Daniel Caesar: It's all about the new 'Never Enough' album talk with Apple Music

If there’s one voice you can always count on for delivering emotionally-driven - er - emotions, it’s none other than singer Daniel Caesar. He has a stack of instant classics and his collaboration presence with the likes of someone like H.E.R.? Classic. So of course getting geeked out about his Apple Music interview on what his new Never Enough album is all about is an absolute must-see.

Daniel Caesar cracks into his new ‘Never Enough’ album with Apple Music

From talking about the approach to creating his latest solo offering to dishing on his pre-superstardom days in the mid-2010’s with Apple Music R&B Now’s Nadeska Alexis has you locked in. The full-fledged interview is slated to launch on YouTube today at 1 PM ET but in the meantime, enjoy a few pulled quotes and sneak peek.

Daniel Caesar tells Apple Music about the process of making NEVER ENOUGH…

I basically had most of the songs for the album already made by the time I got in here, and I've just been tinkering and adding people's parts and doing stuff like that for the past year. But which one was it, “Vince Van Gogh,” I did in here. “Buyer's Remorse” as well. The more weird experimental joints are the ones that I didn't hear, so they hold a special place in my heart. 

Daniel Caesar tells Apple Music about the decision to put out “Let Me Go” and “Do You Like Me” as singles…

I'll be lying if I didn't say I fought against it for a while, but it was like, they are magnificent songs and they're all songs that I made, and I love them all very much. I have people around me that I trust very much to pick up

where I get a little... Because I can get very deep in my head and trapped in my mind. It's a disease. And so I was like, "Vince Van Gogh, Vince Van Gogh." And they're like, "Yo, it doesn't even have a chorus. You know what I

mean?" "We're trying to sell your album here." So I was being very difficult and I love them very much for dealing with me and putting up with me.

But we settled on... “Do You Like Me” is very... That's one of my favorite sessions from the project. I got to work with Raphael Saadiq, and that's also where I met Dylan Wiggins, who came into the session and he ended up Executive Producing the album with me and Crave.

And then with “Let Me Go,” That was one of those songs that's just... I want to take my career further. And so it was kind of like before, I used to only go to studio when I felt inspired. When I'm like, "Oh, I have something I want to get out."

And then it was kind of like Kobe Bryant didn't want to...Michael Jordan didn't want to go to the gym every day, but he did. And I was like, oh, I need to... And even to this day, I still struggle with it, but I know what I want to be and what comes with that. So that was one of those sessions and it turned out very, very good.

Daniel Caesar talks about his progression as an artist…

Nadeska: How do you feel about your progression as an artist over the past few albums? I know with... It's always hard when you have such an amazing breakout album getting to the sophomore project because your fans, a lot of times, they want you to somehow replicate what you did the first time. And it seems like you had no intentions at all of doing that.

Daniel: I think, well, you know what? I think I found a sweet spot with this album. I'm not good at faking things. So if I am making something and I'm not impressed by it, even if it's really good or people... Everyone listens to it and they're like, "I love it, this is the one. This is the one." If I'm not impressed by it, then it's like, it's painful to me.

Daniel Caesar tells Apple Music about “pre-fame” being “miserable”, “happy”, and also having a “sense of freedom” back in 2014…

Nadeska: I’ve been a fan of yours for such a long time, and I've always realized yet you're a pretty cerebral person. The things we hear you talk about in your music, the way you navigate your relationships and life. But as I'm realizing that, there's a lot I still feel like as a fan, I don't know about you, about Daniel pre-fame. And on the New Project Never Enough, there's one song, Toronto 2014. I hear you on that record talk about a time when you felt happier being you. And I'm wondering if you could take us back to that space, because 2014 is when you were releasing your very first EP, right?

Daniel: Yeah. Oh yeah, it is. It was a time of freedom. It was just my first time living on my own and I could do anything I wanted to do at any time. It was so fun. I could go to bed when I wanted. I could just pick up and leave the house whenever I wanted. Because I was also dead, dead, dead broke in 2014. In those times I was miserable for so many reasons, but it's only in retrospect that I'm like, oh, that's perhaps the happiest I've ever been. No one gets to live outside of being an adult, you know what I mean? It's either I'm homeless or I have to abide by some sort of system and I can be very anti-establishment.

