The Tales From The Old Dominion is a reference to your home state of Virginia, why did you choose this title for the record?

The Old Dominion is an old nickname for Virginia, so its just to tie it back to the old times with like Folk and Blues so it’s like we’re going back to the source because anything we’re listening to now is derived from one of those things in one way or another.

Virginia is located sort of in between the North East Coast and south, does it feel this way culturally & musically?

It’s definitely a mix of the East coast & the South but I think it’s the beginning of the South. Depending on who you talk to it depends on where the line is but Virginia was the old capital of the Confederacy. As far as culturally with the cooking and even the vernacular, Virginia has its own place within the south, and obviously there are different pockets within the south with their own cultures too. 

Are there any UK artists you’re feeling? 

Oh yeah definitely, stuff like Touching Bass and Yousif and all them cats, and Jamiroquai is a huge one for sure. That album “Synkronized” was my go to even in High School, this is before I even knew he was from overseas. 

You’ve got some great collaborations on this record from Nigel Hall & Billy Mercury, is there anyone you’ve not collaborated with who you’d love to?

Anderson .Paak, Joyce Wrice who I’ve done a joint collaboration with but not a proper one. Tyler the Creator, we talked and we’re laying down some groundwork to make that happen. A bunch of the Griselda guys, Freddie Gibbs. Nick Hakim, we have collaborated of Pink Siifus “Gumbo” but we’ve never done anything just together. But the list is just so long. 

If you could collaborate with anyone throughout history, who would it be?

I would say Jimi Hendrix, you look at where Blues was back in the 40s and then when the electric instruments came in and where Jimi took it and how he influenced funk and jazz artists. He’s one of my central inspirations for showing where the music from yesterday can go tomorrow.

You’ve made a handful of instrumental records and beat tapes, in terms of making these records are you sampling your own recordings or digging in crates?

It’s a little bit of everything, it’s not reliant so much from sampling pre-existing material so for the most part it’s me playing all the instruments myself, or me sampling recordings of myself. Sometimes it will just start with a 4×4 sample chop and other times it will just start with a drumbeat, it just depends where the spark from the idea comes from. 

Your first instrument was drums, do you still feel like a drummer or is there an instrument you feel most connected to?

 I still look at myself as a drummer but I’d say I’m more attached to drums, bass and keys as a whole equally because I’ve spent so much time now playing each instrument.

A lot of your earlier music has some of the trappings of the vaporwave scene, with psychedelic influences and short sound bite tracks, was this something you were conscious of at the time or did that scene pass you by?

I wouldn’t say I was around it but I was definitely exposed to it. But I’d say it’s more of a coincidence because when I came up I was listening to old records so that was just the fidelity I was used to. So when I first started as a kid I felt like that’s kinda how music had to sound, where sometimes it’s not the cleanness but it’s got its own character.

If I can ever go to Richmond – what am I eating?

Richmond is one of those places where there’s a lot of independent businesses in so far as clothes and food and nightlife where people are taking things and sorta remixing it. But if we’re talking about food, there’s a Jamaican spot called M&F Jamaican, the Jerk Chicken and the Pepper steak is life changing.