How Sixbill recorded Pure Lust with Pz’, diamond*, and Chuckyy

The best Sixbill songs are plush and magnetic, animated by his undulating flow. Sixbill grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, though he also spent a solid portion of his teenage years in Florida. Those geographies seem crucial to understanding the mix of fluid raps and hard-hitting instrumentals on his latest album Pure Lust. While the sonic palette might scan as typical post-rage fare, producers including Luc1us, Sicko1of1, and CXSKET lace Sixbill with a suite of enveloping beats carefully studded with ear candy just so.

The warped ambient textures of “SEVRAGE;” the trilling arpeggios of “ALL FOR IT;” and the roiling, distorted bass of “BAMBIE” have an undeniable immediacy. And while Sixbill’s raps focus on the hedonist spoils of a predictably exorbitant lifestyle, his melodic intonations mix perfectly with his ear for expansive, mood-setting instrumentals.

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This is effortless music for parties and clubs, but it still retains enough stylistic depth to reward repeat listening. That helps to explain why Sixbill earned a spot on the lineup for Rolling Loud earlier this year off the strength of last summer’s debut LIVE LAUGH COUNT. Followup Pure Lust ups the ante across the board: bigger beats, bigger features, and some seriously locked in raps from Sixbill himself, the sort that left his producers asking, “when did you start rapping like this?”

The FADER caught up with Sixbill over email to chat about the most memorable stories from recording Pure Lust, from the song that took him the longest to finish to collaborating with Chuckyy and Pz’.

Sixbill: This beat is so crazy. I made this right before I went to Paris. My producer sent the beat to me, and I woke up to it on my phone at 11:00am and I automatically knew it was one of them ones. If I hear a good beat, I will stop what I’m doing and go straight to the studio. I have to get it out. Every bar I spit on this one, I'm like, “damn, this shit is hard.” The first line of a song is very, very important to me: I’m in a G5 in the air, this an expensive hotbox. Which is just a really cool way of saying I’m smoking weed on a private jet. I like to manifest.

I had texted diamond* shortly after he dropped “bada bing bada boom” with Tezzus. From there, we met up at Luc1us’ crib, talked for 5 minutes and then got straight to it right off the rip. This was the first song we made together at Luc1us’ crib in LA. We made 2 songs that night, the other one’s crazy too. White hoe got me pourin up in the Venti cup –– that’s a bar! That is so hard. We made this song super quick – Luc1us and Enzo were like, “when did you start rapping like this?” We just clicked right away.

We made this shit at a party in Hollywood. It was a party at a studio and upstairs, Pz’ was just locked in – I think he made 10 songs that night. I was downstairs, just having a good time and when I went up there, he played a beat and he laid down the hook and then I just went in over it, and then went back down to party and I don't remember what happened after. This was also the first song me and Pz’ ever made together – we’ve made a few more since.

This is also the first song I made with Chuckyy. He had told one of my friends that he wanted to lock in, so I pulled up to the studio in NY and we knocked this out. My boy Chris Jack, that's my youngin, he played the beat, told me to start it and I got Chuckyy on his third AutoTune song ever. I’ve been a fan of Chuckyy for a minute, even before Durk signed him – my boy put me on a minute ago. The fact that I got a song with him now is so cool cause that’s my boy, we are really friends in real life. Everytime he plays some unreleased shit around me, he looks back cause he knows I’m about to ask for it!

This was the first one that I put out with my boy Sicko. It’s almost at 100k plays on SoundCloud – a lot of people really like that song. This is the one that got me back on people’s radar again, just off the SoundCloud success so I had to include that on the album. At least I’m not back home on my sad shit. On God.

I was forcing myself to finish this song; the beat is just so crazy. This one was a challenge ‘cause I wanted to rap my ass off over this beat. I don’t write down lyrics so I just kept punching in to get it right and do the beat justice. And I really do think that I came in and did my thing on it in the end. I was in the same studio in NY recording this one and had a couple friends over, being really sleepy and I was like, “fuck that, I’m gonna stay up and get this right.” It made the album last minute – I already had the album ready and I just knew I had to add this.