Photo: Brandon McClain
In a crew full of exuberant personalities hellbent on standing out, Archibald Slim stood out by not trying to stand out. Awful Records burst into the national spotlight in the mid-2010s with over a dozen members all over the artistic spectrumâ from Fatherâs horny Casiocore to Abraâs goth pop to Zack Foxâs gonzo comedy to Playboi Cartiâs embryonic Soundcloud rap. But the connecting thread was a wild, oddball spirit. Slim had none of that. While other members hogged the spotlight in the collectiveâs crowded music videos, he was always off to the side avoiding eye contact until it was time to actually rap.
Slimâs early music reflected this workmanlike attitude. Neither a motormouth nor a minimalist, a showboat nor a soft-spoken poet, he rapped with a clear understanding of the classics, the crewâs resident old soul. He was methodical, introspective, and painfully realistic, just as capable of conveying drama as he was the mundanity of the everyday struggle. Heâd pair himself with Awful producers like KeithCharles Spacebar or Dexter Dukarus whose differing musical backgrounds would put his traditionalist sensibilities in conversation with the crewâs modernism, or else heâd produce for himself and showcase a keen ear for samples and grooves. Not as zeitgeist-y as Awfulâs most visible output, Slimâs music was more unique for the personality behind it, a grounding, often crotchety presence in the group.
Between 2014 and 2016, Slim released an insane amount of material â 14 albums, tapes, EPs, and/or collaborative projects by my current count on his Soundcloud. In the last five years though, only two relatively short works, his three-song Veritas EP and the 6-track All About a Dollar collaboration with producer DMV Willie, have trickled out.
This week, he makes his long-awaited return with Fell Asleep Praying, which, despite the stellar quality of previous highlights like Heâs Drunk! and Donât Call the Cops, is the first Archibald Slim album that actually feels like an album. Credit the time spent laboring over it, as well as its arc. Slim introduces himself by saying heâs âbeen snitched on, turnt on, lied on,â and by the time heâs chanting âdonât tell me what I shoulda did, bitch todayâs todayâ on the closer, heâs led us through the ups and downs of the realist philosophy heâs developed over the years. The music follows suit, starting with bleary cloud trap backdrops, ramping things up briefly before a mid-album foray into grim-as-fuck East Coast street rap, and then slowly transitioning from those bloodcurdling sounds into something similar but eerier than the first few tracks.
To find out where the hell Archibald Slimâs been the past five years, I caught up with him over the phone. We discussed his disdain for social media interaction, his change in approach to music, and his unique position within the Awful Records family. â Patrick Lyons
Itâs been a long time manâ I think the last time we spoke it was the beginning of 2015. So how are things with you?
Archibald Slim: Eh, itâs alright, canât really say shit. Itâs probably about the same for everybody, you canât really do shit.
Where are you right now?
Archibald Slim: Atlanta. In 2018 I went to L.A. and came back to Atlanta last year. I always said I wouldnât ever live out there but I ended up there by accident and just stayed. It was straight, but once COVID closed everything down and there wasnât shit to do out there I had to come back. I probably wouldnât live out there again for a minute.
Howâs it been in Atlanta since youâve been back during the pandemic?
Archibald Slim: It really donât seem like the COVID shit happened out here, because they donât close nothing down here. When that shit happened in L.A. they closed everything except the grocery store. I came back here, Iâm scared to go do shit. N****s was just outside with no mask, in the bar. Theyâre like, âWe not gonna close down âtil [Atlanta mayor] Keisha Lance Bottoms say we gotta close!â So that shit been open.
So you first sent me Fell Asleep Praying in February, and I think there are now a few new tracks and a few that arenât on here anymore. Was that what delayed putting it out?
Archibald Slim: Nah, I already had all these songs. I was just overthinking it, for real. It ainât no real reason. But I just got tired of hearing the same shit over and over, so I took two of âem off. but it ainât nothing that happened between now and then besides me fuckinâ around. I donât know, the whole internet shit different, and I just was doinâ too much.
In what ways has that internet shit changed since back in 2014, 2015, when you were releasing stuff all the time?
