Author’s Note: I totally pulled a Kanye with this interview; leading up to it, I could not make up my mind on what I wanted to ask. Originally, streetlights was gonna be moving this weekend, and the way he was procrastinating this made it look like it wouldn’t get finished, but in the end, that didn’t happen, and he came through. Without further ado, enjoy a look into streetlights’ inner workings, as discovered by me, sosad2112.

sosad2112: Let’s begin with a simple speed round of random questions. First, how old were you when you last went trick or treating?

streetlights: Honestly, I can’t even remember; maybe eight or nine? My family has always been pretty religious and anti-Halloween. Might go this year though and dress up as 808’s-era Kanye West.

sosad2112: Who’s your favorite football team?

streetlights: As far as professional teams go, I love the Green Bay Packers. As for colleges, I’ve always loved Virginia Tech.

sosad2112: Per your request, I'd like to ask, “How do you pronounce your last name?”

streetlights: Like “Friday.”

sosad2112: Wow, okay. That was actually worth it; I was not expecting that. Moving on, have you ever been admitted to the hospital?

streetlights: Yeah, when I was born. I also had an operation on my tear ducts soon after I was born because they were blocked or something.

sosad2112: Have you ever been famous?

streetlights: My only semi-famous moment is when I was interviewed by Rolling Stone. Kanye would probably say he made me famous.

sosad2112: Ah, Kanye: your favorite subject. This is a good place to begin giving more expanded answers. Now, what is it that got you into Kanye?

streetlights: First off, for the first 8 years of my life I was completely oblivious to hip-hop - I had no clue it even existed! I was born in Roanoke, Virginia and lived in the small town of Troutville (its highest population in the past 20 years was 519) where there wasn’t much to listen to outside of bluegrass, some mainstream country, and gospel hymns. I didn’t know anything about hip-hop until I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. When I was in third grade, my mom signed me up for an after-school program ran by Dell Curry (a.k.a. Stephen Curry’s dad - I’m pretty sure I met Stephen some time while I was there but it’s been a while…) They had this bus that they sent to my school to pick up all the kids who went to the program and they’d typically play the radio - usually a hip-hop station. Some of the first songs I remember hearing are Nelly’s “Hot In Herre,” Missy Elliott’s “Work It,” 50 Cent’s “In Da Club,” and Chingy’s “Right Thurr” - all of these are still classics.

sosad2112: Oh, so you heard Kanye through Curry’s program.

streetlights: I’m not 100% sure if it was at Curry’s program, but his program definitely introduced me to hip-hop. The first Kanye song I remember hearing was “Slow Jamz” - it wasn’t a Kanye song at the time, but was re-released under Kanye’s name on his The College Dropout album. Then, I heard “Through the Wire” and DAMN I was sold. His style, his vocals, his ability to make sounding different (since gangsta rap was very popular at the time) seem so effortless - just everything he did was remarkable to me. One thing that really stood out to me was his production. I would always wonder why he had these strange pitched up vocals scattered throughout his tracks - that was until I learned about sampling. When I learned that you could take a song, speed it up, chop up several parts and create a completely new composition, a young streetlights’ mind was blown. Ever since then he’s continued to be innovative. Whether he’s behind the boards or he’s working with the all-star lineup he curates, he’s always going the extra mile to create next level sounds that end up serving as an inspiration to everyone else in music. Even though I don’t always agree with everything he says, the fact that he’s been a major key in advancing culture for so long is why I love him so much.

sosad2112: That’s interesting, seeing as how your favorite album by him, 808’s & Heartbreak, isn’t much like that. What is it about that album that makes it your favorite?

streetlights: 808’s is my favorite album more for its connections with my personal life than on a technical level. I don’t really want to get into too much detail, but most of the tracks, especially “Street Lights” really speak to me. You know how you’ll find this one album in your life that makes you feel like the artist is speaking directly to you? That’s 808’s to me. Aside from personal significance, I feel like it’s Ye’s most heartfelt album. He recorded it in just a few weeks (meaning he didn’t go back and change much) and sang even though he’s said he can’t sing - this just adds to the raw emotion found in the lyrics. 808’s also made it okay to be emotional in hip-hop. Sure, there were heavily emotional hip-hop records prior to 808’s, but none could compare in impact.

