Post Malone has gone from partying rock star to easygoing “mountain man.”
The “Rockstar” rapper covers Billboard‘s first issue of 2022 and inside, talks about his battle to find inner peace, his new mantra, and his forthcoming album.
When Malone first moved to his mountainside home in Utah, he thought it would be great for his creativity, free from any distractions — given the peaceful environment — but his mind went the opposite way. He faced burnout and anxiety after his mega-hit streak, from “Sunflower” to “Circles”, followed by the start of the pandemic.
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“You think about everything at the same time, and it’s f***ing overload. There’s a lot riding on the music. There’s a lot riding on just being able to keep making songs,” he said. “And that’s hard to do because you’re like, ‘F*** — I already talked about everything.’ And you kind of run out of ideas, and that’s scary s**t.”
To make his new album, 'twelve carat toothache,' @PostMalone had to rediscover his creative spark: "There was a switch that flipped."
Read the full cover story: https://t.co/llp0cZPw75 pic.twitter.com/MsB8O5PoeR
— billboard (@billboard) January 26, 2022
Fortunately, Malone has had the same tight-knit crew surrounding him since he broke out with “White Iverson” who helped him reignite his creativity for his upcoming album Twelve Carat Toothache.
The rapper says that his new songs “speak more to how I’m feeling at the moment: the ups and downs and the disarray and the bipolar aspect of being an artist in the mainstream.”
Malone explained how he manages the ups and downs in order to maintain his artistry.
“You lose a lot of the artist nowadays because a lot of people have so many genius ideas, but you lose a lot of that through everything that might happen with the business side — and you lose a little bit of yourself,” he said. “Every time you change your art and your way of thinking for someone else’s, that takes a little piece of yourself off every time. I feel like I’m trying to rebuild.”
Part of that rebuilding means not compromising for the sake of streaming success.
“Trying to shove 20 to 25 songs, it doesn’t work. Talking to the label [it’s like], ‘Oh, if you have less songs, you’re not going to stream as much,’ but the whole thing is that you don’t want to compromise your art and your gut vibe on anything,” Malone admitted. “I’ve made a lot of compromises, especially musically, but now I don’t feel like I want to anymore. I don’t need a No. 1; that doesn’t matter to me no more, and at a point, it did.”
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Malone has made music for “years and years” and revealed his retirement dreams down the line.
“I just want to relax and enjoy the simple things. Be like a kid again. Have no responsibilities and everything is handled: your kids, your family, everybody is set and doesn’t need to worry, so you can just play games and play in the tall grass.”
