[Interview was conducted May 22nd, 2023]

19-year-old self-taught producer, singer-rapper, and multi-instrumentalist Portraits Of Tracy from Baton Rouge, Louisiana released her new project, Drive Home, this past May 26th, 2023. Dubbed an “audio novel,” this project draws inspiration from artists like Queen, Tame Impala, and Outkast to create a world that impressively conveys its emotions through ever-evolving and dynamic instrumentals, expressive vocal ranges, and heartfelt lyrics. She intricately crafts a story that brings to light the struggles many individuals encounter with mental health issues, strained family relations, alcohol addiction, and questioning of self-identity. This article is a brief part of an hour-long conversation between Tracy and I as we discussed her musical background, her process of making Drive Home, and her experience flying out to London to work with Paul Epworth (who produced songs for Rihanna, Adele, and Bruno Mars to name a few). After a brief introduction and a chat about how our days were going so far, we got straight into the interview:

[Portraits Of Tracy Background]

Harrison

How did you get started with making music? 

Tracy

I’ve been making music since I was around six or seven years old. Started off with my grandmother. She bought me the keyboard, a small little toy piano thing. I was fooling with that. Making little poop tunes. She wrote out, like, A, B, and C. She didn’t know the rest of it. One of those things. I just had to pick it up on my own. And it just worked out because I always listened to music, like, as a kid, that was my go-to thing. If it wasn’t video games, it was music. And the video games I was playing were Guitar Heroes and Rock Bands. So it was just nothing but music, basically, in childhood. 

Harrison 

Were you also paying attention to the music in the games, or was it just music-based video games? 

Tracy

It was music in the games, really. Even though I was playing the game and I was focused on hitting the notes and shit, I was like, “damn, this shit is hard.” And it was unlike anything that I was surrounded with around the time. Coming from Baton Ridge, Louisiana, I’m telling you the shit that I was hearing on those video games is completely different. I grew up with Tony Hawk, punk rock, and all that shit. Getting to experience that at like, six years old, it was like, “what the fuck?” It changed my world for real.

Harrison

What music was played at home growing up? 

Tracy

It was lots of soul, lots of hip-hop. The ordinary stuff growing up in a Black household. It wasn’t way too different. Like I said, a lot of the shit that I pulled close to me came from other forms. It wasn’t really in the household like that. And when I would try to show it to my family, they’d sort of be like, “the fuck is this?” They wouldn’t get it. 

Harrison

When did you decide you wanted to start sharing music online?

Tracy

Around 2017. It was around, I think, 2015 or 2014 when I started to take music a lot more ‘seriously’ than I guess I should have. I say that narrow quotation because that’s what everybody was saying. Because coming from my family with just a school background, academics, that was, like, their main focus for me. Or at least they wanted me to go down [that path]. I was just like, “I really don’t want to do it,” but I couldn’t come to terms with it as a kid. And I just started with stuff that I was making in my bedroom, I was just like, “let me put it up on SoundCloud.” And nobody really listened. Keeping it real because it was so early. I didn’t have an audience at all. But it felt great to see it all up there. I would share it with my friends. 

Harrison 

Was there kind of a conscious decision to do music full-time? Do you remember the moment when you were like, “oh, I’m going to be an artist?”

Tracy

I’d say around 2017. Well, really? No, it’s even earlier than that. I always loved singing. Even though I picked up multiple instruments as a kid, singing was always just there for me. And I always wrote, even as a kid. So I just liked creating art and expressing myself from early on. But an exact moment of where I was just like, “I want to do this”…I would say around close to 2016. And that was around the time I was so angry at myself because I was a late bloomer. I hit puberty, like, way later, and my voice didn’t fully develop. And every time I would try to record myself, I sounded like a ten-year-old. I didn’t want to sound like a child. All of my influences were adults. I was trying to sound like Frank Ocean and shit. I couldn’t do any of that. I sounded like a prepubescent teenager, basically. That’s what I was. But yeah, I’d say around that time. But I couldn’t execute it yet, so it took years. And I think the first time I was really able to say I finally figured it out, was around 2019, 2020.

Harrison 

How does working from home as a bedroom producer impact your workflow?

Tracy

When you’re producing at home and you’re really by yourself, just locked in a room, it causes you to overthink because your mind is way too open. You’re like, “okay, what can I do on this? Uh, I’ve already done this before.” And then you scrap everything. Whereas when you’re in the studio, you have memories associated with it. It’s numerous things that just tie into it. You could have made something equally as good on your own, but because you’re in your room alone, overthinking, you won’t see it. That’s just another track, basically, to you.

Harrison 

Yeah, for sure. It’s not like you need that external validation, but just to hear another person be like, “oh yeah, that’s hot. We should keep working on that.” It definitely gives you some drive. 

[We transitioned into talking about the album, Drive Home]

Harrison

Could you tell me a bit about the background of the album’s storyline and creating the Junie persona? 