There's always moments where I feel like I'm the victim of this thing, but at the end of the day, it's completely within my control and I can just stop at any point. So if I don't, there's no one I can really be upset with but myself. No one or nothing. But the world is a set of... It's just a collection of systems all working and relying on each other. So you can't really escape, which gets tricky.

Daniel Caesar discusses with Apple Music navigating the emotions, dark times, and learnings from the past few years…

Nadeska: I feel like we haven't seen a lot of you necessarily the past few years. You've obviously been making music. It's not like you're super active on social, et cetera, so...

Daniel: I’ve been dealing, struggling with a lot with my desire to know things versus my desire to be liked. I feel like I always be struggling with that, but both are very real in my life.

Nadeska: Yeah. So you mentioned around the time you dropped ‘Case Study,’ you were feeling angry. I mean, you dropped that album at definitely a very chaotic time in your career. There was really a lot going on, I was surprised that you even released the album. How were you feeling at that moment, I guess, about that balance of your desire to know things and to maybe express how you felt versus your desire to be liked?

Daniel: There's one thing that I know that I'm good at, there's so many things that I'm terrible at, and that is music. So I figured in times of uncertainty, in times of in dark times in the valley of the shadow of death, so to speak, you got to lean into what you're good at. And so that's what I did.

Daniel Caesar reflects on previous Internet controversy...

Nadeska: Looking back on that whole period, all that upheaval on the internet at that moment, how do you feel about it a few years removed? So now that we're a few years removed, what is your perspective on everything that was happening around that period before you dropped the album?

Daniel: I completely understand the response. And in time, after taking time to get over myself and to really honestly look at myself and everything that was happening, I was wrong. I was wrong, and I'm sorry about that. For a long time, I was like, "You can't do anything, you can't say anything without whatever."

You can do and say whatever you want, but it's like for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And that's physics, that's science. That's one of those things that the knowledge of that can literally put my mind at ease where I'm like, oh, I did deserve... What happened, happened because I deserved it, because I knocked the domino over and set a course in motion.

Being in this position, you hear so many things and so many opinions from so many people. So to a certain point, you have to numb yourself to it, and you learn not to trust what people on the internet have to say and what people that you don't know have to say.

Seeing that people that I do know that I care about, them being hurt, then it's like, ah, damn, all right. You know what I mean? I was like, okay, you know me. It's because it's seeing that people that know me, because I felt in my... Clearly my ego is going out of control.

I felt in that moment that I could say what I had said and the context of who I am would be taken into account. But I guess people don't know who I am. I thought at the time that I was saying something meaning well, but it didn't and it hurt people and I don't want to hurt anybody. That's really, that's not what I do. That's not what I'm interested in doing.

Nadeska: I never felt like that was your intention to hurt anybody but-

Daniel: But it did.

Nadeska: Yeah, it did. And to your point, I think we didn't know necessarily all the things that you were going through that led you to that point to say that. And I'm not sure if you had necessarily the whole context either. That also the person you were defending was someone who we feel like had taken a lot from black culture and not appreciated it, and then disrespected black women who, we always feel underrepresented and no one is speaking up on our behalf.

And so I think there was a lot there. You stepped into really a minefield and you were drunk. Which I feel like someone with you should have slapped the phone out of your head. That was... Not a good mind state, I think, to be in to address something so serious.

Daniel: Yeah, it really when I think about it, it was like, yeah, it was the perfect storm, honestly. And I don't mean that... I just mean it's kind of crazy how awful that was. Throughout the process the last few years it was so often it's

like, okay, so that was a mistake. So either we stop playing the game or we keep playing the game. Those are my only options. It's like people every day you wake up and they're like, "You should kill yourself." It's like, all right,

I'm going to kill myself or I'm going to keep going. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, through this process I've just thought so much about it and I've learned so much about myself, about the world, and I just put it all into the music. And that's kind of like I was saying like, at this point, after having punished myself, after having been punished, it's like at this point you got to just keep making music.

And so that's what I did, and we went all over the world, had a lot of great conversations with a lot of different people and it has been... This is a great time in my life.

With Case Study, I wanted to set the precedent that I'm going to grow and I'm going to change, and I'm not going to be afraid. So much of what I try to do... And there's still so many things that I fear.

I want to make music that leads people somewhere as opposed to music that can pacify them or make them feel good. I want to make music that makes people want to change their life. Truly inspiring music.