At the beginning of 2017, self made underground legend Oliver Francis released perhaps his most well known and tantalizing body of work. While the first official Oliver Francis album Chlorine would go on to meet raving reviews and chatter from the guerrilla music purists to the mainstream players of hip-hop, Francis was only beginning his takeover of the music industry.
“I can’t remember when it started, it seems like it’s all I’ve ever known,” Francis explained when thinking back to a point in time where music became his desire in life. “It seems it’s been my dream since day one. I can’t really pinpoint like an exact moment, but you know there were always things that I would watch like Green Day and I always aspired to be like those guys (and) like my role models. I have a drawing that I did with crayons when I was… I don’t know how fucking old with a guy on stage with a guitar. It’s all I’ve ever known honestly.”
Francis recalls growing up in his early years wealthy and prosperous around a tight knit family. While he and his sister blossomed into young adults, his family faced a crisis when the infamous Great Recession plagued small businesses across America.
“I think I’m a lot better person for having gone through it, not that it’s the worst thing in the world, to have your parents go broke and get divorced but I definitely think it made me a better person,” Francis details. “I think I would be a jerk if I had stayed so wealthy through my teenage years and adolescence.”
When asked how he coped with the now immediate situation of familial adversities, he notes he was too preoccupied chasing girls and hanging out with friends through high school parties.
“A lot of my friends parents are divorced, it’s not that out of the ordinary but it definitely sucked living in a big house with all this cool shit to not,” he says. “But at the same time it was alright because I was preoccupied socially.”
Nowadays, Francis has stayed close with his parents and elder sister. His family persists to heavily support and endorse Francis, free from any type of strenuous connections. The smile across Francis gleams as he continues to expound upon his family being so utterly proud when it comes to his own success.
As Francis details his journey from classrooms to the world of rap music, his compendious storytelling parallels the glistening success around his neck. As crafted visions of the past come to mind, Francis recounts he never had a necessarily “rough” time throughout school due to his Missouri community’s open mindedness and hadn’t ever cared to reach the echelon of being a ‘cool kid’ in high school.
“I wouldn’t say I was an outcast, but at my school the cool people were jocks,” Francis remembers. “Like having a big truck was cool and that kind of thing. I wore girl pants, and band tees and shopped at Hot Topic.”
It was during the time of finding himself in his then teenage years Francis discovered bands like Green Day or Sum 41. Bands like Saosin and Underoath followed Francis’ musical discoveries, and it was here he began to settle into serious visions of various different musical endeavors from emo bands to acoustic solo projects.
Though Francis enjoyed being in bands, he did the majority of the work. Essentially, Francis had members play specific parts or write adjoining harmonies while he would piece the craft together in unity.
When asked if any acoustic music will ever be back on the way, he notes that while it’s unlikely he will put anything of the sort out soon he sees a singer-songwriter route as a possibility when “it becomes silly to be a rapper”.
Orchestrating together a band was seemingly an endless cycle of Francis working with no help. While he played shows sparingly he recalls “playing a lot of shows for nobody my whole life”, only starting to gain notoriety late in his career through 2015.
Sparking his focus on rap, Francis notes that his then girlfriend was impressed with his song “Purp”. Francis recalls that while he always wanted to rap from all the way back to his days on the playground, his girlfriend motivated him to dive head first into the rap world leaving behind his dwindling interest for rock bands.While “Purp” itself has appeared on a variation of different compilations and so called ‘mixtapes’, it’s an instant look of where Oliver was influentially as well as internally at the time musically.
While the earlier tapes were nothing ever that serious or calculated it was much needed groundwork for Francis as he was only beginning his newly cemented sonic path. Although the bodies of work were never more than putting songs together under a title and cover, they produced unforgettable moments in Francis’ come up.
“When I did Things Aren’t That Simple I worked at a hospital as a janitor and I recorded the whole thing pretty much at one in the morning I would come home and my girlfriend would be passed out,” Francis smiles. “I recorded the whole thing with my girlfriend passed out next to me next to my desk. She was a pretty heavy sleeper so she’d sleep through it most of the time.”
After his mother had moved out of their then shared apartment, Francis moved his recording studio to the living room. As he continued his uphill grind, Francis realized he no longer had to work his job as a janitor because of the amount of money he was recovering from his merch sales and YouTube plays.
“When I did ‘Aahhyeahh’ I remember my apartment flooded and there was ankle deep water on the floor,” Francis remembers. “The whole place was flooded and I had to move across the hall.”
