It’s hard to fathom that it’s been almost a decade since Charlotte rapper Lute, fresh off the release of his debut album West 1996, signed with J. Cole’s Dreamville record label, giving hope to the community of hip-hop artists who coming up in a scene where most people would say you need to leave the city to succeed.
Since his signing in 2015, Lute has stayed connected with the local scene; he currently lives in the Northlake area and still attends open mics around the city when he’s free.
One thing he hasn’t done, however, is play a headlining show … until now. On Aug. 17, Lute will hit the stage at Neighborhood Theatre for Gold Mouf: The Homecoming, his first headlining gig as a signed artist in his home city.
In the lead-up to the show, where he’ll be joined by local artists Leroy (formerly Well$) and The Bleus — all of whom playing with live instrumental backing — we caught up with Lute to sit and chat about what’s taken him so long to headline a Queen City show and how he was able to confront his debilitating anxiety through the 2021 release of Gold Mouf, changing his life for the better in the process.
Queen City Nerve: It seems hard to believe this is your first headlining show. How could that be?
Lute: Because it just is; this is my first headlining show as a Dreamville artist or a signed artist. Every other show has been either with [former Charlotte-based collective] Forever FC or me being a special guest to somebody bringing me out. So this is my very first show as a signed artist in Charlotte. And the way it came about was the fact that I had realized I had never done a headlining show in the city, not because I never wanted to but just because my anxiety was always so … disabling that I never really pressed the issue to even do a show.
It initially was scheduled for July 6, which was my birthday. So the show was really for me to celebrate the milestone of me turning 35. And I wanted to do it in a cool way to celebrate with friends and family and do a live band, like something completely different. I’ve never done a live band, never done a show in Charlotte, so I just wanted to make the experience something different, something cool.
We ended up having to push it back for a couple of reasons, but this time around, I’m excited about it because we was able to be a lot more hands-on with promotion and getting things done and stuff like that … To be honest, it’s not even about the birthday anymore. It’s really just about celebrating the legacy of the [Gold Mouf] project. It’s really now just, I’ve still never had a headlining show. So it makes it even more special because I don’t know my market here in the city. I want to know what that looks like for myself.
Do you stay pretty actively engaged with the local hip-hop scene?
Lute: To be honest, I still go to the open mics. I’m still in Plaza Midwood. I still pull out.
And what have you seen just in terms of the growth in the last 10 years or so since you were signed?
Lute: Oh, man, it’s amazing. Especially with a lot of the new cats coming in, it’s so fire to see because I just remember the Chop Shop days and Bodega days and stuff like that. To see where the things are headed now, it’s like, man, this is fire. We had no idea what we were doing in that time and for everything to be happening the way it’s happening now, it’s like, man.
There was a point in time where you had to leave here to go to make music, you had to leave here to get things done. And now, man, you got superstars rising left and right out of here. I think that’s beautiful.
I saw you in a recent Red Bull cypher shouting out Reuben Vincent and Mavi. How important is it for you to keep shouting those folks out in your music and show that love as opposed to just doing your own thing and sticking with Dreamville?
Lute: It’s super important. Again, it’s about maintaining community. Now that we have one or now that we can have one, I feel like community is important. And like I tell my homies all the time, anywhere I can plug the people that I love, the people that I fuck with, I’m going to always find a way to plug their name so that they can get more recognition or more light on them. Because I wish it had been done more for me … Well, it had been done for me, but when this all started, it was hard to get people behind you.
I’m looking for everybody at this point because the community has been built. The community is here. And so I’m going to support in whatever way, form, or fashion that I can, whether it’s shouting somebody out on the verse, shouting somebody out on the ground, or pulling up to open mics, pulling up to people’s shows. I’m going to do that.
So, shifting gears now, just listening to the album again, it’s been out three years now but it’s aging well. It still has legs. I think a big reason your lyrical content has such pull has to do with relatability. You just mentioned your anxiety and you rap about that and fake friends and not wanting to come out. It’s something so many folks can relate to regardless of any level of fame. In my opinion, I feel like Dreamville is the perfect home for you in that way, with J. Cole having set that standard.
Lute: It’s crazy that you say that. It’s times where I look back on my career or I look back on things and I’m like, man, how Dreamville has been laid out and how Dreamville is, I wouldn’t have wanted to have been in a better place as far as being signed somewhere outside of being independent or whatever. It was just such a perfect place to land, such a perfect place to be. I feel like it was just the universe making it happen for me.
You’ve got a bunch of Dreamville features on Gold Mouf. Who are some of your favorite collaborators on the label?
Lute: Not to be cliché because it’s such a tight-knit fam thing going on, but I like working with everybody. Me and Cozz kick it pretty cool. EARTHGANG, I spend more time with them in certain places or in certain towns. I’ve been around Cozz a lot, Bas as well. The only person I don’t have a song with is — well, I do have a song with Omen — but it just being me and Omen, I would love for a me and Omen collab.
It seems like everybody’s styles play off real well off each other.
Lute: They do! That’s because we have the chemistry. Our chemistry is really crazy, even though it’s times where we’re all on different sides of the world or whatever, but when we come together, that family dynamic kicks back in. I think what people don’t understand is outside of music, at a point in time, we spent a lot of time together.
Cole had a place in Raleigh called The Shelter, and we spent a lot of time at The Shelter.
Even before we got signed, we would all stay there for weeks to months at a time. I really appreciated Cole for that because The Shelter was like a safe haven. A lot of these cats I knew since The Shelter, and that’s when we built that family dynamic. It’s not like you just put a bunch of random cats on a label. We were all living together at one point — I wouldn’t say living, but we spent so much time with each other.
How has the feedback for Gold Mouf been now that you’re three years out and people have gotten a chance to really sit with it a while?
