Artist Interview: LorWood
Reporting by Emmett Favreau
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wesleyan’s very own LorWood in X House. LorWood, or Woodieeboi (he goes by both), is a 20 year old rapper from Baltimore, MD, and the founder of WoodieeboiRecords. His melodic vocals are reminiscent of trap icons such as Juice WRLD and Lil Uzi Vert, and his fashion both on stage and during the interview reminded me of an early Playboi Carti or A$AP Rocky in 2017. He’s a familiar face in the Wesleyan music scene, and a frequent performer at Mic Check, where he brings the energy with tracks like “Audi Keys !” and “#WINE4ME” (a personal favorite of mine). Lorwood is a musician with a lot of potential, and through my brief conversations with him, it’s clear that we’ll be seeing Lorwood reach even greater heights in the future.
What does “LorWood” mean? You also introduce yourself as “Woodieeboi”. Is there a difference between the two in style or are they simply both names?
So LorWood. The “Lor” is like a Baltimore trend, like a lot of Baltimore rappers and underground rappers, like Lor Scoota, people like that. So it was like my Instagram handle from like, middle school and shit and elementary school, and then I just kept it. But people have always been calling me Woodie, and I have two younger brothers so it’s always the Woodie Boys, but I’m like, the first, so it kinda just grew on me and I just started shifting into it. Kinda different songs. I feel like LorWood you can definitely hear and then Woodieeboi is more melodic stuff, so I don’t know, it just changed from when I was younger to getting older.
You’re from Baltimore - would you say that your music is influenced by your hometown? How so?
Well, I think content wise it’s definitely influenced by my hometown, just like, stories about things I would do, or just being with my brothers and stuff back in the city. But primarily, most of my time was spent in Connecticut. I was at a boarding school, so I feel like I didn’t really have a ton of influence sound-wise. I’m inspired by the west coast, and New York and Florida and Texas, and Chicago. Just other places because I had a lot of friends from everywhere else and I was getting hip to their music.
With a lot of artists on the come up, what do you want to bring to the table that’s unique and/or different?
I think it's really just my story, honestly. My passion for music doesn’t really have a limit. I feel like once I keep on making music and evolving my sound it’s like, it’s probably going to be a lot of things that I’ll discover about my artistry and that I want to bring to the table. I feel like that’s kinda why I got into music, cause I kinda wanted to hear something different.
I’ve noticed when you perform live, your fits always go hard and remind me of an A$AP Rocky / 2017 Carti style. Would you say the music you listen to or make influences that?
I think it’s kind of just what I was into. I always thought it looked good, and I think that, you know, trends rise and fall, and there was like a wave that I really did admire in those artists like the Carti era, the A$AP era, you know. Like that streetwear where it’s also kinda like high fashion streetwear stuff, so I don’t know. I get a lot of my style from my mom. She’s very fashionable so I think that’s what it was.
How does production play into your music? Do you produce your own stuff or do you have a go to producer?
I’ve recently started getting into producing. But for the most part I have friends who are producers. We all started making music around the same time so it’s a fun experience with them involving their craft and me involving my craft. They’ve always worked with me and they’ve always been super supportive of what I do. But most of my stuff, I engineer my own vocals and stuff.
So you have a label, WoodieeboiRecords. What was your inspiration to start that?
I think that I’ve always been driven by my friends around me. They always wanted to rap but they always saw me as the first kid who started. So my younger brothers rap, a lot of my friends rap, and I just thought that having an opportunity for us to do collective tapes where we’re just having a ton of fun… that’s where a lot of my music started from. Just seven of us trying to freestyle on a beat type thing so, I think WoodieeboiRecords is just my baby project, like when I can accomplish one thing in this mission of mine, that’s going to be my prize.
What’s your favorite song to perform live / favorite song you’ve performed?
I think my favorite song to perform live, and this is more recent, but, “Audi Keys !” with Demarku$, because we performed it probably 4 or 5 times now together, but just in general I feel like that song and the time and place where I made it - it was just beautiful to see how long it really held. Just in terms of what I was talking about, it's really lasted for me, so I love performing that. But I also do like “#WINE4ME”, that’s an upbeat, happy song, a dance, and, you know, a party.
How do you find balance in being an artist and being a student at Wes?
I think it definitely takes a lot of discipline. It’s something that I think I even need to work on, because, in terms of music, I’ll spend 6 to 7 hours out of a day like devoting it to music, but you have to have that same intensity if you wanna be able to strive, or just be able to succeed in whatever your endeavors are academically so, definitely a lot of discipline. Also a lot of allocating time for yourself, you know, mentally, so you can reset and change over. It’s very difficult especially if you’re recording in your room or very accessible to music around you. It's like everything. An idea can come at any time.
If you could collaborate with any 5 artists on your next album, who would they be?
I think a lot of people who I wanted to make a song with have passed unfortunately. Juice WRLD would’ve been one for sure, X (XXXTENTACTION) would’ve been one for sure. Definitely Gunna, SoFaygo probably, and just my friends.
Lastly, what was your “made it” moment or what will be your “made it” moment?
I think my “made it” moment will just be when I’ll be able to look up and see that I’m supporting myself and people I love off of my music and I’m in a place where I’m content and free to really pursue everything that I want to do. There’s obviously limitations to that and there probably will be flip sides to that coin but for me personally I think you know, I never really look for validation from anyone but myself and I’m super hard to please. So I feel like I’ll just keep on climbing that ladder as I progress.
