PARTYNEXTDOOR Covers Fader Magazine, Talks the Weeknd, Writing Under the Influence & Privacy

If you're a PARTYNEXTDOOR fan, you've been waiting for the private singer to open up about his music ever since he dropped songs like "Wus Good / Curious" and his self-titled album in 2013. Today (April 21) is your lucky day because Party offers The Fader magazine his very first interview and lands on the cover of the April/May issue.

During the conversation, which occurs during a tour stop in Philadelphia, Party provides a candid look inside his creative process. The singer, born Jahron Anthony Brathwaite, admits his songwriting skills were stalled at one point due to his constant overthinking. Weed helped cure that and made his pen game even stronger.

Since signing with Drake's OVO Sound label, Party hasn't been able to shake the Weeknd comparisons. Here, he addresses the talk and makes it clear that his colorful outlook on life takes him out of the box critics are putting him in. And if you're looking for his thoughts on Drizzy, the Canadian crooner keeps the comments about his boss to a minimum.

Check out the highlights from his interview below and for the full story, head over to The Fader here.

On collaborating with other artists or producers:
"I haven't gone to the studio with anybody, not enough to learn from them. Not 40 [producer Noah "40" Shebib], nobody. Me and Drake are hardly ever in the studio working."

On staying away from the public eye:
“I would never call myself mysterious. The word I use is ‘private. I’m not hiding from pictures. When you see me, I’ll say wassup. I just don’t wanna live in this fantasy where I act like everybody cares, and then I look like a jackass with someone filming me in the airport.”

On how weed changed his writing style:
“I think too much, which is a blessing and a curse. I was so against smoking weed cause I always wanted to be in control, but my friend convinced me to smoke weed one day. And as soon as I smoked weed, that’s when I started writing like that.”

On being compared to the Weeknd:
“People throw that [Weeknd comparison] over me because I came at a time where people assumed I was there to fill a void. A lot of things that came out of Toronto were darker at the time. But me? I’m all about colors. I’ll flip samples where one’s a completely dark song and the next one is a complete sexual song. People think my whole thing is a dark thing, but I don’t.”

On refusing to force the creative process:
"I feel like I have a different perspective: just skip the bulls---. But I don't feel like I'm disrespectful. Do I say disrespectful stuff in my music? I'm not disrespectful at all, but [my lyrics] are things I say, or have said. I can't just go in the studio and make music. I'll make a whole bunch of beats whenever, but unless I'm living through something or have a female in mind, or have a conversation in my phone I could scroll through, I'm not making music. I don't reach for things, like, 'Oh my god, let me think of the wildest thing to say tonight.'"

On using Auto-Tune:
"The first time I heard Auto-Tune, it was not via T-Pain. It was via people I listened to with my cousins, cultural s--- like Vybz Kartel and Mavado, who would scream and belt the hardest s--- out."

On feeling connected to his music:
"I make 99 percent of my music sitting down, in boxers, when I'm comfortable in my computer chair. Cause I do everything myself. I hold my mic [when I record]. I held my mic for every song I released. I just wanna feel like I pick it up and I just talk. I say what I have to say."

PARTYNEXTDOOR'S The Fader cover story hits newsstands May 12.

Watch PARTYNEXTDOOR's The Fader Magazine Cover Shoot

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