Lute: To be honest, even in the moment as the album was being released, the feedback I got, I was not expecting it — how positive it was, I wasn’t expecting it. It really changed my confidence as far as creating music because my confidence really lacked at a point in time with creating music because I was trying not to be as vulnerable. I was afraid to be vulnerable in spaces. So I realized, the more vulnerable I am, the more relatable I am because I’m a very personable person.
Half the shit that I have going on in my day-to-day life, nobody would know. It wasn’t until people started relating to me with the anxiety that I started to open up more. When people started really congratulating me for talking about it and speaking on it, I was like, “Oh, shit. This is a thing.”
And the thing about the album is it’s a journey from the beginning, and that’s purposeful. So in the beginning, it’s like that lack of confidence is there, but by the end of the album, I’ve come to where I see myself for the first time and I love myself. So now for me, it’s like, where do I go from there? I have this love for myself now. I can see myself. I love myself. Now, how does my music sound?
Did you have hang-ups about expressing that, especially in the hip-hop community where it’s not all that popular to talk about weaknesses?
Lute: A lot of people don’t know this, but I did not want to drop. I did not want to release Gold Mouf. I thought it was too personable. People wouldn’t relate to it. That’s why I didn’t think the feedback was going to be as good. In my mind, I’m like, “Oh, people don’t want to hear this shit.” I had even more anxiety putting it out. I don’t want to release this project. And so for me, I just had to trust [Big] Pooh and go on and release it. But initially, I did not want it to go.
You’ve also been known to be a perfectionist and really be patient with putting out new music. It got to a point on Twitter where you were almost having fun with people demanding that you drop an album. Did that anxiety and that feeling like people didn’t want to hear that vulnerability play a role in this being six years since your last drop?
Lute: No, the pressure and anxiety are two different things to me. It never played a role in when I dropped. The thing with me with projects, I’m really putting myself in the music, so it takes me a while because I’m putting my all into it. And so by the time you hear a project from me, I’m already done. My cup is empty because I don’t put so much into that project, into that album. But now it’s completely different. To be honest, in today’s time, an album isn’t even on my mind. I’m creating music, but I’m not creating music to create an album.
I was telling a friend a couple of days ago, I just turned 35 in July, so I’m trying to catch up to the 35-year-old me. I haven’t slowed down. I’ve been nonstop since the pandemic. So 25-year-old me and 35-year-old me don’t relate to the same things. So I’m just trying to catch up to, what am I into now? What are my interests? How does 35-year-old me sound on a track? What does a 35-year-old track for me sound like?
It’s just that me at 25 and me at 35 are two different people and I’m just trying to catch back up to that because I haven’t had a break. When I did slow down, it was because of traumas and deaths in the family and things like that, where life had to slow down. It wasn’t my option. So now for me, I’m just living my life all over again, rediscovering myself all over again. Still creating music, but not creating music in the hopes to make a project.
You mentioned your friendship with Big Pooh. What did it mean to you to have a Little Brother feature on Gold Mouf so soon after their much-anticipated reunion?
Lute: I’ve known Pooh for a while, and then Pooh introduced me to Phonte. It’s funny because it was just me and Phonte — it was a feature between me and Phonte. When I did get the feature, in my mind, I’m like, “Man, I would really love for Pooh to hop on here, so it could be a Little Brother feature.” I had that song for two years before it came on the project. They weren’t together yet.
Even when they collabed on it, they weren’t together, which that’s the reason why for me it was so legendary. It was iconic, really. Iconic for me, because it hadn’t been announced that they were back together or anything. I’ll never forget. I got a phone call from Pooh and he was like, “Yo, man, I’m about to put a verse on there.” I was like, “Yes, I got a Little Brother” feature.
That’s literally one of my favorite tracks on there. It’s one of the oldest tracks on that album because I had it two years before I even got it [on Gold Mouf].
What are your thoughts about playing your first show with a live band?
Lute: It’s exciting because my music has such a live feel to it anyway. I’m just excited to hear it being live because, performing-wise, energetically, I’m not a guy that bounces around the stage or anything. So I felt like my groove would always be live with a live band, so I’m hoping my theory is right and that this all comes together and it’s just such a beautiful show. I love watching music live. I don’t go to concerts as much because of my anxiety, but I love watching music live.
I’m just excited to do something different and excited to be home and doing that here and not giving something to somebody elsewhere. I’d rather do it here at home and them get that than doing this elsewhere.
Most of Gold Mouf is live instrumentation. No samples. There’s a few samples, maybe two or three songs with samples, but everything else is live. G.E.D. is live, down to the flow. That’s why I was like, it was so perfect to do a live band and do some of these things live because Gold Mouf was actually live-recorded that way.
The Bleus is also relatively new to playing with a live backing band. How did you connect with her for this show?
Lute: Man, she’s so fire. I met her a long time ago at Petra’s and we instantly clicked. And we instantly clicked, man. I just thought it was perfect for the vibe because it was hard in my mind thinking like, opener-wise, because, again, I’m not the bounce around type. So I was trying to find somebody that matches that vibe, trying to find somebody that can really carry a show.
Read more: Backed by a Live Band, The Bleus Goes Live with New Project
Even though Well$ (Leroy) has that different energy, Well$ is also a person that’s very diverse. And his music is right as well. And I’ve known Well$ for years. Everybody’s going to have their own live section … the whole setup is going to be live just to carry on the theme. That way it’s not a weird switch up or anything. I’m going to try to do some live poetry as well. I got my boy Abstract who’s going to try to pull something out on screen. We’re going to try to do something cool.
Lute’s Gold Mouf: The Homecoming show is scheduled for Aug. 17 at 8 p.m. Find tickets here.