Archibald Slim: Like, I ainât even have an Instagram for real then. All I had was a Twitter. That was it. All this extra, TikTok and shit, I still donât really fuck with. But I didnât even have a fuckinâ iPhone until 2015. I still was barely on Twitter, and it was just âcuz it was there for people to see. But itâs too many people doing the same shit now, so you canât just be like, âOh, Iâm dropping music!â It takes too muchâ I guess youâd just call it social media interaction as a whole. I ainât really an internet person. I was trying to figure out how I could do all that and not compromise, but I couldnât figure it out so I just said fuck it and decided I was gonna put this out without doing all that.
Do you think itâs gotten more crowded with music since then, or is it that the type of online interactions youâre talking about has taken attention away from the music?
Archibald Slim: Both. Just the fact that somebody see somebody else do something and wanna do it. Thereâs just more ways to get recognized. People doing way more shit, and more people think theyâre able to do it.
How long have you been working on the songs that show up on this album?
Archibald Slim: Probably two years, but Iâve been working on music the whole time. Not always specifically for any reason. I ainât really decide I was gonna put nothing out until like, last year.
What ended up grouping this music together for this project, as opposed to other stuff youâd been working on?
Archibald Slim: So I used to just make all my own shit, so Iâd make however many beats, take ten, then rap over it. But I ainât really been making my own shit, so Iâve been having to get shit from different people. But I donât know, itâs just the [songs] I really fuck with. Before this point in time, âcuz itâs still like five years of shit that I ainât put out. Itâs three projects I made before this one that didnât make it out. So thereâs still music I ainât dropped that nobodyâll probably ever gonâ hear. I made Donât Call the Cops II. I made one with Ethereal, he produced the whole shit. I made one that Fat[her] produced. None of these ever came out.
Is that because you didnât think they were good enough to put out?
Archibald Slim: Itâs been years at this point. I donât even care to listen to them shits no more, so I ainât even wanna put em out.
I know youâve got Dexter [Dukarus] on a couple beats, and DMV Willie on at least one. What other producers are on the album?
Archibald Slim: The only other one on there that ainât produced by them is the one I produced, âReflectionâ with Chester Watson.
That songâs got a sound that I havenât heard you do before. Some real grimy East Coast â have you made anything else in that vein?
Archibald Slim: Yeah, I just wasnât trying to rap on it. I made a lot of shit like that, but I donât know what made me rap on that one.
âReflectionsâ reminds me a bit of Roc Marciano, who I know youâre a fan of.
Archibald Slim: Yeah, itâs more so that type of shit than I guess what folks is listening to, like Young Thug, all that extra shit. I ainât really been listening to none of that type of shit, Iâve just been on, like you said, Roc Marciano, Alchemist shit, Boldy James, Earl, Freddie Gibbs, Griselda, Stove God, Mach-Hommy. But I still listen to like Future, and Gucci, and Babyface Rayâ thatâs probably all else I been listening to.
I know youâve said you were a big Mobb Deep fan, but what was it like growing up listening to that type of shit in the South?
Archibald Slim: Well I grew up in Maryland all through elementary school. The radio up there is different than the radio down south, like you can hear all that New York type shit up there. Thatâs when [Mobb Deepâs] âQuiet Stormâ was out. My dad didnât listen to nothinâ but Tupac and Biggie, but my whole familyâs from the South so I still was listening to shit like Hot Boys, Mystikal, and Pastor Troy, and shit like that. So it was a mix.
Once you were living in Atlanta, starting to make music, did you feel like you were out-of-step with what was going on in the city?
Archibald Slim: I always listened to what I wanted to listen to and made what I wanted to make. I didnât really pay too much attention to what everybody else was doing. So yeah, I was kind of out-of-step with what everybody else was doing, âcuz I wasnât really trying to relate to nothinâ they were doinâ. I used to go buy records and make beats on the MPC, so Iâm making shit that sounds like Mobb Deep, Gang Starr, Premo, Commonâs Resurrectionâ so thatâs the type of shit I was making when people was coming up in Atlanta here. So Iâm way, way different pace. I didnât even start fucking with what nobody was listening to until like 2015. I was real out the loop.
So that coincided with hanging around the rest of Awful?
Archibald Slim: Yeah, being around more people [changed things]. âCuz if Iâm just in the house by myself Iâm only gonna listen to what I want to hear. I started going out more and hearing different shit, being around different people. You canât just say, âAy, turn that shit off!â in somebody else house.