Tone Glow 212: ELUCID

An interview with the New York rapper about his early experiences on the internet, living a life of honesty, and his new album with Sebb Bash, 'I Guess U Had To Be There' (2026)

ELUCID

Photo by Alexander Richter

ELUCID is the moniker of Chaz Hall, a rapper and producer from New York City. As a teenager, ELUCID became enamored with music, holing up in his room to loop beats and write in his journal. His earliest music was recorded with his uncle, DJ Stitches, and he eventually released his debut album, The Bible and the Gun (2002), at 20 years old. In the decades since, ELUCID has risen as one of the most crucial rappers of the present day, releasing a string of solo projects including Save Yourself (2016), Shit Don’t Rhyme No More (2018), I Told Bessie (2022), and REVELATOR (2024). His newest project is I Guess U Had To Be There (2026). ELUCID is also part of Armand Hammer, his duo project with billy woods. The two have released numerous albums together, most recent of which is Mercy (2025). Armand Hammer are touring this year throughout the US and Europe; dates can be found here. Joshua Minsoo Kim spoke with ELUCID on March 12th, 2026 via Zoom to discuss Napster, living a life of honesty and integrity, and working with Sebb Bash on their new album.

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Joshua Minsoo Kim: How was the show in Glasgow last night? What was the crowd like, how was the energy?

ELUCID: I felt strong about the show. It’s nice to get out in the world and play these new songs from Mercy (2025). We wanted to make a point to bring back some older songs—we’re doing things from the first album, integrating them into the set to refresh things. It was the second show [of our European tour] last night, and there were 250-300 people. It was good, a lot of energy, and it was young kids really feeling it. That’s also an interesting thing—Armand Hammer was definitely for the old guys scratching their beards (laughter). That was the general population for our shows, and it’s just not like that anymore. That’s been cool to see—there’s some progress on that front, and new worlds are opening.

When did you start seeing younger audiences?

As soon as we did the song with Earl Sweatshirt (laughter). So once Haram (2021) dropped, there were 16-year-olds at the show with their nannies. That’s when I immediately saw the change.

You said you were playing stuff from the first album. Are we talking about Race Music (2013) or Half Measures (2013)? And how do you and billy woods decide what early songs to include in the set?

When I said “first album,” I was thinking of the new fans, so I was talking about Rome (2017). When people get hip to Armand Hammer, that’s really the entry point, and a lot of people don’t go back to Half Measures. We did “Pakistani Brain.” It has a really great energy live—the beat, there’s gunshots. It’s just one of those songs that always felt good, and we have so many songs now that we were like, we can just dig back and do older cuts. We’re at a point where people may have seen us four or five times; what a shame if they were like, “Yeah, I saw Armand Hammer five times and they played the same songs every time.” How shitty would that be? So we were keeping it fresh for ourselves and fresh for our fans. Immediately after the show, I saw people online saying, “They did my favorite old songs!” and things like that. That’s cool.

You start “Pakistani Brain” by saying, “I wanted to be a hacker when I grew up.” Did you mean a computer hacker?

Yeah, I used to think that shit was cool—I’m 45! I’m from the ’80s! The world of home computers was so prevalent in entertainment. I remember WarGames (1983) with the kid almost starting the Cold War. There were movies like Clock & Dagger (1984), and a bunch of stuff with kids and computers and this idea of disrupting things via technology. I always saw that shit as powerful, and this was before I had a word for “hacker,” which didn’t really come into play until the ’90s. There was the movie Hackers (1995), and I was a teenager at that point. It was this idea of the people versus corporations, it was about this power struggle. The cover of Rome shows a burnt-out landscape, which is also like the end of a power struggle, and this idea of a hacker felt like a really strong image. But yeah, I thought that could’ve been a future for myself.

Did you always spend a lot of time on the internet?

Because of access, no. But when I did get access, yes. I was 16 years old when I first got onto the internet. The community center was getting brand new computers, so they started donating the old ones—my family was lucky enough to get one. This was when America Online was giving away CDs that said like, “50 Hours Free!”, and that would come in the mail every single week. This was the early internet, so I was on chatrooms, and I remember one of the very first things I went on was this Boot Camp Clik message board. They were one of the first rap groups on the internet, and this was a bunch of people coming together and talking crazy about a bunch of topics. It was still limited because my family didn’t have the fast internet connection and it’d eat up the phone lines—my mom needed to be on the phone to take care of stuff—so I couldn’t just be on the internet all the time.

