songs until he realized he had to make decisions.
Lacy describes Oh Yeah? as his most engineered and complete album yet.
It features a trip-hop track with Erykah Badu and an unrequited love song with Cecile Believe. The lyrics are noticeably less guarded, touching on personal trauma.
In the song "Is It Cool?
," he sings about his father's death when he was 10 and his Filipino heritage—topics he had never addressed before.
"I've never said anything about being Filipino ever, or anything about my dad being dead," he says, still surprised the lines came out.
Lacy connects infidelity to childhood trauma through deadpan humor. "There's a lot of comedy throughout the album but I'm covering some deep stuff," he notes.
The album also explores a past relationship that ended six years ago, which Lacy is still processing. "Oh Yeah?
is about that person—well, not that person, fuck that person! This album's inspired by that breakup," he says with a laugh.
Lacy acknowledges that trauma is memorable and that he spent years running from it. "It's still gonna pop up until you sit with that shit," he says.
Writing Oh Yeah? helped him realize that emotional safety in a relationship is more important than ego.
"I had to get over myself," he admits.
