Yo-yo wassup Weswill wanted to start by saying thank you for coming on and interviewing with Nefarious Supply! So to get the interview started tell us about yourself who is WesWill?
What’s up! Thank you guys for sharing your platform and allowing me to tell my story to your audience. I’m very appreciative! It’s funny because whenever I get this question, I always give different variations of the same answer. I’m Wesley Williams, a.k.a WesWill. I am a 25-year-old singer/rapper/producer born in Cleveland Heights, OH and I have a vast interest in music documentaries, Du-rags, black art, and Soul music. I’m a musician but i’m also a college graduate and the middle child of my family.
Where are you from and how has this area influenced you, your sound, and your aesthetic?
My bad, I let the cat out of the bag in my first answer haha. I’m from Cleveland! The area influenced me due to the fact that there are so many talented acts that hail from my city and state. The obvious one being Bone Thugs N Harmony, however, there are a good amount of instrumentalists and soul singers that come from Cleveland as well! The area I grew up in is filled with hard-working, prideful people. Growing up in this city and living amongst so many different individuals from differing backgrounds than my own has helped me gain a greater appreciation for multiple genres. I might have one friend down the street that’s into rock music, then have another friend up the street that puts me on to some fire gospel music. Cleveland Heights is cool like that. All those different sounds I was getting exposed to aid me in the creation of my own style.
What got you into making music and how has your experience been so far as an underground artist making a name for yourself?
Even from a young age, I knew music was going to be my passion. My mom paid for piano, drum and guitar lessons. Plus, she put me in the church choir. She would play 70’s/80’s R&B, Soul and funk music when I would ride in the car with her. The older I got, the more I discovered different artists and genres of music on my own. Listening to these artists inspired me to write and record my own music around the age of 14. My first recordings are pretty wack like most rappers’ first recordings are.
However, I kept working at it and practicing my singing, rapping, and overall song making ability until I got comfortable enough to begin putting out songs. Ever since then, I’ve been releasing music and performing consistently. My experience as an underground artist has been an emotional rollercoaster with a lot more ups than downs. It’s so easy to get sucked into what others are doing and how much further along they are than you. This can ultimately lead to you getting discouraged about your own career trajectory. However, I have an amazing team and family that helps me stay level headed and on track. Overall, This journey has been great so far and I’m meeting some amazing people while traveling the states! World traveling coming soon, just wait on it.
Who are some of your biggest influences, and how have they influenced you?
Some of my biggest influences are Curtis Mayfield, Mos Def, Angela Winbush, DJ Quik, Missy Elliot, Jamie Foxx, Andre 3000, Terrace Martin, Kid Cudi and Brandy. Every single one of these artists influenced me, and continue to influence me because they are so unique and have their own sound. When you hear Andre 3000 rap, you know it’s him. You don’t have to guess, you just know. The same applies to the other artists I named. I pride myself on releasing music that nobody can exactly replicate. My sound pulls from multiple influences but the overall sound I came up with is mine and you can only get it from me.
What’s your favorite thing about being an artist, and why?
My favorite thing about being an artist is possessing the ability to relate to so many different people through my art! It’s such a great feeling when someone comes up to me and says “This song you made really helped me through a breakup.” Or when someone tweets me about how my music encapsulates a special time in their life. It’s like, wow, my words and voice are actually touching people in a real way.
Okay so let's talk about your music man, I gotta say you know what you’re doing in the studio man everything is nothing but heat. So tell us about your creative style and process, and how do you know you have something you’re happy to share with your fans?
Thank you, man! I appreciate that so much. With my process, I usually start out indulging in music that supports whatever mood I’m in during the early planning stages of a body of work. After that, I channel that inspiration and let it bleed through in my production. My production is spearheaded by Hype Alexander and myself. We collaborate and send drums, melodies, and ideas back and forth. We also set aside time to link up in different cities to work on the sound in person. I pull production from a couple of other producers (Kito, Antoine Christopher) as well.
After I feel like I have a substantial amount of beats done and under my belt, I start writing. Sometimes I write during the beat collection process as well. I make sure I study my influences for inspiration on song structure, new cadences, and rhyme schemes. When I start recording for a project, i’m really locked in on executing my vision for it. Late-night recording sessions, intense writing sessions at the crib, laying verses and then deleting them when I feel like I could deliver my lyrics with more diction and feeling. Once I flush out the meat and potatoes of the song, I go over them to see which ones could use a feature or another voice. I reach out to whoever I feel fits and then I bring them into work on said song.