This changed when I went to college. My first year, I had fast internet and I could go on whenever I wanted. Napster just came out—we’re talking about 1999, 2000. Like, oh snap, I can get any piece of music ever recorded very quickly. I was obsessed. It’s funny, I did not have that access when I was a teenager in high school, but my friend Brandon had this crazy hustle downloading music. He was the first person I ever knew who was downloading music—this was ’96—and he would have albums that’d coming out months later and sell them joints to kids at school. This was a mixtape hustle! He was super brainy and getting into places where he should not have access. I always thought that was really cool. He might’ve been one of the first hackers like that.

Were you participating in the Boot Camp Clik message board? Like, were you talking about how much you loved For the People (1996), or were you more of a lurker?

I was a lurker because I was scared, I was bashful. This was a time when you could still be anonymous on the internet, but I think I was just soaking it all up. I was reading and seeing the lay of the land, and then I went to other places—instead of the East Coast, I was looking into the West Coast. The Bomb Hip-Hop Magazine was based out of San Francisco, and this was an underground, West Coast zine. This was the first time I put my address on the internet, and someone was mailing me something. When it came, it was like… holy shit. I sent a five dollar bill in an envelope to this address and then they sent this zine back—it blew my mind! It was a black-and-white, stapled issue of The Bomb magazine. It was next level.

Do you remember what albums you were downloading on Napster? I know you were already playing shows at 20 years old, and you had your first album, The Bible and the Gun (2002), but what were you able to hear through Napster? And maybe these records didn’t exactly impact your rapping, but I’m curious to know what was important.

It was all about building a crazy library, just downloading literally everything. I’d burn them to a CD, and then I’d just have it. It was initially all rap, and then it was like, I can listen to more things than rap. That was such a moment of exploration, like okay, here’s Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain (1960). I remember that one because it took four days to download (laughter). I was listening to Mr. Oizo and thought it was crazy, and Radiohead’s Kid A (2000) came out around this time—that was my entry point, and I think that’s one of their greater albums. I was learning about a lot of different kinds of music.

Also on “Pakistani Brain,” you say you were “a dyke in a past life.” Do you feel a kinship with lesbians? What’s the story there?

You know… yeah, I do. I found myself in relationships with women who were queer, who were lesbian either previously or after me. It’s happened a number of times. That was one of those lines where I was like, do I even have the right to say that word? I remember feeling that when I wrote it. I just went with it, and actual lesbians have found it pretty funny, so it’s cool I guess (laughter). I expected the worst.

What were these relationships like? It feels significant that you were dating queer women as a young person in the ’90s and 2000s. I’m assuming you also consider yourself heterosexual.

From my teens to my mid-20s, I wasn’t really aware of someone being queer intentionally. I grew up with this mainstream mindset where it was like… okay, girls just kiss girls. And then when I was in my mid-20s and definitely in my 30s, it was like, oh, this is who they are, on purpose, and they’re living in the world in this way and are strictly dating people of the same sex. And then here I am, this guy who broke the pattern for whatever reason (laughs). They saw something in me and wanted to be queer in this particular way.

The relationships were a challenge of personal growth. They were confirming things I thought were true but maybe not bold enough to embody. I was seeing that sort of strength, and recognizing it as such and not as a weakness, as a man. My ways of being with women, and my ways of being with myself, really, all coalesced into something that was less of a sexually queer thing for me—I identify as a straight man—but queer in a political sense. I came to understand it that way for myself. Through that, there came a love for myself, and I began to appreciate brothers as brothers. I was able to tell my friends “I love you” and feel no kind of way. I was shifting away from this dominant, male, ego-and-bravado rah-rah culture. That was never really me, but being with women who were queer definitely gave me the confidence to be secure in that fact. Like, it’s okay to not be a fucking cave man (laughter).

Before this, I was joining in with these guys because I was uncertain about being in this group. I was young at the time, finding my own way. There’s the trial run—I was fucking around with the group and others were getting hurt. I realized that this was not cool, and I didn’t like how it felt. So what am I gonna do? And I’d hear these words from my dad: “Be your own man. You’re gonna have to be your own man at some point.” I realized that this wasn’t how I wanted to live my life; I needed to stand on my own.

This is something your dad said regularly?

Yeah. As a younger kid, I would follow behind people, just trying to be down, trying to be cool. I’d get caught stealing bikes. I was running around and being a bully to people. That sort of stupid stuff. This was pre-teen Chaz. My dad was like, “When you gon’ stop this shit? You’re young, so it’s of little consequence at this point, but you’re about to enter your teen years and they send kids to juvenile hall for this shit, and it’s right down the road. It’s right there.” He obviously didn’t want me on that path, and he told me that I needed to think for myself. “There’s only so much I can tell you, but one day it’ll click.”

