hypersongs

Steve Lacy

The Compton-born guitarist, producer and singer who joined The Internet as a teenager, and whose iPhone-recorded "Dark Red" opens his story as a solo artist.

From The Internet to a demo

Steve Lacy was born Steve Thomas Lacy-Moya on May 23, 1998 in Compton, California, and went to Narbonne High School. This is the 1998-born singer, songwriter, producer and guitarist, not the jazz saxophonist of the same name who lived from 1934 to 2004. He also plays bass, drums, keyboards and percussion, and cites Thundercat, Erykah Badu, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Pharrell and the Neptunes, Weezer, Paramore and Jimi Hendrix, with Mac DeMarco as a production influence. He met the keyboardist Jameel Bruner of The Internet in a school jazz band programme in ninth grade, first on guitar and then bass, and started making beats with Matt Martians around tenth or eleventh grade. He joined The Internet in 2015 on guitar and vocals, and was co-executive producer of Ego Death (2015), which was nominated for a Grammy for best urban contemporary album. He told the Fader, that was me fooling around. I had no idea I was co-executive producing an album.

Steve Lacy's Demo, an EP, came out in February 2017 on Three Quarter and AWAL, and was announced by the Fader on February 23; Wikipedia gives February 24. All of it was written and produced by him, mostly on an iPhone, with guitar, bass and vocals recorded into the phone's built-in microphone and drum patterns programmed in Ableton. DJ Mag cites a Beats 1 interview, by way of a summary, in which he said there needn't be any excuses to making tracks, and lists an iRig under 20 pounds, Akai's iMPC and GarageBand as his gear.

Albums

Apollo XXI (May 24, 2019, Three Quarter and AWAL) was recorded from 2017 to 2019 in what he called the Paramore Palace, and reached 160 on the Billboard 200; it was nominated for a Grammy for best urban contemporary album. Gemini Rights (July 15, 2022, RCA), made with Matt Martians and DJ Dahi at The Village, reached 7 on the Billboard 200 and carried "Bad Habit", his first number one on the Hot 100. He appeared on Saturday Night Live on November 5, 2022, was named to the Time 100 in 2023, and played two in-the-round shows at the Sydney Opera House in 2024. Oh Yeah?, with a cover by Gus Van Sant and a guest spot by Erykah Badu, came out on July 17, 2026, debuting at 14.

He co-wrote or produced with Kendrick Lamar ("Pride"), Solange, Kali Uchis, Mac Miller, Vampire Weekend and Syd, among others, and played "Sunflower" and "Dark Red" with Vampire Weekend at Madison Square Garden on September 8, 2019. Saint Heron described his sound as beachy funk, rock 'n roll-sprinkled soul.

Albums

  • Steve Lacy's Demo 2017 · ep · Three Quarter / AWAL

    A six-track EP made on an iPhone, with "Dark Red" as its third track.

Songs

  • Dark Red Steve Lacy's Demo · 2017

    A one-man GarageBand recording that later reached 78 on the Hot 100.

Sources

  1. Steve Lacy (musician), Wikipedia
  2. Apollo XXI, Wikipedia
  3. Gemini Rights, Wikipedia
  4. Steve Lacy on The Internet, The Fader (2016-04-19)