Denzel Curry just came through with one of the best rap albums of the year, ZUU. He recently sat down with Rob Markman for Genius' For The Record where he dug deep into the album's creation and discussed everything from his days with Raider Klan to Andre 3000's influence.
Before Denzel Curry established himself as a solo artist, he was the member of one of the most influential collectives of this generation. Raider Klan, which was led by Spaceghost Purpp, had a hell of a run in the underground until 2015. Raider Klan emerged at the beginning of the decade, post-Odd Future, pre-A$AP Mob, and Denzel Curry explained that if it wasn't for the Tyler, The Creator collective, they may have not known that they were capable of handling all of their creative needs in-house.
“We didn’t know we could do the majority of the shit we was doing, if it wasn’t for Odd Future Wolfgang Kill ‘Em All,” he said “Let’s take it back to Tyler 'cause Tyler was the main influence on my life before I even met Purpp. And when Purpp came out, they was calling Purpp Odd Future’s cosmic cousin. They was like, 'This is like Odd Future, but from the South.’”
Tyler also spoke on the influence Andre 300 had on him coming up. Denzel can't necessarily be categorized as an artist and much of that has to do with the impact Andre 3000 had on his music.
“He gave me the courage to do what I wanted to do. Me, I was like, thinking about what if people think I’m weird and stuff like that, or I’m copying,” he said. “That’s why I really see André as somebody that really inspires me. Nobody ever gave me that inspiration like that.”
Peep our exclusive interview with Denzel Curry here.