Were there things he did that made you wanna go down that path? Did you see him live a life of integrity?

Yes, my dad set a strong example for me in his own way. And with those ways, I grew to adopt some of them, but I also saw how I could improve upon the model—I was the next version of him. He was a super strong model of integrity and consistency. I was raised with my dad, and he was there every day. I lived with him, he went to work, and he had different types of jobs, and even when he didn’t… I was raised in a two-parent home, and I remember seeing them hold each other down at different points in their life. If he was out of work, my mom would pick stuff up and he’d be at the house doing things my mom did. I remember that my mom wanted to go to nursing school at one point, and my dad was a construction worker then. He would work crazy-long hours so my mom could study, and this was for a couple years. And then she did it and her career really took off. He was just there as a consistent model of like, this is a dad. He wasn’t just working, either. I was an athlete and he was at all the games, he was taking me and my friends to the games—it was about presence.

What sports were you doing?

Football. When football season ended, it was either basketball or wrestling. And then in the spring it was baseball. I really loved sports until music came into the picture around 16 years old. For me, sports really cemented myself in the opposite of “be your own man.” Like, I was part of a team, and I actually drowned my individual voice, which I grew to not like. When I found music, it was like, whoa, it’s just me—it’s just what I think.

I loved that independent-mindedness of music. I was just making music by myself in my room, with instrumentals from 12-inches that my uncle [DJ Stitches] would let me hold. I borrowed equipment, a microphone, and I created this whole thing from start to finish, and I fell in love with that process. I fell out of love with sports—I still played through my senior year, but my interest started to wane in favor of this music thing. But sports was great. There was team building, and understanding how to work in a team, and how to compromise, and how to strategize a few steps ahead. Sports really put all that in my head for sure.

I love the idea of “learning to compromise.” People generally hear that word and automatically assume it’s negative, but there’s always a way to go about it in a way that’s more successful than not.

Yeah, it’s really important. That’s one of those lifelong things that sports can teach you if you want to know it. You do things for the sake of the team, for the greater good. We talk about that in society with certain acts like voting, but in a team it plays out in a very practical way. Like, just do this for that person and something might happen. To see that play out is a powerful thing, and I think that carries into today. Working so closely with woods, it’s such an integral part of the process, to compromise, to see things from their perspective and just trust in them.

How has compromise come into play in your work together?

The first thing that comes to mind is trust. There’s a song off the Mercy album, Longjohns, where I was like, “I’m just not into this beat, man. I just don’t know.” “Trust me, trust me, it’s gonna be the one. It’s not just gonna be you.” I eventually pushed through and did two drafts, and then I really dug it. Oftentimes, it’s things like that. It works both ways with productions and songs and concepts—we’re pushing each other through. The song “Instant Transfer” also comes to mind, from REVELATOR (2024). I love the beat, but for whatever reason I couldn’t find my way into it with my lyrics. woods took it, dropped the verse, and it became one of those things where I was like, “Oh, I didn’t see it that way.” And when it was done, it was all understood.

“Longjohns” is one of my favorites off Mercy. You have the line that goes, “You talk to me in other people’s words/You don’t believe enough to burn.” It’s similar to “The Lorax,” off I Guess U Had To Be There (2026). On that track you say, “You may know the language but not enough to live.” This relates to what your dad was saying about being your own man. What’s a recent example where you had to really check yourself, to make sure you were living out your words?

All the lyrics come from real life, though sometimes spun in a really hyperbolic way. Talking about, “You talk to me in other people’s words/You don’t believe enough to burn,” that came out of an argument with my wife—these are real things that happen! (laughter). And as I speak to others, I speak to myself. You know that saying where it’s like, when you point the finger you have three pointing back at you? It’s like that. I might see you do this thing, but I do this thing too. We’re both cowards in this way, so let’s not be cowards, right? Let’s say something, let’s have integrity, and let’s do it. It’s like a taunt and challenge to myself. There’s a throughline through all the work, and they’re coming out of relationships and conflicts I have with people.

Do you have an example of when you recently had to be courageous, where you had to step out of your comfort zone and really be bold?

It’s a more personal thing that I wouldn’t wanna put in the interview. But… I did it (laughter). And I lived through the consequences. It wasn’t a pretty story at all.

