Listening to the radio is a strange experience for Ty Dolla $ign. “To be real with you, whenever I’m around my friends and one of my songs comes on, I always say I don’t want to hear my shit,” the artist born Tyrone William Griffin Jr says. “I want to hear something new. If it’s not a newer song I’m working on that week I don’t want to hear it because I’ve probably performed it a million times.”
Unfortunately for Griffin, he probably changes the station more often than not. He’s become the go-to guest vocalist in hip-hop and R&B, surfacing on tracks from the biggest artists in music, from Kanye West and Big Sean to the bubblegum girl pop of Fifth Harmony and Zara Larsson.
“It wasn’t something that I planned on from the beginning, I guess it just happened naturally,” says Griffin, during a break from rehearsal sessions for his live show. He attributes his penchant for collaboration to the fact that he considers himself a musician first, producer second. “As a musician, you create and collaborate with everybody,” he says. “As a producer, you make songs for everybody. I do enjoy collaborating with people; that’s the best part of music. Everybody sings together at a concert and it should be the same thing in the studio. I’m not like one of those artists who are like, ‘Oh, it has to all be me.’”
It’s a quality that Griffin learned from his father, who was a member of the band Lakeside, best known for their 1980 hit Fantastic Voyage. Griffin’s interest in music has its roots in watching his father navigate the ins and outs of the business, having been introduced to production and performances at an early age. “Growing up, if Pops wasn’t into music and there were no instruments, I don’t know what I would have done,” he says. “I’d go to the studio with him or see his or his friend’s shows. I guess whatever you’re around is what you end up doing.”
From that early influence, Griffin learned to play bass, guitar, drums and keyboard as a teenager. Along the way, he developed a love for classic R&B, including bands like Earth, Wind and Fire. It’s a genre the rapper still has a soft spot for. “I think it’s taking back over,” he explains. “It’s been a long time. There was heavy R&B and then it got weak when all of the hip-hop shit took over. Now, Drake is on top, melodies are running the game and you have people like Bryson Tiller. It’s gradually coming, but I think in the next few years it’ll be some shit.”
Check out the rest of the interview via The Guardian.