Through his various adversities however, Francis would never fall through on making his dream become a reality. From nearly “busting his is head against the wall” trying to get a hook for “3 Deep” to dealing with the unfortunate aquatic overlay which overtook his apartment, Francis never feared what was to come next.
As his determination brought Francis the overstatic joy of creating magical hooks after hours of recording on both “Aahhyeah” and “3 Deep”, the real musical perfection of Oliver Francis began on his debut album Chlorine.
“I think that bape music has some of my best most classic, timeless songs with ‘Aahhyeah’ and ‘3 Deep’, but I think that sonically Chlorine encapsulates what I was trying to do,” Francis states. “I feel like I had a vision and I made it happen.”
Debuting in April 2017, Chlorine easily became a body of work that forever cemented Francis into that of an underground legacy act. As fans from around the world enjoyed the continued evolution of Francis on Chlorine, music critics such as Anthony Fantano of theneedledrop and music blog Elevator clamored for more.
While Francis expected the “Celebration” video in particular to pop off faster than it had, it currently sits on YouTube with a half a million views which is something Francis is no stranger from. The project has five music videos in all, which all have culminated over five million views when put together.
“I feel like when Chlorine happened I was like ‘Okay, I’ve learned how to make rap music with Fruity Loops pretty well and now I’m going to be myself,” cites Francis.
The lone feature on Chlorine, a small melody from GothBoiClique member ColdHart, was an idea thought up by Francis after the album was already complete after Francis had discovered ColdHarts music. While he states that he “would love” to make another collaboration happen between the two, he has seemingly already paired together with another rapper to form an unstoppable duo.
Rapper Big Baby Scumbag, a local Tampa Bay native, and Francis have already made a handful of records together and don’t seem to be slowing down when working together anytime soon.
“I found Big Baby through Xela,” recalls Francis. “We kinda come from the same era of rap music that we grew up on and I was just really drawn to it. I thought that what he did was really special and it’s something that rap music has lacked for a little while. I was like oh shit this guys actually like rapping.”
After suggesting Big Baby come out on the road with him in support of his first ever tour, the friendship began with music collaboration coming naturally between the two. Francis declares he never intentionally wants to throw a feature or collaboration together just for the cross promotion, and says he genuinely cares about putting together thoughtful blends together when the time is right with his friends. He cites that he strays away from doing features to avoid over saturating the market with inauthentic collaborations and wants to stay true to his fan base.
“Just cause the hottest dude in the world gets on your song doesn’t make it a good song,” Francis declares. “Me personally, I would never feel right putting out a half ass song that I didn’t like and I’m a perfectionist. If I do a feature I never get the verse back and I’m like ‘It’s good’. I always get the verse and I’m like ‘Yo can you change this, change that’. Some people fuck with it like Baby he’s always like ‘Yo I appreciate you being straight with me’.”
Francis acknowledges that living in Missouri may be a hard way to find genuine connections with other artists, but opts to instead support music from afar if he genuinely enjoys it. While he never worries about making friends in the industry, he believes all of his relationships have fallen into place for the right reasons.
“I feel like you should be friends before you collaborate,” says Francis. “I don’t like it when the first thing someone says to me is ‘Hey let’s do a song’ I like it when someone says ‘Hey what’s up’.”
While common interest is what drives Francis the most to collaborate with others, there is a possibility that a never before seen collaboration will be seeing the light of day shortly.
“I had an open verse and I sent it to him and he recorded sixteen bars,” Francis says about his collaboration with coinciding underground legend Nothing, Nowhere. “We had gone back and forth on the internet before the mutual support. I like his music, he likes my music. I made the song and I was like ‘Okay yeah I could definitely hear Nothing, Nowhere. on this’.”
“If you really really wanna be in the music industry and you wanna be a rapper, or in a band or whatever, you’re gonna have to work for it,” Francis proclaims in honesty. “I remember being a kid and hearing other people say that, ‘You’re gonna have to work for it’ and not understanding what they meant. How do I work for it like what’s the work? For me the work was being on my computer and learning how to use Fruity Loops and learning how to make beats and learning how to write raps and then making music videos. I didn’t just make one music video and then stop, I made a music video like every weekend. And then part of the work also was I worked a shitty job- like I worked a shitty fucking and I used that check to fund my creative endeavors.”
He stops to recollect his thoughts, and proclaims he believes the path to success is not always so “white and black”. “I think a lot of people want the payday before putting in the work- and like I said, not everybody’s story is the same some people it probably came to them really easily. It just takes actual dedication. I’ve dealt with a lot of musicians who talk a lot of shit and they talk but they don’t walk. You’re gonna get out of it what you put into it.”