There’s an interesting thing that happens where you’ll recognize the courage needed to do something, and you’ll have to psych yourself up to have the courage to do it. Is there an example of this from when you were younger?

If we’re going back to those days, it was really the struggle. Like, participating in the fuckshit with friends, and doing all sorts of things. At a certain point I was like, maybe I shouldn’t do this, and a certain guilt would come. There’s this in-between space where it’s like, we’re doing the wrong thing again, but I’m not fully committed and in this gray area. Later on it’ll come and I won’t do it, and I’ll tell my friends like, “Hey, I’m not gonna beat this kid up. I’m not gonna let you do that and go in his pockets.” These are teen-year thoughts. I was growing out of a particular scene.

I wanted to ask about your relationship to religion. You’ve referenced it throughout your life, and I’m curious about how your upbringing has led to certain facets of religion lingering around, and these could be positive or negative things. I was revisiting The Bible and the Gun, and there’s this song “Determined” on there where you’re like, “God knows the heart, everyone sees the truth when the judgment starts.” If you take out the religious flavor, it’s not too dissimilar to the sort of things we’re talking about. Who was Chaz then and who is Chaz now?

I was 20 years old then, and I wasn’t spiritual in that Christian way—I was already not going to church. It was one of those things where my parents were like, alright, we’re gonna go to church. As a child, you don’t really have a choice. I was reading, I was learning, and I really loved the music—we had amazing musicians there—but I couldn’t get down with the doctrine. So I was already living by myself when The Bible and the Gun came out, but something I’ve learned is that you can’t really run away from how you were raised. It prints on you, and it pops out in ways when you’re not paying attention or conscious of it. It informs so much of who I am, even as I try to rewrite my cultural operating system, so to speak, with new experiences and inspirations. Take what you will about The Bible, but there are amazing stories in there. I’m amazed by the parables, and I’m a fan of myths and legends from around the world. So the way that The Bible framed things is really cool to me. The Bible as pure literature—it still pops through in the way I describe things. But yeah, I can never really get away from that.

Can you give me an example of how you can’t get away from those things because of how you were raised?

What do you mean?

I also grew up in the church and I definitely notice that the language I use is part of it. Like, “Oh, I’m wrestling with this struggle.”

(laughs). That’s right!

I also think for me, there’s this feeling I have where I need to sacrifice so much—in terms of my time and energy and money—and it’s to a degree where I’m neglecting my own well-being. And maybe that’s something with my family in general, but I feel like it was ingrained in me.

I definitely relate to that. It’s kind of a Christian thing to wear yourself out in service of others. These days, it takes on different contexts as a dad and as a partner. Like, it’s a dead end. You can’t actually show up to serve people you love every day if you don’t get a chance to refill yourself somehow, to get rest. That’s something I had to learn as an adult, and it’s a very recent thing, to be honest. Having one kid was easy, but when the second one came around—he’s 3 years old now—things got super hectic.

It was this idea that “being selfish” was bad, and maybe “selfish” isn’t the right word, but I needed to be number one in my life so I could be number one in theirs. Right now, I’m juggling many different things for us, but to be in service of y’all, I need to do these things. Me being on tour is a version of that. Being blessed enough to make music and tour and get paid for it, it’s one of those things where it’s like, I’m not gonna be home for three and a half weeks—it’s the longest I’ve been away from my family—but if I were to not do this… we would be doing without (laughs). This is just a shallow financial way of looking at things, but I’m indulging myself in this career, and in the long run this increases an enjoyment of life for all of us.

So this is a financial thing you’re talking about, but do you feel like making music throughout the past few years has helped you become a better father or partner? Are there things you’ve been learning about yourself?

Making music and being creative is about working through things I may not understand. I’m gleaning knowledge and new ways of seeing that can be implemented in my everyday life. With a record like I Told Bessie (2022), there were things I wrote and liked, but it took on a different meaning two years later. I was speaking to my future self, and these were words that were edifying—see, this Christian language programming is still there, I’m using a word like “edify” (laughter). But yeah, working through things creatively forces myself to be honest. It challenges me. Now that I know better, what am I gonna do? If you know better you should do better.

I’m thinking of a song like “Impasse” here. “Just a little bit of grace in the moment she could flip/I can feel the certainty slip around my neck.”

