GIVĒON hypes up new album, the Drake influence and his true day one's impact

GIVĒON has plenty to talk about these days. The popular crooner links up with the legendary Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 to dish on his new Give Or Take album, the impact family has on his career plus Drake similarities.

There’s a lot to get into so check out some interview highlights and keep scrolling to see GIVĒON in action.

GIVĒON Tells Apple Music Story Is The Most Important Part of His Process...
So my process is I really think the story is the most important part. Simply because I think that's what's going to make someone go back to it. That's definitely what's going to make me play it over and over again. So I like to have the story first. The thing about storytelling for me is you have to make sure it's digestible as well. With my songwriting I like to make it sound like a dialogue and not too poetic. I probably won't use too much imagery or literary devices or just I won't make it too poetic because you still want to understand what's going on. You don't want to be too cryptic.

GIVĒON Tells Apple Music About Studying Standup Comedians and Celebrated Public Speakers To Help Prepare For Live Shows...
I watch a lot of standup comedy, Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, and just public speaking like an Obama speech. Dave Chappelle's pace... Ignore that he's telling jokes... His pace and his delivery and confidence is second to none, obviously, besides... I just watch a lot of live things, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass… The space is so important, but even just watching Teddy and Frank Sinatra, when you don't have the dancers or when you don't have the 20-piece orchestra going on behind you, it's all up to you. I realize the importance of just trying to connect with each person. Also a thing I was, not concerned, but curious about was what if no one knows, I try to approach every festival like not a single person knows who I am. What impression do I want to leave on this person watching me right now?

GIVĒON Tells Apple Music He Identifies With The Clear and Concise Approach Drake Takes as a Songwriter...
It's clear, it's concise, you know what's going on. You could listen to it in three years. You could hear it in the bars, but it's also not blatantly saying it, but saying it in a simple and hard enough way that those who need to get it will understand it. That's the approach I really just take. I like to just tell the story in the simplest, but also poetic and coolest way that I could say it. How I would actually just talk.

GIVĒON Tells Apple Music About Aiming For Timelessness on ‘Give Or Take’...
When's the last time we heard a story from the perspective of, I'll say, a 25 to 27 year old man really just telling his story. Then on top of all of that, you add all this new found attention. I can't remember the last time I heard that. That's the timelessness I aim for. I want to know, once I know that I could just drop a project off in any decade and it could grow and flourish, that's why I also have the confidence to take my time.

GIVĒON Tells Apple Music About Playing The Album For His Mom The First Time and The Importance of Being Family Oriented To Stay Grounded...
She was just like, when it's ready, when it's done, because she understands that I'm a project artist. She understands that every song is connected, every interlude is connected, all the songs are connected. Then once I played it for her, obviously she started crying. I was at home. I like to just have my family over. I try to do it once a week, but if busy, probably once every two weeks. All my family was there, and I played it for them. It was just like, wow. Being so close to family and being family oriented is another thing that keeps me grounded and keeps perspective because it's so easy to lose a sense of reality as an artist, especially as an artist who built up a community. Now you feel like your world is so free and blessed, you can lose a sense of what's actually going on. 

GIVĒON Tells Apple Music How His Mom Guided His Musical Upbringing…
She recognized it first. So, she would just play music around the house while she cleaned. And she was one of those people who, once she liked something, or a song, she is going to play it over and over. She's a music fan, so if you're in the vicinity, you're going to learn that song against your will. So, then I would just start to sing along, because it's just in my head at this point. She put me in this program with the Grammy's, the Grammy Academy in LA. They take inner city kids. They teach you music history. They teach you songwriting. They teach you all of this. So while all of my peers were studying the current rotation of artists… the internet, I have assignments to study 60's swing jazz. With Nat King Cole, Sinatra… and I'm learning how it takes time to get to that point and also artist development, which those words are almost extinct.

GIVĒON Tells Apple Music Why There’s No Features on the Album...
I love that you keep really just bringing it back to me and my mom's conversation because that's the reason I chose no features. This story is so personal that there can't be another voice besides me and my mom because that's the conversation that was had.

GIVĒON Tells Apple Music About Handling The Rapid Pace of Music Consumption At The Moment...
Even I barely missed the cusp of being able to take my time and have artist development, but now music is consumed so fast that a lot of the newer artists, we really don't get to have the development. We're developing on the internet in front of everyone's eyes.  I'm still new and almost every week, where's the new music? Where's the new music? So being bombarded with that as a new artist… it takes a certain amount of bravery and confidence to know that whenever I release this body of work, it's going to be fine. I keep feeling bad for newer artists because we get rushed, we get rushed, and then if it's not up to a standard that our community expects, we get critiqued. It's also a message to, my community is very understanding. They've been very patient, but I just feel for other artists because you want quality, but you also want quantity at the same time.

GIVĒON Tells Apple Music How He Thinks About Criticism...I think I'm in a space where it's like, as far as criticism, I don't know, the world is interesting now because me personally, it's like, if I'm shopping for clothing, if I don't like this shirt, I don't like the tailor and the cut, I'm not going to hold it up and be like, hey everyone in this store, I don't like this shirt if you were wondering. I'm just not going to pick the shirt up. I'm going to go to a shirt that I like, buy it, and wear it. Now people are picking up the pants they don't like, telling everyone in the store they don't like these pants. I don't understand it. As far as criticism, it's art as well. You know? If I'm telling you a story about my heartbreak, it's at my discretion. You can't say, tell me how you got your heart broken in other ways. It's like, no. Just go listen to something else. I don't even think anything would be bad necessarily. It's just either it's for you or it's not.