Photo Credit: Weston Rich
Artists do not become great by remaining stagnant. The icons that just about every musician and aspiring star look up to elevated themselves by changing up their sound, look, and presence from one project to another. In the case of Milwaukee’s WebsterX, that first career transformation is just truly beginning, and you can hear it on his sophomore album, 1 Of 1, which is out today.
The album is the long-awaited follow up to 2017’s Daymares, a debut record that not only showed WebsterX to a much larger audience for the first time, but sonically was rooted in a dark place. 1 Of 1 has trace elements of that same version of WebsterX, but also reintroduces a much more outspoken, invigorated artist to the world. Album opener and recent single “8:08pm” acknowledges multiple personalities fighting with one another, and that theme finds ways into the narrative of the album.
In many ways, 1 Of 1 feels like the turning point in an internal battle for the rapper born Sam Ahmed. Nearly every song has references to late ‘90s and early ‘00s hip hop that WebsterX grew up on represent adolescence and the person we met on Daymares, while tracks like “Money I Got” and “Nappy $” display the next phase of his career, with money coming in and a swagger being developed. On the latter track, the hook proclaims “finally got some bread that I can blow / but what I’m gonna cop, I don’t know.” This version of WebsterX is still figuring it out, but headed into the future with a newfound confidence, and some cash to boot.
In reality, WebsterX has been this newer version of himself for some time. Recording of 1 Of 1 was completed in 2019, with multiple trips to Los Angeles to link up with featured artists like producer Nate Fox and Milwaukee ex-pat Grace Weber. The original 2020 release date was scrapped due to the pandemic, and then WebsterX’s involvement with events like the Black Is Beautiful bike rides and political activism, themes that also appear on the record. Plenty of music went into the development of the album, with much of it likely not seeing the light of day any time soon.
|
|
“To make the album took about a year, but to put it out took about two and a half years” explained WebsterX. “It’s such a process with me when I make a project. I have to make sure I’m going in depth, and also the dope thing about this album is that it’s the body of work that I’ve overthought the least. I literally just made like 60 or 70 songs over the course of that year, and then we decided to compress it and make it into a thing and choose the best ones.”
Embracing the atmosphere of Los Angeles was important, but equally important was learning from his collaborators, which would end up refining the music that would ultimately comprise the release. In addition to travelling, WebsterX was part of Gener8tor Music’s initial accelerator class, and had the opportunity to connect with industry professionals to help develop his career.
“There were just certain people that I ended up made natural friendly connections with” said WebsterX. “I was very much like ‘I need to go make music with these people.’ It just made more sense to make more music on top of what I had already created. I started finishing a lot of music with that.”
WebsterX’s personality became a connecting point in California, but it also helps to have a wide body of influences. That array of musical taste seeped its way into the creation of the album, making for a truly unique style. Things get more experimental as the album progresses, while staying unified.
“There is a zone it’s in. It has a spine to it, and the spine is just me being myself on every song” said WebsterX. “It’s multi-genre as hell. There’s indie rock, there’s punk songs, just straight rap on there. I just hit everything that I possibly could without overthinking it. One day I wanted to make a punk song, one day I wanted to make indie, or I wanted to rap my ass off, or sing on a few of them.”
As for next steps for the newly evolved WebsterX, an album release activation was held at Maranta Plant Shop on Thursday night with a second release party at Electric Lime Taqueria planned for Friday. Live shows are in the works, with other developments happening behind the scenes, but there are certainly big things on the horizon. WebsterX is realizing his potential as an artist, and this album gives you the first glimpses of what could be a total evolution.