sosad2112: Kanye has created many collaborations as a feature in the past. There’s: “Slow Jamz” by Twista (feat. Jamie Foxx) “American Boy” by Estelle “Put On” by Young Jeezy “I Wish You Would” by DJ Khaled (feat. Rick Ross) “Birthday Song” by 2 Chainz “SMUCKERS” by Tyler, the Creator (feat. Lil Wayne) What is the Kanye collaboration you want that has yet to happen? Why?

streetlights: I think the obvious answer here is Kanye ft. me; it’d be a dream to work with Kanye and just learn from him. Other than me, however, I’d love to see him repair his relationship with Taylor Swift and collaborate with her. Yeah, it’s probably never gonna happen, but they’re both phenomenal artists, and Ye always brings the best out of anyone he works with.

sosad2112: Ooh, speaking about personal work: There has been discussion of you having a music project in the making. Can you tell us anything about that yet, and will it be using any work currently found on your SoundCloud?

streetlights: People hustle every day for a beat I made. What I do? Turn around, gave them beats to Ye.

sosad2112: streetlights, they probably need to make a Six Degrees of Kanye West game just for you because everything you say comes back to idolizing Kanye, almost as much as he idolizes himself. Do Kanye’s autotheistic comments bother you?

streetlights: I don’t have any problem with Kanye’s comments, and if anybody does, they should check out his interview with Zane Lowe.

sosad2112: That reminds me; you mentioned that you grew up in a religious family earlier. Has that affected your life in any way for better or worse?

streetlights: I think it gave me a positive outlook on religion in general. A lot of people write off different religions just because they seem far-fetched, but there’s a lot more to believing in God - it’s something that gives people hope and strength in times of need. Before my father went on dialysis five years ago, he had kind of distanced himself from religion. He had lost all hope and seemed miserable all the time. Then around a year and a half ago he started going to church and started to have more of a hopeful outlook on his condition and life in general. When he passed away late last year, the first person who came to the hospital to see my mother, brother, and I was the minister at his church - he dropped everything immediately when he heard about it and came to support us. I think that’s another part of it. Being a part of a church, a community that constantly supports one another, has to be uplifting for a person.

sosad2112: Damn… That’s some heavy stuff. Not to detract from the gravity of what you just said but on a related note: You definitely display great respect for others’ beliefs in everything you say and do. Do you currently identify with any religious alignment?

streetlights: Even though I still think religion in general is pretty hard to believe, if I identified with any religious alignment it would be Christianity solely because of the beliefs my family.

sosad2112: Let’s take a moment to look back on everything you’ve seen happen at Genius: You’ve reached the number one annotator position on Kanye West. You’ve top five in overall IQ ranking on Genius. You’ve freed yourself from E****m and his being on your Top Accomplishments. You’ve helped usher in an entirely new generation of editors and moderators. You were made staff with ScopeY and Tyrant. You played a pivotal role in the joining of Spotify and Genius. How does it feel to look back and reflect on being a part of all of this?

streetlights: It’s astounding to see how far Genius has come in the past few years - seeing it grow from such a small project into a site with 1.7 million lyrics and fantastic annotations that bring out the meaning behind those lyrics is impressive to say the least. I’m really proud to be a part of such a major cultural phenomenon.

sosad2112: Is there one unlisted moment from all of this that you want to share with us?

streetlights: My favorite moments were both internships that I participated in. Meeting, working with, and most importantly, hanging out with countless users was a really unforgettable experience.

sosad2112: I assume Tyrant is probably one of the users you met, and this brings me to a very important question: Long ago, in the old days of Genius, you once had a beef with Tyrant over who was better: Drake or Pusha T. You firmly stood by Drake while your fellow staffer supported Pusha T; this beef even managed to spawn two memes: Druke and Pover T. In an effort to restart what had been laid to rest for so long, tell us, as the current #1 Drake annotator and #3 Pusha T annotator, what makes Drake better than Pusha T?

