Demrick has slowly but steadily built his rap career after nearly a decade in the game. His most recent project, Collect Call, is his most personal. Even though the California-based artist was intentional about sharing more of his story in the music, the thought of revealing personal details of his life scared him. In an episode of Unique Access, he explains how “Bad Guy,” a song about a romantic relationship that didn’t work out, was an example of his new-found vulnerability.
“I didn’t want to put that song on the project,” Demrick shares. “I felt like maybe I was digging too deep. I thought that maybe that was something people didn’t want to hear because it was coming from a relationship that had went bad and just being like who wants to hear about this?”
The Serial Killers member credits his team for encouraging him to commit to the process. When he finally shared the music with his fans, Demrick found the encouragement he needed to keep putting himself into the music.
“I went and picked up a bunch of fans and took them to my favorite dispensary and we rode around and listened to my album and I would be cringing before track number four came on like I’d be like ‘I don’t know,'” he recalls of the special listening session he did for Collect Call. “We did two trips with the fans, the first trip, I did skip it and the second time, I played about 75 percent of it. I just told the fans, listen to it when you’re at home. What’s funny is now that the album’s out, so many people are hitting me on Snapchat videos of people smoking to it or riding to it or vibing to it or people sending me messages like ‘I needed to hear that.’ I think that even encouraged me more to peel back more layers on this next work that I’m gonna do. I felt like really what I was doing, I was taking stories that I would tell to people and I was making songs out of them. And that’s really what I did differently on this album than what I’ve done in the past. We would always sit and have conversations before we rap, but I think that I really just honed in, I wanted people to get to know me. That’s why I called it Collect Call. It’s about reaching out.”
Elsewhere on Collect Call, Demrick enlisted his good friend Scoop DeVille for production. One of the standout tracks, “Watch This” was given a boost with a guest appearance from Lil Debbie. Demrick explains how the song was the perfect mix of talent.
“I’ve been working with Scoop forever, so I just asked him to produce some records for me on the album,” he says. “So he said he wanted to really come in and give me some of those super beats. You know how producers got their list, he knows if he’s gonna get in front of a Snoop [Dogg] or a Jay Z, he’s got records with all those people, Kendrick [Lamar], he got, he got a special little folder. Thank you Scoop for reaching into the stash and giving me bangers like ‘Watch This’ with Lil Debbie. Lil Debbie heard the record and she really wanted to be on it. Man, I’m glad that we centered it because she destroyed it. She barred up on there crazy. I didn’t really have any expectation and anything that I would have thought, it’s like she blew that away ’cause she really just killed it. There’s bars on there.”
After talking with fans about his music and hearing they agree with the quality, Demrick feels confident in the direction of his artistry. Even though it has been scary to be more personal and vulnerable outside the shadows of his mentors including Xzibit and Dr. Dre, he sees that the fans want to know more about him, which he is happy to share. He has come a long way from his days as Young De, but he is excited to keep moving forward.
“Some people didn’t really feel like they knew my story,” he says, “because a lot of the stuff I’ve been working for a while. So there’s stuff that I’ve touched on on Audio Hustlers Volume 1 that I left there that maybe need to be re-brought up and rehashed now that the way that I look at life and even just understanding myself as an artist, when you get out there and you’re standing next to some legendary people and you’re in front of those crowds, that energy’s all there. But when you take those away and it’s just you, you really see what you have to work on, what you have to build, what you actually have and the reason and thankfully, when I went around the States after doing the stuff, there was fans that showed up. There were fans that had my name tatted on them. It gave me the extra confidence that I needed to know that all of this work that I’ve been putting in over this time wasn’t in vain. It was actually connecting, I did connect with some people, so I wanted to all the way connect with them. That’s what this album is about.”