“I Got So Much More”: A Conversation With Pink Siifu
always working. always learning. forever a vessel.
There is no facade to Pink Siifu. No ventriloquistic figure pulling strings. No machine behind the man. Matter of fact, he is the machine — the writer, rapper, vocalist, sometimes producer, always world-builder.
Amidst the fog of content oversaturation, excessive album bundles, and algorithmic exploits, the Birmingham-bred Siifu persists as a human wake-up call. A true artist artist, whose tireless work ethic and musical fearlessness know few if any bounds.
His latest album, BLACK’!ANTIQUE, puts this oneness at center focus. As his fourth solo effort (that number more than quadruples when you account for collaborative work, mixtapes, and alias projects), Antique pulls openly from each of his previous three, offering a potent reminder of his artistic range.
It is a three-act cinema of a record that snatches you with a flurry of brash noise punk akin to NEGRO; finds a groove with home-cooked southern rap reminiscent of GUMBO’!; closes with sun-kissed soul samples and poetic lyricism that calls back to his 2018 debut ensley. Nestled between there, it finds room for ghettotech and breezy, spaced out rap ballads, all waters he’s dipped his toe in before.
Though familiar as it may feel, this is not at all a rehash or rendition. There is a fresh vitality to the album, brimming with the urgency of an artist pushing their own boundaries to the brink of mastery. An artist ever conscious of time and, more pressingly, staking his forever place within it.
This is the concept at the root of Antique, coalescing Siifu’s range of ideas into something more: a musical artifact. Derived from Sun Ra’s 1974 experimental joint, The Antique Blacks, the album is a statement about artistic rarity and legacy. The title itself a descriptor of the Black artists and luminaries whose presence is everlasting far beyond their time on earth. Roy Ayers. Ras G. Prince. Nina. The list is long. This is where Siifu sees himself, or is at least working relentlessly to be.
We sat down and spoke in depth about the album, the weight of what we leave behind, and what he’s planning next during one late night in the back of Poo-Bah Records — a lasting relic of a record shop in the heart of Pasadena, California. He picked through their catalog and answered some questions while records from Whitney and early Wayne spun in the backdrop. Antiques of their own.
The conversation is lightly edited for clarity. Run it up.
Last time we spoke, you had just released IT’S TOO QUIET..’!!, what’s the last year been like for you?
Coming off that album into this was mad dope. I’ve been having fun with arranging things.
Was that the album that got you excited about arranging?
I’d say Leather Blvd. really. I was able to play with all the musicians, play with stems, sessions and original music. It was fun. Then on Too Quiet, [collaborator] Turich Benjy was like whatever I pass to him, he was going to score — straight assist. So in the studio, we were just going back and forth. I took that energy to BLACK’!ANTIQUE with everybody, especially vocalists. Like having Mother Mary, SS.Sylvester, Elheist. I really like scores and I really like movie moments so I’m starting to think like that with music.
The album feels like three acts.
It is!
How did the concept of BLACK’!ANTIQUE come to you?
Sun Ra. His album The Antique Blacks … I’ve been blessed to have been on this wave. I got the title and the concept first and it informed the music.
What is a Black Antique?
Shit… Missy. Grace Jones. Muhammad Ali. Me. James Baldwin. Marcus Garvey. Just niggas that’s doing shit that’s going to be here to stay and stamping whatever they’re on. George Clinton. Sydney Portier. It’s not just music, just niggas that have stamped what they’re doing in a very serious and timeless message. Something that’s here forever. When it’s done, what’s going to still stand? That’s an antique.
The beauty of an antique, too, is how it evolves over time. An heirloom has a past spirit, an origin story, but takes on new life and meaning in a new home. Who are the antiques living through you on this album?
On this record… I’d say Hendrix and Sun Ra. But honestly, I’m trying to just not do what they did but it’s certain moments they have in their music that I just want to continue to build off of. They could have one song in a whole album that inspires another album entirely.
And you want your work to carry that on to the next.
I definitely want my music to stand like those albums.
How much of that was top of mind when working on the project?
It was, for sure. What I wanted niggas to really take from this shit is that I’m really one of one. It ain’t nobody else that could really make this record. At least right now. That’s what I wanted to leave behind. Like, with Ka dying — rest in peace Ka — he did it leaving the perfect album behind. All his work represents him as a man and what he stood for, but his last album, it was different. And I really was blown back by that and I started looking at myself. Like, damn. If I die right now, I don’t know if I’ll be proud of everything that’s out because I got so much more. So that’s even why you got three acts. Because y’all about to get everything whenever I want to give it and how I want to give it. And I can stand on that afterwards. Ka did that until the very last album. So that was definitely a big inspiration.
