Dijon Interviews With Pitchfork
It sounds like you’re crying toward the end of the song. How real is that?
Oh it was real, because I was really exhausted. It was 7 in the morning. I was actually drunk. I was actually punishing myself, recording one take over and over and over so many times that some of the images in the song were becoming so true. I just got so sad, thinking, What if I were that person? That was also a eureka moment on the record: This is how I do it. If it’s not about me, even in my own limited understanding of the world, try to go there as deeply as you can, through whatever means—though I learned that I need to find more healthy means to do it. But I was trying to be as empathetic and compassionate as I could in a narrative that isn’t necessarily about me. I feel so comfortable performing that song so authentically, and it has nothing to do with anything specific in my life outside of a spiritual connection to it.
As far as how people have reacted to your music in the past, do you ever get tired of the fetishization of authenticity?
It’s grating after a while. With something like “Rodeo Clown,” the reaction is, “Oh, he’s so authentic,” or, “I’m so in my feels,” when the real reaction should probably be, “Hey, maybe this person is not doing well.”
It can feel like listeners are programmed to want to hear someone ruin themselves in a song.
That’s the big question: Why do people like songs like “Rodeo Clown”? I mean, I like shit like that. There’s a moment on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx where Ghostface comes in and he’s so drunk and slurring and fucked up—and I love it. And it’s so bad that I do. “Rodeo Clown” is both trying to be that but also recognizing that there’s something deeply flawed about it.
If you could work with any superstar, who would it be? Let’s manifest this.
This is fucked, but there’s a part of me that always really wanted to produce an Eminem record. I remember hearing The Marshall Mathers LP when I was 8 and being mortified. I was so scared. It was the performance of “Kim.” I didn’t know that you could be that bad.
What would your version of an Eminem record sound like?
It would just be dirty. Potential drum-less in some parts. And it would be slow—I would really implore him to stop rapping so fast. I’d probably double track him a little bit more, I love how he used to do that, it was terrific engineering. I also just want to know what he’s thinking about. He’s still rapping about rapping, which is really insane to me. What does he think about?
But I would also fucking lose my mind to even just sit in a room and work with Feist. I love her music so much. Or Shania Twain. My dream project is just to try to make something singular.
How do you feel about the jackpot nature of streaming success at this point, having lived through a version of it?
I’m lucky and grateful to be making music, but with that gratitude comes a responsibility: You have to try your best to see the things that are lacking and push them. I see so many of my peers get lucky, like me, and suddenly you don’t challenge yourself anymore. You don’t want to. You find a groove and expand it, which is great, but it’s quite isolating. You gotta go ass-out. I don’t know any other way to put it.
That’s why I’m so hard on myself, because I know I have to dig in. I know where I’m at and I know where I think it could be. I always tell people, “Give me five years, I guarantee it will be batshit.” The ultimate ambition is making your Laughing Stock, your Kid A, your Voodoo. A complete new language. For me, unfortunately, the only way to do that is in real time, where you see it happening. I don’t know if it’s my next album or it might be three albums on, but eventually there will be a new entry point into music, because there has to be. This will change it, I guarantee it. But it takes time! And it takes you bumping your head.