While the industry behind the curtains of the public eye remains a dark secreted side of the music business, Francis tries to deal with having the smoke and mirrors that dwindle around him with positivity.
“Honestly I just don’t understand any of it,” Francis recounts. “I’ll talk to managers or label A&Rs and then at the end of the conversation I’ll be like ‘Holy fuck’. What did those guys even just say to me, they were spouting off a bunch of names and numbers and jargon I can’t understand. It seems a little bullshit to me a lot of these dudes seem like they’re just dudes like playing ‘music industry’ guys. They don’t ever talk about music or anything and that’s what I know and that’s what I understand. There are good guys out there too, not to discredit everyone in the music industry. I just don’t get it, so I haven’t fucked with it. Maybe someday some kind of cool deal will present itself where I feel comfortable.”
While Francis doesn’t seem inclined for a quick label deal anytime soon, he’s enjoying life comfortably from his streaming checks and his current business ethics. As the labels call, notable industry heads such as Grammy nominated producer Noah 40 Shebib and Hailey Baldwin all have taken slight notice to Francis. However, Francis notes that he’s never had a huge co-sign and believes his success is imprinted onto the world because of his cult fanbase.
As he tremendously passed the cursed ‘sophomore slump’, Francis released his second studio album to an even wider applause across the globe. A Million Miles An Hour capitalized off the auditory momentum Francis had received from Chlorine. Using samples such as the Wii home menu screen or vocal runs from the band Copeland, A Million Miles An Hour is stacked top to bottom with hits. However, Francis didn’t always think so.
“I was gonna scrap ‘Gene Simmons’,” Francis recalls. “This kid I know pulls up with a fuckin car and we were like let’s go take photos with this car and then I said ‘Let’s do a video fuck it’. I just went on my soundcloud (where the song was) on private, and I was like well I guess I’ll do this one. Overtime I was like ‘Oh damn this is sick’,” he chuckles.
When asked about his touring experience and what it means to have packed shows, Francis says it’s “all he ever wanted”.
“It’s incredible, it’s everything I ever wanted to do and everything I ever wanted to be. I’m incredibly grateful for all my fans. Just that kids want to come hang out at the shows is so fucking cool man, cause I played a lot of shows for nobody my whole life.”
Looking back at 2018, Francis rejects his then sparked ideal of taking rap so seriously. While he says he never wants to become the ‘grumpy old man’ of hip hop, he recounts that he has realized that there are two different perspectives of rap from the storytellers to the kids who just want to have fun.
With his 2018 EP, Infinity Boy, the project helped promote the idea that pristine lyrical ability adjoined with cloud infused trap beats can bring about unexpected yet amazing results. His next project, may surprise a few fans however.
“I think that my next project will be familiar but different,” Francis says. “It won’t be like something completely new that nobody’s ever done before but it will be something new for me, but at the same time still sound like me.”
When asked if his next project to release will be the now highly sought after lyrical lo-fi album tentatively titled Overdrive, Francis does not seem so sure saying he’s been heavily invested in the music he’s been making since the start of the new year.
“I started making really good music, I like it better than Overdrive. Overdrive is versions of these really good raps I wrote and re-recorded like ten different times each. So I don’t know, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m trying to do with that really. But I’ll have a project out really really soon.”
Francis says that he has a plan for a self owned record label and everything is currently being set into motion, but he stresses that it won’t be a conventional label and moreso a way to solidify his own business as an artist. However, the announcement of bape music II and the development of a new project appear to be Francis’ main focus. While Francis is unsure if he is still en route to that project in particular, it’s worth noting that it’s still “something he’s not opposed to”. “I was trying to do that and then I’m like eh maybe I just wanna call it something else just to have more fun. But we’ll see, I might still call something that if like the right songs happen and stuff.” Ultimately, Francis says the new direction his current project is headed for is something more like the newly released single “Danny Phantom”.
Away from his current life and plans in music, Francis notes that his new, blooming romantic relationship is a key motivator in his own character development and drive altogether.
“She motivates me to be a better version of myself, which I think is a blessing and something to be cherished,” he says. “She’s a college girl, super intelligent and trustworthy. It’s a great dynamic honestly, I love it,” he continues in a flourish of happiness.
As the interview comes to a close, Francis maintains his humble demeanor. Asked about how the realization of fame hit him, Francis describes the experience as nothing short of incredible.
“Just the fact that I could support myself off of music and (the fact that) I play shows and kids come and I post on the internet and kids respond to it. I always wanted a YouTube video with a million views on it and now I have multiple videos with a million views on ‘em. The proof is in the pudding so to say.”
All photos pictured above are credited to Oliver Francis and Artripoli