Forest – Daily Chiefers Exclusive Interview

First off, if you haven’t heard of Compton, CA emcee Forest, you are in for a treat. His SoundCloud is fairly limited so far, only hosting four songs, but is an excellent preview of things to come. In the works is UNDRWATER, a mixtape due out early next year. Drawing musical influence from all genres and subgenres of hip hop and R&B, Forest’s music is all over the map. Some tracks are soulful and pensive, while others are loud and boisterous party slappers.

According to Forest, he draws influence mainly from Kanye, Pharrell, and R. Kelly and a couple of his tracks, specifically “I’m in Love” and “Top Down” have a sort of 808’s and Heartbreak vibe. Forest specifically listed The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as an album from which he draws influence, and all of his music certainly shares a reggae-like tone. Despite only being actively recording music for the last year, Forest has been rapping his whole life. He chalks the incongruency in time spent rapping and time spent recording up to the desire to create a quality final product, and waited until he had access to proper equipment and engineering resources. As we spoke, Forest was at Capitol Records, recording for his upcoming tape. There is a large period of time between his first track, “I’m in Love” and the next track, “Top Down”. This can be explained by the need for momentum, and in the last three months four extremely high quality tracks have dropped. I was assured that more music was on the way leading up to the release of the UNDRWATER, and that at least one video was ready to be released as well. Listen to “Movie” and “I’m in Love” below.

As for the inspiration to create music, Forest made it clear that he only raps about events that he has experienced, because “if you haven’t experienced it, how can you rap about it?”. Because of this real life-centered approach, he feels a strong connection to people around him and makes music for friends and family. This music serves as a “soundtrack to their lives”, and helps to connect and center the people around him. Forest described his music defying any one single genre, and that he doesn’t want to confine himself to any one narrow interpretation of what music can be. On his latest track, “Kubrick”, which can be heard below, the beat has a very EDM feel, and Forest expressed interest in dropping more EDM-influenced music.

Forest would like to shout out Keyel, Dart, AC, Boogie, and August Grant, as well as everyone who has helped him so far with his upcoming project. Be on the lookout for upcoming singles, videos, and of course the upcoming project, UNDRWATER. Forest is about to blow up, and you definitely don’t want to ignore him.