You feel like you’ve accomplished that?
I mean I’ve got more work to do [laughs]. But yeah, if BLACK’!ANTIQUE was the last shit — Inshallah, it ain’t — but if it was, I’m cool on that. It’s just fearless. Fearlessness. And we need more of that in music and art. Period.
Fearless is the word that comes to mind for me, too. You’ve always been willing to try everything, but this album has a different type of don’t give a fuck to it. It feels like an amalgamation of your catalog in some ways — the experimental political punk of NEGRO, poetry of ensley, southern soul of GUMBO!.
Yeah, that’s a fact. That’s how I start the album: “let a nigga talk his shit”. That’s what I hear in CHROMAKOPIA, too. It’s a few artists that’s been doing things that feel like, alright, stop playing with me. It’s a few artists in that space right now and I’m definitely one. I keep telling people, if NEGRO’! was they got my people fucked up, this one is they got me fucked up. Like I’m sorry, I need to be selfish but let me tell y’all why they got me fucked up. That’s Black’Antique! … definitely the first half [laughs].
What did it take for you to get to that point?
You get to a point where you just start to see what other folks are not doing. Like what artists give a fuck about an album experience right now? That’s what Antique is. And it gets better with time. Especially when you see the shows, hear it live, then go back to it. So I’m trying to do that. That’s what Missy did for me. George Clinton. Prince. Hendrix. Quincy and Mike. Dungeon. I’m trying to do that. And once you realize it’s just me and a few other niggas that care about the experience, it’s like ok, stop playing with me. Stop discrediting the care that we give over here. It ain’t shitting on nobody else, it’s just seeing this for what it is. Sometimes you gotta pop your shit.
There was a recent interview with RZA, where he spoke about working on the score for “Kill Bill” was the first time he recognized the difference between producing and actually composing and arranging. How seeing Tarantino command a set shifted his entire approach to making music. I know that for you-
Yeah I haven’t worked on a film yet. Once I do that I’m probably out of music [laughs]. I’m out of here.
Right, but I know that for you, film has been a huge influence and you had a similar shift from simply rapping to really arranging and building a world. What unlocked that for you?
I mean that came with me honestly just appreciating the music from movies. On the first B. Cool Aid album, [producer and second half of B.Cool Aid] Ahwlee sampled a scene from Brown Sugar — the one where Mos Def nervous as fuck with Queen Latifah — he took the music in the background and brought it to the forefront with his chops. It was amazing to me. Even going back to Jay Electronica on “Eternal Sunshine”. DJ Krush beats off the Blade soundtrack. Shit like that. Just as a fan of music and movies I really listen to shit and be like I can sample this, this can be an outro, an interlude, it always blends so well. That’s why I always appreciate soundtracks and scores from back in the day because they really did that.
You’ve been using your voice as an instrument more. Not to say you aren’t rapping on here, but there are noticeable moments where your voice becomes more textural. Is this an intentional shift?
Yeah, some shit just vibes. Vibes and feeling. I honestly never been a nigga that’s all about the raps. Even when I was doing poetry, when I was doing open mics, I couldn’t be up there with them niggas that could just control the room with no mic. I was doing that, but as soon as a band was there, they were my background music for my poetry. I’m a vibe setter. I always let my words sit in the vibe and then you can reflect on that. Like I could rap with some of the best, but it ain’t about that anymore. I want to make music, I don’t care about having the best verse.
What is your strongest talent right now? Rapping, writing, producing, world building?
World building. And probably, performing. But I don’t even really like performing these days, I’m trying to do something different with it. More creative and artistically expressive.
What’s your driving force for you moving forward? Or have you done everything?
Oh hell nah. Hell nah. I still got ideas. I’m still excited. That’s the real driving force. The fact that I still want to do some shit. I still want to get more shit off.
It’s worth asking because you can look at your work to date and say you’ve pushed nearly every button artistically.
Yeah, but I also just listen to a lot more than I put out. Not to say I’m trying to put out everything I listen to. Like I’ll probably never put out a gospel album, but it’s some genres I love where I’m like y’all have yet to hear me do that. That’s why I say after 10 [albums] I’m probably out. And I’m not the type of artist that’s going to give you like 10 pure rap albums. I can’t see myself doing that.
Do you have an idea of what the next six albums will sound like or are you open to what comes?
I kinda got all my shit mapped out. Not to the tenth, but at least like the next three or four. I’m still excited. That’s the drive. If you don’t got that, you gotta go find it. That’s the Prince, Sun Ra, Madlib in me. Their work ethic was nonstop and it was really just because they had to get it out. I still got that. I’m still getting blessed. I’m still a vessel. That’s what makes this still churn.