streetlights: What makes Drake better than Pusha T? Absolutely nothing. Pusha T is better on many levels - from flows to lyrical content to overall cohesiveness in his albums. On top of that, he’s much more diverse: Drake sounds pretty lame whenever he raps on anything that doesn’t sound soft, yet Push can pull off anything, from “Grindin” to “New God Flow” to “Burial.” The Druke/Pover T beef was really more of a joke than anything. Tyrant absolutely hated Drake (EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE RARE PICS OF HIM WEARING AN OVO SHIRT) and I didn’t really have a preference at the time, but he needed someone to beef with, right? Otherwise he wouldn’t be Tyrant.

sosad2112: You also have another quasi-beef with rapper E****m, to my understanding. In your book, he has a greatly marred reputation due to the many things he has said and done in his music and publically. Could you explain to us where your dislike for him and hatred for his music comes from?

streetlights: His “shock value” lyrics are disgusting. He’s made light of everything from pedophilia to rape to child molestation to misogyny to transphobia to homophobia... Like… The list goes on and on - he crosses the line way too many times and I can’t understand why anybody would actively listen to his music. Even though he’s probably not serious about what he puts in his lyrics, the fact that he thinks it’s okay to say the most disgusting things under the guise of “creativity” is a disgrace to the art of music. Aside from his shock value lyrics, his “inspirational” songs are always corny as fuck and don’t seem authentic considering the lyrics in his entire body of work. I’m also not a fan of the way he raps - his voice makes me cringe and rapping fast doesn’t equate to rapping well.

sosad2112: Well, that surely answers the questions of many. An intellectual answer like that deserves another. On the note of white rappers, Macklemore has recently released his Sophomore effort Unruly Mess I’ve Made on which the opening track is “Light Tunnels,” a track that talks about the Grammy Awards and their being overblown in reputation. Additionally, the Academy Awards occurred last night to see no nominations for black actors or actresses in the four main categories regarding acting for the second year in a row. Would you say that the reputation these awards hold are overblown and/or sensationalized beyond what they’re really worth?

streetlights: First off, I’ve never really cared about the Grammys nor the Oscars. The idea of a panel of judges voting for a certain song/album with no justification (at least no justification given to the public) is really weird to me. Specific to the Grammys, it’s outrageous that only TWO hip-hop albums have won album of the year, considering the fact that hip-hop has become one of, if not the most influential genre of the past few decades. That just shows a lack of well-roundedness in whoever submits votes. Same thing goes for the Oscars with their lack of representation of non-white actors. 6.4% of nominations for acting awards in Oscars history have went to non-white actors. Only 18 of the 450 people in the Academy’s executive branch are non-white. Is there correlation here? Probably Definitely. Even though neither award shows really matter to me, they do carry significance. If you have a headlining event it’s going to get views, regardless of whether it recognizes talent or not. Maybe, I actually would care about them if they would just take off their blinders and recognize the artists who have been creating iconic works of art.

sosad2112: I don’t think I could’ve said it better myself. With that, we have two sets of questions left, and one in particular is meant to end the interview, so for now, let’s talk education: a widely overlooked forum and something I understand you don’t have as much of as you could. You’ve told me you’re not in college anymore. Did you get any degrees?

streetlights: I have an associates degree but nothing more.

sosad2112: Do you regret not getting degrees higher than that?

streetlights: My desired career paths don’t really align with most college majors, and college is way too expensive to go to for no reason.

sosad2112: As one of the greatest college dropouts ever, did Kanye inspire you to leave in any way at all?

streetlights: I wouldn’t say Kanye inspired me to leave, but he’s most definitely a prime example of a person who left school and still succeeded in life due to a hard work ethic. I’m more inspired by that than him actually dropping out.

sosad2112: Finally, as to end this interview the only way a streetlights interview should end, we have one last Kanye question: Describe, in extensive detail, what exactly would happen if Sway had the answers.

streelights: For one to accurately predict an outcome in which Sway has the answers, one must first define what an answer is. Merriam-Webster has multiple definitions for ‘answer’ - it could be a correct response (which Sway does not have,) a solution to a problem (which Sway also does not have) or something spoken or written in reply to a question (which Sway does have.) Sway always had the answers - they’re just the wrong answers.