When I get all the features done, I sit down with the squad and do the process of elimination to see which songs make the cut. From there, we go into the mixing phase (the part that gives me the most headache!). I lock in with Antoine Christopher (my engineer) and I explain to him how I want the mixes to sound and all that. Once we get through grueling mixing sessions, which consist of long nights in the studio running from the car and back to the studio to check mixes, I usually bring in DjTouchMoney (engineer and producer) to oversee everything and help us put the finishing touches on the songs. We usually ride around to the music and live with it before I make the final decision that it’s ready to be put out. If it’s jamming on all mediums (headphones, car, Bluetooth speakers, monitors) we know it’s ready to be mastered and then ultimately completed. It’s a long process but when I see the reaction from my fans and friends, I know that those late-night sessions were worth it!
So you’ve worked with a ton of talent including, Qdajuice, Carolyn Fuentes, Big Rube, Brandon Wild, Sam, Nathaniel Lee, and Jill Grace. How did you link with each of them and how was the studio experience working with a variety of different artists?
Yes yes, I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with such amazing artists! Most of these individuals are my friends that I have known for years. My best friend is Brandon Wild and we’ve been through so much together. Plus, we were in a rap group in high school so the chemistry is off the charts. His mom is like my second mom and all that. Everybody that I work with has a special talent that helps elevate the tracks and take them to the next level. More importantly than their talents, I appreciate their dedication and willingness to do what it takes to make sure my vision comes to fruition exactly how I want it. They’ll ask for my opinion on their part of the song and let me know how important it is that i’m satisfied with their contribution. There’s a certain magic that I feel in the studio when I work with these artists. I love and appreciate them more than words can ever explain. S/O to my homegirl JuJu who does a lot of my background vocals!
My favorite body of work from you gotta be “Summertime Slaps, Volume 1” walk us through the EP, and what’s your favorite track on it?
Thank you! So the concept for the Summertime Slaps series is basically me taking my favorite summer songs and creating my own version of them. So each track was inspired by a song that I have made a memory to in a past summer. “Cutlass” was inspired by “Swangin” by Stalley, “Over You” was inspired by “Let’s Get Blown” by Snoop Dogg. I wanted to create a body of work that people could create their own summer memories. The overall project was heavily inspired by Southern and West Coast Hip-Hop classics like “Doggystyle”, “Yellow Album” and “Ridin Dirty” just to name a few. From the skits to the intro, to the sounds used in a lot of the beats, I wanted to create a work that would sound refreshing and unique but still nostalgic. My favorite track is “Cutlass”. I love that hook so much and it’s such a fun record to perform live! If a perfect summer day had a soundtrack, i’d put that song on it.
In addition to “Summertime Slaps, Volume 1”, tell us about GlassHouse 2?
Mannnnnnn! It’s hard to listen to that project sometimes because I know there are so many things I could have done better on it. The mixing, my singing, my rapping. I cringe listening to some of those tracks haha. I still love it though. That was the first project I put out after I graduated from college. I hadn’t put out a project in a little while and I wanted to come back out swinging, you know? I didn’t want to drop something and hear people say “this is what you came up with after all that time of not releasing a tape?”. Nah, fuck that. I wanted to go all out and showcase my singing and rapping abilities, as well as, my overall song making skills.
So it’s a new year and a brand new decade, what are some of your goals this year and where do you see yourself at the end of the decade?
2020, we in this thang mane! Some of my goals this decade consist of;
Releasing music through my LLC. “The On My Way Company”,
Being able to live off of my talent and provide opportunities to up and coming artists from my city,
Go back to my high school and start a music business course because that would have been so useful to have when I was in school,
Drop my debut studio album,
Branch out into other forms of entrepreneurship (investments, other businesses),
Start a family,
Go on a worldwide tour,
Retire my mother.
At the end of the decade, I see myself still releasing music, not out of necessity but out of pure love and fun. I also see myself with my hands in tech and nurturing the new up and coming talent.
Who should we feature next on Nefarious Supply?
For the next feature, you should profile an artist by the name of “Shawn K”. He’s from Cleveland as well, even though I tease him that he’s really a Chicago boy (he’ll tell you why haha). He has such a unique sound and a cool story. I feel like he’d be a great interviewee!
Any last words?
To all the creatives who might be struggling/second-guessing themselves because of real-life problems or people projecting their insecurities on them….keep going! Block out the noise, tap into that talent, stay low and keep firing. You never know is paying attention and you never know when it’ll be time for your number to be called. Thank you guys so much for this interview and I wish you all continued success!
Big shoutout to Wes Will for coming on Nefarious Supply, be on the look out for him in 2020! If you enjoyed this interview with Weswill be sure to checkout his Soundcloud which can be found above, and to stay up to date with him follow him on Instagram as well as Twitter.
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