Before this album even had a name, Buddy says he had always been working on it, always making music. He estimates it was around 70 percent complete before he even began to think about what to call it. “I’ve always just been trying to make the best songs and then consolidate,” the Compton rapper tells Apple Music. He describes his recording process as “sporadic,” but really it seems more like alchemy—a collection of minds transforming silence into magic, culture combusting into sound. “I was really just trying to assemble an amazing team of producers and instrumentalists,” he says. “Whether we jam out over a bunch of live instruments, or a producer comes and plays a bunch of different beats, I would just freestyle, catch a vibe instantly, and just double back and flush it into full records.”
Superghetto is some of Buddy’s most engulfing work. His West Coast rap DNA is prevalent, as always, but it sounds more universal than ever, blended with jazz, R&B, and beachy pop. The cadences (“whatever’s on my heart in the moment”) and subject matter (“my day-to-day experience, remembering how things made me feel”) are varied and colorful. Sometimes, it’s the political ferocity of “Black 2”; at other times, it’s the carefree levity of “Happy Hour.” In his exploration and experimentation, he lands on something that signals evolution, both personal and creative. “These songs sound and feel bigger,” he says, “but it still sounds and feels like me at the same time—the instrumentation, the versatility, and the risks that I’m taking this time around.” Below, he explains the inspiration and production behind each of the album’s tracks.
“Hoochie Mama”
“I just feel [‘Hoochie Mama’] is what is known to be super ghetto. That is the most ghetto song on the album, I feel like. It’s just the essence of what I’m really trying to change the narrative of—because once you get into the album, it just feels a little different.”
“Ghetto 24” (feat. Tinashe)
“Me and Tinashe was working on music, and we made a bunch of different songs, and it was just one of those moments where we didn’t know what to work on, but we wanted to work on something. I was going through a bunch of beats, and we really liked that beat. It was the homie Axl Folie made that beat. She went in there and did her parts, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s hard.’ I started writing—I was trying to rap real good and just kind of got into it. I stepped away for a while to get the second verse and fine-tune the first to make it more album-worthy because it felt so current and ready for people to hear. We just caught a crazy vibe that day.”
“Wait Too Long” (feat. Blxst)
“Me and Blxst, we’ve been overdue to work for a while, and he really just carved his own lane and sound so perfect, it’s crazy. And for me to just resurface and start dropping music again, it just felt so right. It felt serendipitous that the song is called ‘Wait Too Long,’ because I feel like everybody’s been waiting too long for moments like this, for me and Blxst together. Only we can stand in the light that’s there for us. We was kicking it—Hollywood Cole made that beat. It was crazy. And Blxst did the hook. We was just vibing out, watching movies, playing chess, hanging out with a bunch of friends. I had to, again, step away and just really give my verses some love. I think I wrote three different verses just so it would be as good as the hook. I was listening to that hook by itself for a couple of weeks.”
“Black 2”
“It’s so funny because I don’t know what type of mode I be in when I be making these ‘Black’ records. I just am Black, so I’m always thinking about Black trauma, Black pride, Black enjoyment, Black excellence, Black everything all the time. It was just another day—I think it was during February, so I was just in the mood. The homie Roofeeo made that beat, and it was so tight. I was rapping real good that day, but I just try to talk about it from my perspective, which is less political and just more communal. From where I stand, on the inside looking out, everybody else is always trying to do some Black stuff that we be on in the first place. So, that’s the perspective that I was taking that day. I was working with the homie Kent [Jamz]—he helped me write the hook. We was paying homage to Malcolm X and Paul Mooney.”
“High School Crush”
“Shout-out to Axl Folie—he made that beat again. It was him and Leon Thomas. I was just in the singing mood that day. I was feeling all lovey-dovey—I don’t know, I might’ve had a new boo thing or something. It was just the same feeling as when you got that high school crush. So, I tried to turn a current event—just bridge it with a memory to capture the whole feeling of interest turning into infatuation into a full-on obsession in the heat of the moment. I just wanted to capsulize it and stay there in that moment forever. I was just rapping hella good. I was trying to sound like André 3000 on the rap.”
“Happy Hour” (feat. T-Pain)
“I just feel so honored to provide a canvas for such an artist to put some paint where it ain’t. T-Pain is such a legend, and I do enjoy myself a nice happy hour. I remember when I first turned 21, and I even found out about the concept—just being in a position to have my own money, hang out with friends, and just go out and buy food and drink for cheap. I was really just trying to capture that moment. We was for sure drinking when we made that song, and it was a bunch of live instrumentation. D’Mile made that beat, but we had Brody Brown come through with the bass, and then Robert Glasper did some stuff on there, Terrace Martin, Derrick Hodge played some guitar. It just happened so organically. It came together so cold. And then we got the T-Pain vocal, and he T-Pained it—Mr. Bartender, Mr. Buy U a Drank.”
“Coolest Things” (feat. Ari Lennox)
“I was working with D’Mile, and he made that beat so crazy, he barely talked that day. I was working with Jesse Boykins. He wrote the hook, and it resonated with me so deep. I feel like I’ve been cool before it was cool to be cool, and then cool got oversaturated, and now everybody trying to figure out what is this cool thing that anybody even speaks of because everything is just so watered down and not cool at all. I just was rapping about that and trying to talk about past love and just keep it super vague so people could attach their own moments to the same feelings that I am talking about in my verses.”
“Ain’t Fair”
“Organized Noize made that beat, and they some legends. They are just legendary producers. They lost the files and remade the beat, and it sounded even better. I was just trying to—it was a stream of consciousness that day when I was rapping. The beat-switch was so crazy. It was two separate beats that we pieced together because it just sounded tight. And I was just talking about how unfair it is to be in the position—just as artists or anybody in the public eye, it just seems like whatever happens, it don’t really make a difference for the consumer or the listener, but it always has to translate into an amazing song or some amazing art. It’s just not taking into account mental health or just a person’s emotions, all the invisible things that nobody really sees. It’s just not a fair position to be in. And everybody else, too, just a crazy, evil world we live in.”
“Bad News”
“[Production trio] 1Mind came to the studio, and I was just trying to try something different. They was playing a bunch of different beats, but when this one came on, I was just jamming out. The hook was there instantly, and I was like, ‘Hold on. Load this up. We need to do this.’ And then, I started mumbling different cadences for the verse, tried to paint a picture of some ghetto scenario that could happen in this amazing vibe of music. It just sets the tone for fun, but it’s just a crazy story, like how people who ain’t from the hood try to glorify hood shit.”
“Superghetto”
“I feel like I haven’t really put too much out there about my upbringing or myself in my raps. A lot of my raps are super vague and not really detailed of my story, so I just tried to be more introspective. I really set an intention to talk about things in my personal life that I haven’t talked about for whatever reason and just put it all in the music. I think it came out good. The beat is super—it’s not that many sounds, so it’s a lot of space for people to just hear what I’m saying.”