Flying Lotus on BIG MAMA EP, AI, and his L.A. roots

Flying Lotus has always radiated a kind of cosmic cool.

The Los Angeles native shaped the L.A.’s beat scene with 2012’s Until The Quiet Comes and 2014’s industry breakout You’re Dead! Via his Brainfeeder label and longstanding collaborations with Thundercat and Kamasi Washington, he and his companions defined a resurgent style of West Coast musical spiritualism, using hypnotic samples, shaky floored drums and dexterous live musicianship to explore transcendence. Over time, Flying Lotus’s scene of tastemakers became quietly mainstream, with moments that cut through, like on the Kendrick Lamar-assisted cut “Never Catch Me.”

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Over the last 3 years, his musical releases somewhat slowed as he delved in the film world, directing the surrealist horror flick Kuso in 2017, and Aaron Paul-starring sci fi creeper ASH in 2024. A new generation of listeners may need to be reminded of the beatmaster’s centrality to the sound of contemporary hip hop and music writ large, though. Cue his forthcoming speed dash of an EP, BIG MAMA (released on March 6 on his own Brainfeeder label), announced today.

The 13-minute flurry of sounds is brief, but unbelievably dense, a musical thicket composed of tangled percussion and synth lines that wrap around the body. The project was impressively made without using any loops, a notable switch for an artist who built his career on loop-based acts of sonic hypnotism. “Every bar is unique. I wanted to make it feel unpredictable,” Flying Lotus says. “I made it very linearly and stitched it together, and then when it was done, I stopped working for a while. [I then realized] ‘Oh, well, that was it. That was what it was meant to be.’”

The FADER chatted with the prolific artist about balancing filmmaking and music, navigating the L.A. fires, and contending with AI as a student of sci-fi who’s also dedicated to human craftsmanship.

The FADER: You’ve spent the past few years really focused on your film work. How are you balancing film and music?

Flying Lotus: It’s hard to do both things. You still gotta pay bills, right? I actually have to carve out time from music to be able to do films because no one’s really paying me to make movies like that. So I have to do music and then I've earned some time to go make some movies.

Does music feel akin to your day job now?

It does, but that doesn’t mean my day job’s bad. I do try to treat it like that, at home working a nine-to-five to put in the hours. It’s also cool to set boundaries for my time so I can live a normal life like everybody else, have family and all that stuff. It’s a fun problem to have.

Does entering the film world remind you of your early days in music?

It’s all so different. By the time I’m at the end of a film, I’m so excited to work on music. Movies are so hard. You have to deal with a lot of people, make lots of compromises. With music, I don’t compromise. I don’t have to do any of that. By the time I can work on music, I’m so excited and ready to make tunes.

Making music is solitary and also quite spiritual too. It’s a way for me to let out some feelings and ask questions. Films are so specific. The story is more or less something that we can all agree on, whereas with music, your experience with it is different from another person’s experience. That’s the beauty of it.

Did you make this EP while in the midst of filming your film, ASH?

I finished my movie soundtrack and I was still super excited about making music, but I didn't want to continue doing what I had done for the film. I took a step back and actually learned some things that I kind of skipped. I studied some more audio engineering things and tried new processes in recording sounds and using granular synthesis: just things that I meant to do but I never really got around to doing. I carved out some time and went deep for a little bit, and then the result is this EP.

I’m struck by the EP’s brevity [it’s around 13 minutes long] and its sonic density. I read you worked on it in 15-second increments?

There’s no loops in this project. As a listener, after a certain amount of time, the stream-of-consciousness gets pretty exhausting, so I didn’t want it to go too long. I didn’t want it to be too short, but I also wanted to be honest with the creative burst that it was.

Were you thinking about anything in particular while you were creating this project?

I kept getting visuals of getting shot out of a cannon. I kept seeing that. I kept thinking about this cartoony attack on a city and eventually that was what the artwork became. This project was me wanting to do something that felt like pure fun. It was a release from having worked on a film that was so serious and such an undertaking in a different way. This was the reaction to that.

Like you mentioned, the album cover is a city. You're a lifelong Angeleno and still live there. It’s been a rough year for Los Angeles. How has it been for you there?

After the fires, I was really reconsidering if L.A. is where I want to post up for the rest of my life. It really just puts everything in perspective. It also made me think about what was truly important in my life, too, because there was a moment where it was like, “Alright, time to evacuate. What are you going to take with you?” I have a lot of stuff in my house, but like I only wanted to take a very small amount of things.

What did you grab?

I wanted to grab my Grammy. That’s dumb because I can get a replacement Grammy, but I wanted that and my photo albums from when I was a kid, photos with my grandma.

Are you going to stick around in Los Angeles after all?

I’m gonna stick around. I’m going down with the ship.

You’re Dead! always stands out to me as a breakout moment, and an enduring record. What do you remember about making that album.

I remember feeling like I wanted to prove that I could be more than a beatmaker and the guy who chops up records. I was like, “I’m a musician.” I wanted to flex and push as much as I can and to give it everything without compromise, without worrying about what people have to say about it. I wanted to make the most honest thing I could.

How did that pushing manifest itself?

I was trying to play and get other musicians that I really respected, like Herbie Hancock, Thundercat, Nikki Randa was on it, Snoop Dogg. I wanted to make an underground album, but the world was waiting to see what I was going to do. So I said, “Well, we’re gonna take the road less traveled.”

That moment when you and Kendrick were working together, and Kamasi Washington was coming out. It felt like a moment when critical and commercial interests were weirdly aligned. Do you recall that being true?

Yeah, the world was kind of open for this stuff. There was actually at a point where it was like, “Is this almost mainstream? Is it leaning that way?” It was a good time.

Are you personally nostalgic for that time?

Only when you talk about it. Doing press has definitely been reminding me of things. Journalists have been like, “Remember, this gig I saw you at LPR? I saw you at Lightning in a Bottle.” I was like, “What? Lightning in a Bottle? I forgot I even went there.”

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on AI. Your work is so connected to human craftsmanship, but you’re also someone who’s not afraid of the future and technology. Where is AI sitting in your creative mind?

I can definitely go doomer with it, but I like to think in a positive way. We don’t know exactly what genres will emerge from this. We don’t know what types of films and experiences that can be created with this stuff just yet. It’s still bubbling and I think people are finding their way. But my hope is that instead of trying to continue what we’ve been doing, we are going to create a new thing.

We don’t have it easy as musicians, we never have really. Once Napster came, it’s all been bad ever since. Is there a way for us to move forward and put ourselves in a better situation [as musicians]? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer, but I try to be hopeful and see that maybe we don’t know the good parts yet. We don’t know if there’s going to be some good parts from AI, but I hope that there will be.

Is there new art coming out that still excites you and blows your mind?

Yeah, dude. It’s my job to stay inspired and stay seeing, reading, and listening. I’ve been listening to some Stephen King audiobooks and loving it. There’s always going back. You can dig into the past and find some stuff that’s inspiring and bring it to today. Last year, I was listening to Marvin Gaye like he just came out. I’d never even heard the whole Let’s Get It On, and the deep cuts in that. And it was like, “Dude, this shit is crazy good.” It was awesome just to be able to have a rabbit hole to dig into.