Lil Tecca: The hitmaker dishes on new music, turning up with Kodak Black and Benny X

There’s more than just a story to tell for Lil Tecca these days. The hip-hop star is shining bright and it’s only right he pulls through to dish on his success and grind with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe dishing on everything from working alongside Kodak Black, Ken Carson and Benny X to his new album rollout.

While you need the Apple Music credentials to crack open this full-fledged conversation, you know my Apple Music plugs always come through with those amazing tidbits. Check out some key moments from the conversation and stay tuned for the - fingers crossed - full-fledged video.

Lil Tecca on New Song “Dead or Alive”…

It's very just in your face… so regardless if I'm dead or alive, I'm going to do this the way I want to do it. It's a statement of mortality for real. That's all that it comes down to. No matter how much money you make, no how matter accomplish you do, it's going to come to an end. So you don't want to sit at the end and be like, man, I wish I did it this way. 

Lil Tecca on Album Features on ’TEC’…

There's really only two features on here. I just got Kodak Black and Ken Carson. First of all, I love Kodak Black's music. I listened to him since a very young kid. 

Lil Tecca on What He Loves About Kodak Black…

I definitely feel like the beat selection, I like bouncy beats. I like melodic beats. When I heard that no flockin’ for the first time, I was like, okay, this is hard. This is a vibe. And then it was like that one song, I ain't getting no act like dat, why you act like dat. I was like, okay, he on some melodic, I like that slow vibe and effortless too. It just sound effortless. I do like intense music sometimes, but I also like music where it just sound like, okay, he didn't really try like that.

Lil Tecca on Working with Ken Carson…

Me and Ken been making music since probably 2021, so just having him on this project, we really just made a song that we really liked and was like, yo, we got to throw that on there. They got it here, this one. So it wasn't even about no cultural thing. It was just making a song with one of my friends that I like.

Lil Tecca on Working with Benny X…

Yeah, me and BENNY X, we've been working since even before I dropped Virgo World. So just seeing the way his production developed, just seeing the way everything happened for him, it's amazing to see man. That man right there, he does what he does. Amazing. He has no limits. He's not in a box. He's not in a box at all. He has the ear for sure. He has the ear and he's very, very, very, very capable in the room to be the pilot. He could run the room

Lil Tecca on His Early Music Aspirations and Having Supportive Parents...

I was on a time bomb. As soon as I started high school. To me, I'm like, okay, I got four years to make something shake before I entered the real world. It's crazy now that it's a main thing because it went from a part-time escape because how it was a secret from my parents, nobody even knew I did it, to now it's like a full-time expression. So it feels very liberating, it feels like I'm free. Even though I'm still on the road and to me, I have done a lot, but I still haven't done none yet compared to my aspirations. It's like, okay, I kind of did it. Coming from a full Jamaican background, I'm first generation American, it's like you can't do too much things without proof of concept, and that's why I didn't even tell my parents I did music. I wanted them really to find out, we in the mall somewhere shopping and one of my fans come up to me and I got to tell my parents like, yeah, I do music now, but it didn't go that way and I'm very glad of the support that I got. I'm very blessed to have the parents that I do. They supported me full way through and it's definitely a crazy feeling.

Lil Tecca on Collaboration…

That's really why I work with the people I do because it's not too much things that need to be said. It's really a wavelength thing. One of my best friends, Taz Taylor, when we get in the studio, we don't even have to say too much words. We just start playing the music. We hear what we hear, I'll look up, he'll look up, go in the booth and just cut it. I might just sit down, write my song for 30 minutes, 15 minutes. I might just go and do line by line. But everyone I work with we're on a wavelength and it works because we like different stuff, so when it comes together, it sounds like a piece. It doesn't sound like we're trying to do the same thing over and over and over because I might come back to the studio after a week and he hasn't been there or something, be like, "Yo, I've been on this new vibe." Or Rio might be like, "Yo, I've been on this new vibe. Check this out." I'd be like, okay, I like this vibe of what you did right here, but let's combine it with this, and we got a whole new vibe right there.

Lil Tecca on His Creative Process…

I look at music as an art, as I look at it as a practice and like a laboratory type of thing. Just trying out different things and see what the end result is. So I don't really wait till I feel like making music to do it. Sometimes I might just end up making music off of simulating to the mic, just end up, I realize I'm at the mic now and just end up making the music. But it goes both ways too because there are times where I do identify, I'm in flow state and I'm really doing some special work right now, and I am like, okay, let me step back real quick from chilling right now and actually get intentional with what I'm doing. Because not all the time I make intentional music. Sometimes I just make music just from what I'm thinking about. It just has no purpose or nothing.