That’s exactly it! That’s the song where I first realized like, this is the real thing, there’s something here spiritually that’s connecting into the physical. I may not understand it in the moment, but it’s something for my future self. That song was about a relationship that crashed and burned in a really spectacular way, and it drastically affected other relationships in my life. It’s like… I saw it coming, huh (laughter). When I was trying to write it, I was reaching for striking imagery, but that’s exactly how it went down in real life, man. It was a big, big thing, and I lost a lot in this relationship here. Things turned out okay, but when you betray people’s trust, there’s a period of repair. And hopefully you can get through that period.

I wanted to ask about “First Light” on the new album. You say you’re “on farmer time”—what do you mean by that?

(laughs). You’re on farmer time today! You’re up before the sun and talking to me. I’m not on farmer time at this point, but yeah, I thought “farmer time” was a funny thing for me. It’s the dad line. I’m up first in the house, I’m making oatmeal, I’m waking up the kids, let’s come down, let’s eat, let’s wash our face, let’s get dressed. I have to wake up and immediately be of service to my children—I’m on farmer time (laughter). With kids, and I knew this in the very first year of having my first child, I learned that I am so much more than what I imagined myself to be. When the first kid came, I found myself with so much energy and desire and ambition. Like, I look in this kid’s eyes and it’s like, “Yo, I gotta do this! I’m responsible for you!” Everything else came second, and everything else was done in service of this child and my relationship with his mom. We’re gonna be okay.

When he first came into the world, that’s when money came into the picture with art. It was a thing of, I wanted to be paid but I was scared to ask for money. I didn’t understand the value of my time, especially in collaboration with other people. And I may not have even understood the value of my work. When he came into the picture, a lot of things were crystalized because my time was the most important thing. If I couldn’t be around my kid and raise him, then what’s really important? So this was 2017, and we’re all in on this Armand Hammer thing. We were in the full swing of things, and it put us on a path to now. That’s him and his mom on the cover of Paraffin (2018).

You have the song “Make Me Wise” where you say, “I write songs, forgetting why I did in the first place.” What’s your motivation for writing songs?

Bro, that’s the ultimate question. It always comes back. For that song, I was playing with the whole “I guess you had to be there” and the fuzziness around memory, where you’re trying to explain the significance of a person, place, thing, or event to people who weren’t there with you. If I go back to earlier songs I’ve written, I’ll sometimes wonder, why did I write that line? And I’ll have to take a moment and think about what I was doing, who I was hanging around with, and maybe the song will jog a memory and I’ll understand why I did these things. I’ve been in such a state of produce, produce, produce. I sometimes don’t take the time to think about why I did certain things, and I’ll just think about the whole instead of the particulars. So I feel like I’ve been in a place of making things and not stepping back and looking at the intricacies.

I was talking about this with somebody yesterday, but back in the day, I was just writing songs because it was cool (laughter). It was cool to just, at the end of the day, be in my room. I would be on some meditation shit. I didn’t understand what meditation was outside of some pop culture, vague Asian thing back then—I’d never been to a yoga class—but there was this idea of being very still.

Going back to the church thing—there were states that people would put themselves in. There’d be all-night prayers, people praying for hours and being worshipful in particular ways, bringing themselves into emotional states through chanting. Writing songs became my way to access or mirror that, but in my way. Back in the day, I’d turn the lights down low and loop up a beat for hours. I’d just be in my journal, writing for hours and hours. I was really taking joy in the discipline of it. I would make time to just be by myself so I could write, and I wasn’t even good yet! (laughter).

Do you remember the first time you wrote a song that you were really proud of, that felt distinctly you?

I do. It was titled “Ice Age,” and it was the first thing I recorded. My uncle was a DJ, and I knew that I wanted him to get on a beat, I wanted to get on a mic, and record it. So that was the very first thing.

Can you tell me about your uncle? I know he’s how you ended up getting weekend shows when you were 20. You had these other figures in your life at church, but then here’s your uncle showing you a different path.

He was a wild guy (laughter). Within my family, he’s the wildest one. Through him was an access point to the technology. He was a DJ, he was collecting vinyl, he had turntables. And he was interviewed by Marcus Moore when he was doing the De La Soul book [High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul (2024)]. My grandmother moved from the Bronx to Queens to Long Island, and he ran with an early [iteration of] De La Soul. I remember being down in that basement, breaking needles. And as I got older, he was always there. He had beats from record pools, so the very first time I heard J Dilla was at his house—the Players 12-inch (2000). I remember him not liking it and I said, “No, no, this is it. I’ve never heard anything like this before.” I really remember that, it was crazy—and then Jay Dee became what he became. So my uncle became this point of access to create all the music I heard in my head. I would go out there on weekends and hang out. His friends would come and play things, he’d DJ things, and he’d be like, “You wanna rap today?” I’d tape it, and I’d have something to listen to for the next couple weeks until I had something else to go in and record.