Tracy

The way I formed [Junie] as a character, was based on my family’s view of my pride, what they considered my pride. And that was just me searching for self-love, keeping it real. And I just made him this over-obnoxious, bratty character. A high school teenager. And basically, that whole album was just him finding himself. [In previous albums], he went through experiences with school and shit and realized it wasn’t for him. And he ended up pleasing everybody to try to make the situation better, but it didn’t. And then this album, the new one, Drive Home, it fast forwards 12 years to him being 32. As an adult, he sort of repressed everything in the first half of the album searching for what’s weighing him down so much. After finding numerous ways to try to convey what he’s feeling through “The Party,” “En Garde” and “Aeternum,”  he finally discovers what it is on “Drunk.” Then in “The Afterparty,” he’s just like, “fuck all this shit. I don’t want to deal with it anymore. I’m leaving all of it.” [After an incident] he and his roadie, Emma, are confused as to whether or not they were straight up targeted or not. They decide to lay low. And she’s worried that she can’t go home, so she ends up going to Junie’s childhood home. But he didn’t realize that, well, he did really realize that [his trauma] was still unresolved. It’s all in the lyrics. From that point on, it just literally unfolds. It’s like all the anxiety and everything basically what he was afraid of happens.

Harrison 

Like when you leave stuff unresolved, it’s still there. The feelings are still there. You have to address it. And I think, yeah, this project really kind of shows that. Do you think that’s kind of the takeaway you want? Or is that just kind of like you’re just highlighting what can happen?

Tracy

That is the takeaway. I didn’t expect you to get it. Yeah. Damn, caught me off guard with that one. If you can on your own time, on the album cover, there’s text at the bottom. It addresses that.

Harrison 

I did not see that. Cool easter egg. 

Tracy

Literally, there are tons of easter eggs throughout this whole project. I want this project to be one of those things that three years down the line or some shit you’re like, “wait, that was there the whole time?” I love art like that where there are so many deep-rooted things that you can find something new every time you listen to it.

Harrison 

One thing I wanted to say was you’re one of a few artists that I know that has made both an album and a screenplay in the same sense with the voice, acting, just making a cohesive narrative. You did double the work. How do you feel wearing multiple hats for this project, including social media, graphic design, and the breakdown YouTube videos? How does that culminate in you? 

Tracy

It’s great honestly. Because I respect artists who have teams for that sort of thing. I can get why they have it. It’s definitely a long task to do everything by yourself. I’ve always been, I guess, good at expressing myself in multiple ways. Whenever I can just open up Photoshop and draw in a field of roses or some shit, alter it in the way that I want, in the way that I envisioned it, and have it come out damn near one-to-one as to how I imagined it. It’s so rewarding and appealing. It’s not only like, I did this, it’s exactly what I wanted. I’m not against collaboration in any way. I used to be, but when I create it’s like, I know what I want the most and I can execute it. I’ll try it myself. I’m breaking out of that mindset now. 

Harrison 

Would you say your time in London changed that?

Tracy

Literally, that’s all I can attribute it to—the people [Paul Epworth and team] who flew me out there. I knew the Paul Epworth sound for years. From Rihanna’s projects to Adele. Him hitting me up, I was like, “how am I worthy?” Around the time, I was struggling with self-worth. Even though I said Junie was like some over-exaggerated form, it was literally just me around that time when I got out to really see things for myself. For me to go out truly on my own, I don’t know how I managed to do it, but nobody came with me. No family. It was just me in a completely different country. Two weeks. I know it’s kind of dumb when you look at it on paper, but yeah, I could have been abducted. I could have got robbed or some shit. I didn’t care. 

Harrison 

[When I saw that video], I was just impressed. Like a 17/18-year-old traveling on their own [internationally].

Tracy

I convinced [my parents]. I don’t know how I managed to. I was just like, “I literally ask nothing from you, like, ever. Just let me do this on my own.” And they were just like “we coming with you.” They kept trying to convey that to me. When the time came, all I knew was I was on the plane by myself. Ten hour flight and I was scared at the same time. But this is what I’ve been wanting for years. Finally just have something to myself. Like some form of independence. I went into it headfirst, and I haven’t been the same since. Keeping it real, not even just in music. 

Harrison 

[After this experience] do you feel like you can notice any changes in your earlier songs versus what you wrote later?

Tracy

Yeah, in a way. But I don’t look at those earlier songs from the mindset that I would look at the newer songs when I was creating them. For example, I made “Forbidden Fruit” in 2020 and I made “Graceland,” I think, two months ago. When I made “Graceland,” I had the mindset of “I’ve been wanting to make this for years.” This is something since childhood that I’ve dreamed of making. The way it progresses, from the halftime drum beats and shit. I wanted to do that for years. Whereas “Forbidden Fruit” I made that two years ago. I really [just] loved the way it sounds. It’s [has] a nice piano. And if I try to look at “Forbidden Fruit” with the same mindset of “I’ve been wanting to make this for years,” it wouldn’t work. So I see each of the songs in a different light. For “En Garde,” I was literally in the moment going through what I was talking about in the song. So it was real. The way I was screaming on that song, saying just foul shit, that was real. Same with “Drunk.” That was real. “Found” is my favorite song out of the whole bunch. 

