Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. Collaborator Zacari Talks New Song “LOVE.” and More
Tonight, Kendrick Lamar is scheduled to release his highly anticipated new album DAMN. (via Aftermath/Interscope/Top Dawg). Earlier this week, he revealed that the follow-up to 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly and last year’s untitled unmastered. would have two featured guests, Rihanna and U2. But yesterday, the iTunes preorder page for the album began displaying a third feature: Zacari, on a track titled “LOVE.” Originally from Bakersfield, California, the now-Los Angeles-based singer and multi-instrumentalist has previously appeared on two other tracks with TDE artists, Isaiah Rashad’s Kendrick-featuring “Wat’s Wrong,” off last year’s The Sun’s Tirade, and Ab-Soul’s “RAW (backwards),” from his late-2016 Do What Thou Wilt. Before signing on to be managed by TDE’s Moosa Tiffith, Zacari already had a prolific presence on SoundCloud, where his 2015 track “Foggy Windows” has more than 500,000 plays.
Earlier today, Pitchfork called Zacari at his North Hollywood apartment. He discussed how “LOVE.” is “a whole new genre,” being discovered at first as a saxophone player, unknowingly appearing in The New York Times, and his upcoming as-yet-untitled album.
How did you hook up with Kendrick and TDE in the first place?
It was all Moosa at that point. I was with my friend [producer] J-Louis. He does a lot of my music. He’s Bryson [Tiller]’s DJ and he also produces for Bryson.
Was the Isaiah track the first one you worked on for TDE?
Yeah, that was the first one, and then the Ab-Soul one came fairly shortly after it. I got cool with Isaiah when I first met him at Bryson’s. I was actually playing saxophone on some of his stuff. None of it made it on anything, but when Moosa first got my contact, he got my contact thinking I’m a saxophone player. But yeah, me and Moosa just kept in touch, and I got to play him some of the music that I had put out on SoundCloud. And it just went on from there.
When did you meet Kendrick?
I met Kendrick after The Sun’s Tirade came out. I was in the studio with [producer] Teddy Walton, who’s doing a lot of my project as well. Moosa was telling me he’d get me a session with Kendrick soon, so we were getting ready for that. We got it in with him, and that’s pretty much based off ’cause Kendrick heard me on The Sun’s Tirade joint. So he was like, “Yeah, fo sho. Bring that guy through.” It was me and Teddy, we went in, Teddy played him some beats, and then Kendrick asked me to play him a few of my songs, and I think I played him about four songs. The last song I played was the one that he ended up picking up.
Is that “LOVE.”?
Yeah. The fourth song I think I played him that night ended up being “LOVE.” It’s crazy because like the first three songs that I played for him, he was hyped about them. He took all of them. He was like, “Man, these are crazy, these are dope, let me get that too.” And then when I played him the one that’s on his album, he didn’t really say anything, he stayed quiet, but he was like, “Send me that.” And then the next day they were asking me for the stems.
It was actually Teddy Walton, the guy that produced it, that urged me to play it. I almost played a different song. If it weren’t for him I probably wouldn’t have played the track.
What can you tell me about “LOVE.”?
One thing I can say is I think it’s definitely a whole new genre. It’s a sound that I’ve been working on a lot with Teddy Walton. We found this certain sound and I think that’s what Kendrick saw when he heard it. This song, this beat, the singing, the rapping—I don’t think it can really be compared to another song, as far as that goes. You can’t say, like, “Oh, this song kind of reminds of this.” It’s a whole new wave. And it’s all about love. It’s all about the title.
When did you start making music?
My parents had me in a performing arts school when I was like 8 years old, so I’ve been singing. I used to do like Elvis and James Brown stuff as a kid. And then I really got into like writing and singing when I joined the worship team for my youth group at the church. I learned how to play guitar, so I was initially just playing guitar. And then I started singing while playing guitar. And then I ended up leading the whole church’s band, all through high school, and I played saxophone through high school too, jazz band and stuff like that.
When I Google your name—was that you in a New York Times article a couple years ago about bear-watching at Katmai National Park in Alaska?
Oh, was there a New York Times article?
It mentions “our fishing guide, Zacari Pacaldo,” who was “torn between his love of music — he was heading off to music school in the fall — and his love of fishing.”
[Laughs] Oh yeah, that was me for sure. I spent three summers in Alaska. Right when I graduated high school. When I graduated high school, toward the end of my senior year I just started applying at a bunch of national parks, and literally Alaska was the only place that hit me back, like, “We want a dishwasher.” I was all for it. So by the third year I ended up being a fly-fishing, bear-viewing guide.
Photo by Dylan Corral
So did you end up going to music school after that?
Yeah, part of the reason I went to Alaska was to save some money to help pay for the Musicians Institute out here. But I actually ended up failing my last quarter because I got outside of school doing the actual recording and trying to make songs and put ’em out. I kinda got distracted. But I did learn a lot. It was just a certificate program so I’m not really bummed out I didn’t get my piece of paper.
How do you describe what you do as a solo artist?
It’s really hard for me to give it a name or a genre. There’s a lot of different elements in play. Like how I told you about “LOVE.,” there’s this new sound that I think I’ve found. There’s hard-hitting drums, hard-hitting bass, but there’s a lot of peaceful sound. Warm vocals. I don’t even know how to really explain it. I care what people have to say when they hear it.
What can you say about the album you’re working on this year?
The whole theme of the album is like a happier side of loneliness.
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