I know he was in Class A Felony and knew Rakim. Was he telling you stories all the time?

He had stories about music shit, street shit, and he was just a funny, jokey guy. I didn’t know of any other kids who could be like, “Yeah, my uncle has a record deal” and be telling the truth. He was with Mercury Records, and he’d be in the studio, come back home and be like, “Black Sheep left these lyrics, look at them—ha ha ha.” He didn’t really like Black Sheep (laughter). He was just a hater—they had the big hit while Class A Felony didn’t.

What was it like working with him again, as I know he’s on REVELATOR on “The World is Dog” and “CCTV,” as well as on We Buy Diabetic Test Strips (2023).

It felt important, and it still feels important—I have future plans to work with him. To this day, I think he’s one of the best DJ scratchers I know. He has really great timing and rhythm and I understand how he moves in this thing, so it’s a blessing to have him on those joints.

Earlier you were saying that you were too caught up in producing to reflect. You have projects, though, that are single-track collages, like BRB GOTTA GO CHARGE MY TOOTHBRUSH (2022) and INTERFERENCE PATTERN (2024). What’s your headspace like when focusing more on production than rapping? And has producing informed how you rap at all?

I start to pick up production when I’ve exhausted words and am not sure what to say anymore. I’ll go back to the music, the textures, the pitches, the frequencies. Oftentimes, this will trigger emotions, which will then trigger words. That’s how it usually works for me. With those records in particular, I was being indulgent in my interests in sound exploration. I love traditional rap and traditional rap production, but I’ve always wanted there to be room for more adventurous sounds, for a larger palette. It doesn’t just have to be breaks and soul records and gospel records. I’ve got all that—they’re wonderful tools—but what if we try this other thing? Let’s get a little unfamiliar, a little uncomfortable. The sample sources get pretty out there.

Is there something that your fans would be surprised to learn you’re a fan of that makes its way into your work? And this doesn’t have to be a direct sample or anything, but something more broad.

These days, it’s become less about going far out and more about this collage of a really far-out thing with something else I was raised with. I’ll put them together in a way where it’s like, what the fuck was that? That’s what I’m trying to get at now. Just last night, someone was like, “Yo, I heard that you’re favorite rock band is Swans.” That might’ve been a tweet that I had 10 years ago. This kid is probably like 20 years old, y’know what I’m saying? So I guess that was a shock, that a rapper enjoys Swans (laughs).

I think my parents were young enough when they had me that rap was the first music I really remember as a very young kid. They went to the church later, and stopped listening to a lot of secular things, but my first memories are riding around with my dad, listening to Whodini. Or being out at the Ave, in the Colosseum [Mall], and Rakim might be there. Or Video Music Box and seeing the “Follow the Leader” video. So hip-hop for me had these collages, and the collages I make reflect what I was raised on. I love the idea of pulling from sources that seem like they do not relate but realizing that they can.

There’s this book by Adrienne Maree Brown called Emergent Strategy (2017). My wife is a very smart person, and she’s friends with other very smart people and this is how I came to know about it. I understood the book through this idea of collage because that’s how I think it was put together: she’s relating disparate points to make something new. I remember when I was talking to [my wife] about it, we felt we gained new understanding just from that lens. I think collages are just creative problem solving. You’re putting things together that might not make sense, maybe out of desperation, maybe with a strategy, or maybe it’s all that you have.

ELUCID & Sebb Bash. Photo courtesy of Backwoodz Studioz.

Is there a song on the new album where there was this element of problem solving? Obviously you’re working with Sebb Bash and he’s handling the production. I’m thinking of a song like “Parental Advisory,” which isn’t super collage-y, but I like how your rapping changes on that song and it feels like a result of this hazy, slurred production.

The way that Sebb makes his beats is totally insane and collage-like—this combination of live instrumentation, DJ manipulation, and sampled bits. It’s 1000% hip-hop collage that way. Interesting choice with the song, “Parental Advisory,” as that’s the one that sticks out like a sore thumb—mostly because of the subject matter, but only in a particular way, in a corporal punishment way. In light of being a dad, I feel like I’m referencing my family and home life often on this record, and I think it’s tied into the last record because of how I’m talking about how I raised myself—I’m looking at how I was raised as I’m raising my own children, and how I want to improve on the design.