Harrison 

What was the process of hiring voice actors? I know from your past projects, [that] you just did the voices yourself.

Tracy

It was nerve-wracking as hell. Like I said, I had the mindset of, “I know what I want. I’m going to do it myself.” I wanted to play my roadie, and I wanted to basically play everybody in it because it was such a personal story and I really didn’t want to share too much about this to other people. Because this is like, damn near my life. But I just had to bite the bullet one day. When I showed my friends the reference lines, what I considered was going to be in the actual final album. They were just like, “is that you?” And I was like, “fuck.” I didn’t want it to sound like me. And I knew that because of the way that I speak, the way that I form my sentences, it’s not just the timbre of my voice. That’s when it hit me, I have to get new people on this now. This concept, the sound of this album, it’s way too big to just be limited by my view of how I create. I had a couple of pals in mind. I didn’t have way too many. It’s not like I was searching on Fiverr for voice actors or anything. 

Harrison 

I totally thought it was Fiverr. 

Tracy

No, I knew this person. The person who plays Emma [Junie’s roadie]. Her name is Gracious, or Gracious the Healer. I’ve known her for around three years. We just started picking up talking and I asked her, “would you like to be part of the project? I’m not asking for lines anytime soon or anything.” And immediately she was on board. I didn’t expect it to be this easy. She was just like, “I fucking love this.” She heard the first song and was immediately blown away. And I was just like, “wow, I didn’t expect that.” With the confidence of already having her on board, I, started to think, “could I do this for the other characters?” I got Amari’s voice actor (Zachary Williams) literally the same way.

Harrison 

People were down for it. That definitely brings the world to life a lot more with hearing everyone’s voices interacting. The sound effects on “Eight Minutes” just help get immersed into the world.

Tracy

I have to credit the sound design to some friends who helped me. [My close friend] Madden put me onto this platform and it hosts these sound effects. It’s shit that sound designers use. This isn’t the first album where I’ve had skits on them. But with sound design, I couldn’t find a specific sound of, like, a door opening or closing. [So I would] grab my cheap USB mic and record it myself. And I would process it with reverb. It wouldn’t sound as good as what I have now. These are professionally recorded tools. It elevates the whole experience and makes it more cohesive. I don’t know if you realize most of the album is seamless. I mean, sure, there are fade-outs, but it transitions from a skit into it, or it’s like somebody talking. There are no pauses. It’s hard to execute that.

Harrison 

The pacing of the album is really good. How was that in terms of thinking about song placement and pacing?

Tracy

I was literally going through what the character was feeling in the first half. I was just self-searching and I was depending on people. The second half was also based on real life in so many ways that I can’t even comprehend. I’ve never had a place where I can really say, “oh, this was my real home growing up. This is a place that I love the most.” And so I got used to the feeling of everything falling apart so quickly. It took me a minute to realize my families are dysfunctional completely beyond comprehension. And it makes sense now, but back then, I couldn’t put a finger on it. And it’s sort of like the way that second half, in literally the span of one day, everything completely just goes wrong. That’s inspired by real life. My relationship with my mother, just like that, changed. Just like in real life. 

Harrison 

This is the project that’s getting everything [from your life] out there [in the world]. Taking in everything we’ve talked about, how has your perception of success changed from the beginning all the way up to now? 

Tracy

It changed a lot. I had a very immature view of it initially. The people around me sort of influenced me to believe [a certain way]. It was like, I didn’t want to work at a nine-to-five. So I am chas[ing] this, execut[ing] it in the best way I can. I’m not saying that I make art for the money in any way. I’m just saying that was sort of a subconscious motive. When I was like 12 or 13 I knew that I had something deeper than just like, I want this to be my career, I knew that it was always way deeper than that. The way music made me feel and like, literal moments where I was fucking 13, crying in a closet with my headphones on, listening to “I Wonder” on a CD player, I knew that it was much more than just that. But over the years, I began to just become more open, about [my music], and how I view art. I think it’s beautiful how we can find ways to connect with each other because of just how we express ourselves and the way that we say how we feel from on a canvas to on a screen to in an MP3. I think it’s beautiful that we can come together and just get over fucking differences like skin tone. At this point, I see everything as literally just “I’m lucky.” Now I just do what I do. If I go homeless for the shit, I go homeless for the shit. If I die for this shit, I die for this shit. Expression. 

 

Interview + Transcription by Harrison Peters

Photos by Portraits Of Tracy & Team

Photo Design by Simone Pereira

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.