Tai Verdes | Austin City Limits

Photographed by Lauren Castro

Tai Verdes has it figured out: two albums in two years, a third coming soon. After winning the prize money from MTV’s Are You the One?, he moved to Los Angeles and began his journey to fulfilling his greatest potential. TikTok embellished his fame, expanded his fanbase, and before he knew it, music was the product. Tai doesn’t see himself as a singer or songwriter—he’s a tastemaker, a creative director, the epitome of his own vision. Flaunt had a conversation with Tai before his set during the second weekend of Austin City Limits. We talked creating your inner circle, living in LA, and the concept for his upcoming album.

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It seemed like you blew up overnight with your music on TikTok. What was that like for you?

Kind of… If you think about it as like when people started seeing it, but I've been doing this for a minute. When I dropped out of college, I went on a reality TV show, won some money then I was doing Nike modeling. I did some acting and then I'm here, so I kind of was doing different stuff. But, yeah, the very, very big music stuff happened really recently.

I’ve had experience being in the public eye. I was on national TV getting viewed by millions of people for every episode, right? So people were finding me that way, too. It was kinda a little bit unfair because not only was I releasing music, but I was continuously releasing. There's kids right now that are releasing one song and they ride that song for the year. I released a whole album and that's why I think it transferred over…just because people could really dig into the project. That's the only reason I have the opinion I do right now about how to build an artist project and because of the way that I did it.

Your music promotes this kind of positive and good vibes feel. How do you keep so upbeat?

Well, to be honest, I think that it's kind of… it's a little bit shitty for everyone because I'm not the most positive person. I think that the one chapter out of the multiple chapters that I've had is positive. I think that's definitely part of my DNA because I have lived so long in a tough spot. Because I'm so future-facing, I have to be positive. The only reason I got here is because I was positive that I could be this. When I dropped out of college, I was positive that I was gonna make it. And, yeah, I think that when people think of positivity, they think of ‘oh, he's happy.’ It's like, no, I'm positive that I'm doing the best that I can right now. That's what it mainly is because I think I tackle a lot of concepts in my music. When I have more chapters out, people will understand what I'm actually going for. I don't really care about the numbers that are happening around the project as much as I care about saying something that matters.

When I was a junior in high school, I would listen to Chance The Rapper and I didn't know how many monthly listeners he had. I didn't know how many radio spins he was getting (he was getting zero for Acid Rap). He got his first song on radio with his third album. So I'm a little bit ahead of the curve. I have a plan for being an artist for a legacy, not necessarily just a couple years here and there. 

I just dropped this 22-song album last year, so I'm letting that ride out for as long as I wanted to ride. I've been touring. I toured for basically a year straight. That's another thing that kind of put me in a different little class than everybody else that came off the internet is that when you sell tickets, that's real. I think everyone else is doing numbers in different ways, and I think that in order to be an artist that you the people want to see you actually have to play live and have people get tickets and merch and stuff like that. We're doing like 15 100,000 tickets a city, so that's a great start.

Who inspires you?

Kanye West, Childish Gambino, Andre3000, all those people that are being experimental and being really vulnerable. Kid Cudi was another one. Those people are the ones that I think impact culture a little bit harder than the people that are just trying to make songs. I'm not really trying to make songs like that as much as I am trying to just give people a perspective and what it's like to be someone who looks like me in the world right now, and also in multiple facets. I think this new generation is like… we're a version of human that hasn't happened yet, and I don't think a lot of people realize that.

For me, it's more about collaboration. I’m kind of reluctant to say his name right now but ‘Donda’ does it in a different way where he pulls everyone around him and says, ‘Yo, what's your thing that you do really well. All right, do that. I'll take it and I'll mesh it with what I think is my taste.’ 

Like surrounding yourself with creative people?

Yeah, like all the people that made my albums are really, really high level at something. When that happens, it means that you're gonna have a good product because as long as you have someone curating their tastes like me, if you're an artist, technically your job is to be a tastemaker. So, how are you going to make the taste? If you're on the internet, asking people what song you should release next, how are you going to make the taste if you’re gonna ask people what you should do next? No, you should just do something. I mean, if you want to be a tastemaker, you can also be like a singer or a songwriter. That's a different thing. What I'm trying to be as an actual artist, and I think that you kind of break down what those people are doing. That's kind of my process of analyzing what people are doing in terms of creativity. That's why I have invested in my creative direction. I have a creative director, just like Kanye West who talks to Virgil when he was alive. Tyler The Creator talks to a guy named Phil, soa lot of artists don't realize that in order to have these creatives that people kind of like put magic dust over and say like, ‘Oh, this guy is doing it cool.’ You have to go into business meetings and invest time and money into the people that are creating the creative around you, and that's what kind of sets you apart. If you look at all my stuff, my shits tight. It goes together and people respect effort.

Who's your dream collaborator?

I don't really think about collaboration like that because when you have an artist project, you have to make it as cool as possible yourself. Not as cool as possible, but just like…do your own thing for as long as possible. Then when collaboration comes around, make sure you do it with people that you actually are inspired by and want to work with. A lot of the time in the industry, I don't think those people know each other. I don't think they've talked to each other. I think things were just sent back and forth… A lot of the times when you get into the situation I was in, you don't really realize what's happening while it's happening. If I could do it again, I probably wouldn't have collaborated with anyone, but that's hindsight. The people that I have collaborated with so far, I don't regret it because it's for the story. Kiana Lede is one of the best R&B vocalists of all time. Surfaces. I was actually in their music video for [Sunday Best]. When I was down and going actor, 24K Golden  was one of the first artists that was buzzing at the time that cosigned me. It was all learning experiences. But I definitely have had multiple artists, so many artists, that are like ‘Oh, we want to get down to song’ and I'm like ‘oh, no, man.’ I'm all about the creative process, and also we have to make something good. I've definitely tried to make something with somebody people just said, like, ‘hey, this shit isn't good enough. We're not putting this out.’ And they're like, ‘what are you talking about?’ I'm like ‘yo, this is your standards. That's why you're at where you're at.’ You have to keep it high. Just because everything's gonna live on for infinity when you make a song. It's not just going away. These are infinite assets that you're making, so I just don't take that lightly.

How do you like living in Los Angeles?

Yeah, I love it. I mean, I conquered things. That's my thing. There's two schools of thought. LA is like a mountain. A lot of people to try and go to the place, and if they want to live there and try to be something, it's hard to come to the realization that you're climbing a mountain when you're at the base, and you didn't sign up to climb a mountain. But I realized that you have to think about the long term. A lot of the time, people come to LA and they get a dog. Like, how can you get a dog, man? That's money, time, and effort spent on something that's yours like, never. But also the people that are in LA right now. Like, I get why you need escapism and to distract yourself, but you have to make sure that you have no room for ‘what if.’

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Honestly, I don't care at this point. Because I've seen how the artists that I've loved what is pushed to the public, numbers-wise, and I know that it's always not representative of what actually happened in the times that they were making their art. I'm the only one who's gonna know what I was actually trying to do.