This is interesting because now I’m thinking of collage in terms of subject matter. You once said that your source of hope is your family and love. There’s this quote from Horace Andy where he said, “So much people seemed to think that protest songs and love songs should be kept separate, but they’re all part of how life is.” I feel this desire to mix all these things in your own music. Like on “Hands n Feet” where you talk about “mak[ing] revolution irresistible,” and there are songs where you talk about family but also politics—you mention Home Depot in relation to ICE, for example, on “Make Me Wise.”

You mentioned that line from Toni Cade Bambara, “The job of the writer is to make revolution irresistible.” I always loved that line. What also comes to mind is the Audre Lorde quote about the personal being political. The Horace Andy quote I didn’t know, but that lines up here, this idea of being political but also being about love. And for me, the place where I’ve been for the past 10 years is that this is unavoidable. If I’m going to tell the truth about the world, I have to tell the truth about myself, and that’s why my home life pops up here. I can’t deny it. Anything else would be an imaginary, not-true thing. Maybe that could be a lane for me, but at this juncture it’s not. Love is the underpinning for all this music—it’s about reflecting on how to be a better lover, a better partner, a better dad. As I’m looking at myself, I’m looking at the world. As I’m speaking to you, I’m looking back at myself. I need to be open to that sort of discourse.

The first line on “Cantata” was a pretty direct line—it’s not hyperbolic at all. “Let that baby suck your titty and leave me the fuck alone/When you need it I go get it then I be needing my own.” We were talking about putting yourself first, and that’s that kind of thing. The second kid arrived and this mom is feeding, and he’s comfortable with her—he rocks with me but he really rocks with mom. It’s like, you’re always with her, I don’t even get any time (laughter). I’m dad, mom’s inside with baby, and dad’s gotta go out, go shopping, fix this. And it’s like damn, I can’t get no time with wife, I can’t get no time for myself. That line was born out of complete frustration, and I was figuring out how to restructure life so I could find my own fulfillment in the midst of fulfilling others. It’s a funny one because I’ll do it live and people laugh out loud; I never expected that to happen.

What’s it like working with Sebb? You’ve had tracks with him in the past, like “Switchboard” and “Impasse,” but what’s it like to do a full project?

Yeah, we’ve had those collaborations in the past but I really wanted to do a full-length project. He has a really great ear as a producer and DJ and musician—he plays a bunch of things. It started off as a free-for-all—he sent me 50 beats—and I was learning about his songcraft, how he structured and arranged them, and then I had a chance to be in Switzerland with him and make music. I was really seeing the intricacies of how things are done, and it was cool to see that this online energy was able to translate into the real world. We made good shit.

He’s been in New York a couple of times and it turned out we had mutual friends. His really good friend Wali [Bilal] was someone I’d met because his daughter is in the same class as my son. Crazy. And Wali was Alchemist’s roommate when they were at NYU. There were all these connections. And once we got to Switzerland, it was super easy. There’s bonus tracks for the deluxe edition of I Guess U Had To Be There. We made a lot of music really quickly, and that became the 48 HRS EP. We were digging in the crates and playing with all sorts of weird synthesizers in Sebb’s studio. We were getting busy.

I wanted to ask about my favorite song on Mercy, which is “Dogeared.” I’m really moved by both your and billy woods’ verses.

woods had verse of the year for me.

Same, it’s amazing. But I really love your verse too and how contemplative it is. You’re thinking about “trading it all,” and there’s a hopefulness amidst everything. “We’re not talking impossible matters/it’s all chutes and ladders/the patterns never more apparent, glaring.” And then you land on this moment of reflection where you ask, “Who I’m is? Who I’m aren’t?” I like how all this lines up and could be about one’s personal relationships, but also revolutionary matters.

It’s all these things. It’s about trying to be a particular person and seeing my shortcomings and failures, even through this desire. I need to be honest and know that I am not this thing, and it maybe doesn’t feel good, but I am this other thing, and that’s something to work with. I’m trying to look at myself as a whole and not be afraid of what’s in the mirror, even if it’s not developed or just not there at all.

So then who are you not?

(laughs). Who am I not? I am not many things! But I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (laughter). See, that stuff pops out, but it fits.

It’s an interesting phrase because in one sense it’s this notion that you can have confidence because it’s beyond yourself, but there’s often this weird dynamic with Christianity where you have this God who can help you but you’ll also deflect blame that comes your way.

Oh yeah, it’s not my fault! (laughter). I was contending with that as a kid, and I still haven’t reckoned with it.

