Creative Lessons from Logic: Turning Pain into Music, Handling Haters & Why He’s Not on the Internet
CREDIT: TAYLOR HILL/GETTY IMAGES
“I make music for me and my friends and for anyone who likes it.”
Logic a.k.a. Bobby Hall II is a rapper, author, and now actor, best known for his Grammy-nominated single, 1-800-273-8255. Today, he popped into Write of PassageCohort 7 to jam, field questions, and freestyle along the way.
While Write of Passage has brought me into the orbit of a lot of creative people, they’re mostly business people who want to build a name for themselves. Up close on the call, I saw an artist who took his time growing into his own skin, and who genuinely enjoys making art from life (which of course, includes streaming video games and making beats on Twitch).
Bobby is a craftsman, a creative’s creative. He wrote a rap in his teens, just to practice enunciating syllables. He studied the thesaurus to improve his freestyle. He challenged himself with nerdy, writing games to spark his creativity. He released free mixtapes to promote his debut album. He published 2 books, released 6 albums, and most recently, starred in a TV show.
In this post, I’ll reflect on the most memorable lessons i learned from the call, particularly on his answers to the questions the other Write of Passage students asked.
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How much music he has to make before something good comes out
“The ratio between what’s good and how much I put out there is 1/1000.”
This makes the case for focusing on quantity over quality, even if like Bobby, you’ve been working on your craft for almost 20 years. A follow up to this was, how did he know when a piece of music was ready to be put out into the world?
“Creating is falling in love. When I’m in love with it, it’s time to let it go, to put it out into the world.”
Honestly, this is a beautiful, tangible way to know when to publish my work. I love every post, every essay I put out, typos and all.
How he handles all the mean stuff people say
“I take the pain. I don’t cry or complain. I write about it, then I put it out into a record.”
For me this is the classic creative reason: art as therapy. This why I write these blog posts and reveal so much of myself online — thoughts that even my closest friends might not now. I’m staunchly against complaining to other people, so I have no choice but to put it out on paper.
He revealed on the call that he wrote 1-800-273-8255 over the span of 2 years. The seed of it came from fans who told him his music “saved their lives,” so he decided to make a song that would do that more explicitly. Some people hated it, a lot of people loved it. The 2017 MTV VMAs performance still gives me chills:
And as he said, “Hey, I have a #1 album. So what?”
On loosening up his creative process
“It hit me that I don’t have to write everything down [before getting in the booth]. I can just have fun. I don’t have to prepare so much. I can just let things come.”
Even as a rapper, Bobby revealed that he hardly listens to rap anymore. Instead he takes inspiration from alternative music and film, notably from director Quentin Tarantino.
He also notes conversations he has and goes out of his way to have deep conversations with fans, creatives, and the people he cares about. For example, when asked why jumped on the call with WoP, he said that he just missed the creative interaction.
“COVID took away a lot of fan interaction. And I miss just hanging out with people and talking with people who like my music. I’m getting ideas for songs and books. I get as much out of this as you do.”
During the call Bobby read parts of his journals to us, lyrics he scratched out from when he was putting his albums together. He noted the difference between writing his lyrics by hand, versus typing them on his phone; he felt a sense of homecoming whenever he went back to analog.
What he wished he knew earlier on in his career
“I wish I had someone who just told me to take a day, to go play video games, to not think or talk about music. I was in the middle of the grind in my 20’s — I talk about sacrificing my 20’s for my career — but you need to turn off. You need time away from the studio.”
I love this. Weekends off and weekly artist dates, for the win.
On why he’s not on the internet
“Not being on the internet — none of the drama, the beef — makes me more creative. Just creating makes me more creative.”
Ever since I deleted my Instagram early this year, I’ve bene insulated from a lot of drama, emotional triggers, and debilitating doubt when yet another friend got engaged. Similarly, this past month at Creator Cabins has insulated me from distractions and unpredictable mood swings.
I’m not advocating for a life as a hermit, far from it. But these past months have shown me how much valuable, creative work I could output if my attention wasn’t fractured. This is in line with a realization I had that genuine, honest output adds momentum the creative flywheel, rather than saps it.