In talking about who you are and who you aren’t, I wanted to ask about the reception of your music from your fans. You’ve once mentioned that your fans are more drawn to the darker topics in your music. On Valley of Grace (2017), which is around the time you’re having your first kid, you have the song “Looking for All to Be Rendered” where you’re talking about slavery, among other things. “Cutting ties to trauma that ain’t mine/So I can thrive in the after,” but then you also say “Black joy matters.” I’m thinking about the way that Black artists, even really popular ones, might only have hits when there’s death and all these grim topics coming up.

The music industry exploits darker content and images, and you can get really conspiratorial about this. I’ve been in talks with people who say certain artists are out here promoting agendas that just reinforce all the worst and negative Black stereotypes—or maybe it’s just negative human stereotypes—and not things that promote harmony and balance. I knew this early on—there’s cultural and racial tourism for some fans and listeners, and that might come from a lack in their own lives. They seek art that can express things that they have not or will not experience, or things that they’re really turned on by for whatever reason. And for some fans, it’s the darker things I touch on, and I see this happening with other artists too. Like, you don’t have this in your life and it just entertains you. It feeds something in you.

All this just puts me on the path of being more transparent instead of writing for a particular effect or person. I was repulsed by it. I just wanted to do what’s real to me, and anything else is false posturing in the name of who knows what—for the enjoyment of people who don’t actually care. People really want headline news—someone dead, someone shot, they want Black death and Black trauma at all times, at any cost. When does it stop? When is the appetite ever satiated? Never. The desire to tell the truth about my surroundings and my world includes things like that, but that’s not the whole story, and that’s where shit gets twisted, when it gets presented as just that part.

Has something like this come up with reviews of your work?

With reviews, I wouldn’t say that’s really happened with me or Armand Hammer. If anything, early on there were just all these Cannibal Ox comparisons (laughter), which is weird because I wasn’t ever into them like that when they were out—I came to their thing much later on. But yeah, people seem to be careful with my work, but I’ve seen it with other people and it’s really not it.

Photo by Alexander Richter

Is there anything we didn’t talk about today that you think is important to mention?

I will say, this is the best talk I’ve had for this press run. Thank you for talking to me. You’re a really good conversationalist and a great writer. I follow you on Twitter—I have a burner account—and I see things you say and do. I was surprised when they were like, “Joshua wants to talk with you.” I was like, “Oh, I’ve read this person.” So thank you.

I have a question I end all my interviews with and I wanted to ask it to you. Do you mind sharing one thing you love about yourself?

I wasn’t always this way, but I’ve grown to be a very curious person. I have new ideas and experiences and I love that about this current version of myself.

You weren’t like that when you were younger?

I was an obedient child. I was able to rebel in my ways, but in general I was pretty contained and not very curious about other people and experiences. I grew into that and now it’s on another level because I’m older. They’ll say I shouldn’t do this because I’m in my 40s, but actually no, I don’t give a fuck about that. Curiosity is even more important as I’ve gotten older—it’s important to never lose it because it’s easier to get rigid and fearful about the world when you get older. That’s not how I want to live my life as a 45-year-old man.

When do you feel like this started to happen?

When I was 18 or 19, there was this group of friends I was with who were not from New York. And it was the very first time I’d been with friends who were honest with how I showed up. Friends and romantic relationships are the greatest mirrors for myself, to see how I be. I may think I’m this thing, but then I’m showing up in your life and I’m this other thing. I’ll realize like, oh, I was really shitty. So this group of friends were like, “Why are you talking like that? Why are you so judgmental? Why don’t you listen to what that person is saying?” So getting that sort of honest feedback, at the time I was like, “Shut the fuck up, what are you talking about.” But if that happens again and again and again, it’s like… maybe it’s something I should actually pay attention to. That was a slow process, of seeing how I am. I strive for this honesty.

ELUCID’s new album with Sebb Bash, I Guess U Had To Be There, is out now. ELUCID is currently on tour with billy woods as Armand Hammer throughout 2026. Dates can be found at their website.

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ELUCID’s Picks

The following list includes works that ELUCID read during the creation of I Guess U Had To Be There. The list is presented in the order he sent it.

• Venita Blackburn’s Black Jesus and Other Superheroes: Stories (University of Nebraska Press, 2017)

• Rivers Solomon’s Model Home (MCD, 2024)

• Amiri Baraka’s Black Music (William Morrow and Company, 1967)

• Terence McKenna’s Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge (Bantam Books, 1992)

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Photo by Miles Kalchik

Thank you for reading the 212th issue of Tone Glow. Talk disruptive for me.

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