Photo: Jananie Kaneswaran
Smiley has a lot on his mind. After releasing his most successful project to date, the 26-year-old artist is doing everything he can to prepare for what's next in his career.
When iHeartRadio caught up with Smiley, he had just wrapped up a workout at the gym ahead of a show in his hometown of Toronto during Hip Hop 50 weekend. Staying in shape has become key for the "Over The Top" rapper now that he's out doing his own concerts in support of his latest EP I Did What I Did.
"I felt like I Did What I Did was the best one that resonates with me a lot and with other people too, you know?" Smiley said about the project's title. "Normally it'll just be like two real slappers on the tape. With this one, I have 'Nicky Nine Door,' 'Eternals,' 'Benzi Boyz,' 'Long Nights' and 'How Far.'
The half Mexican, half Haitian artist has been on the rise for the past few years. After he garnered the attention of Boi-1da with his track "9 On Me," Smiley first connected with Drake in 2017 right before he released his debut project Buy. or. Bye. Four years later, Smiggs and Drizzy teamed up for their first major collaboration "Over The Top," which alerted the world that Smiley had officially joined OVO Sound. He followed up a few months later with his Buy or Bye 2 project, which contains collaborations with Yung Bleu, Ohgeesy, 42 Dugg and Duvy.
Within the past two years, Smiley has proved his worth as a prominent artist on the OVO roster. In our conversion with the Toronto MC, Smiley opens up about his new EP, speaks about the making of songs like "Long Nights," and reveals why he includes bittersweet bars about the night when he met Drake for the first time. Press play on I Did What I Did and scroll below to see what Smiley has to say.
So we're here to talk about you bro, especially how active you've been lately. You got the new EP out now, I Did What I Did. What was the inspiration behind the new project?
What inspired it was, honestly, I was getting ready to drop music because I didn't drop music in a long time, especially a project. So then I rounded out about like nine songs and then I was going through all the music and I was just writing down a bunch of quotables from each song. And then I picked 'I Did What I Did.' For the music though, I kind of just rate music, not too much, like thinking about it where I'm like, I'm gonna go this direction, you know? I mostly would just write how I feel that day, you know? And then like when I'm choosing, I just try to choose the best songs. I'll play it around people and then I'll see which ones are the ones that people bump to the most.
That's dope man. So it's not really necessarily like a true concept, it's just more of like the best of what you've been going through lately.
Yeah, realistically.
That's dope. I know this is the first project in a minute since Buy or Bye 2 in 2021. Do you feel that there's been any growth in between those two projects?
Oh, for sure. That's why I wanted no features on it. I just wanted to deliver f**king crazy by myself. And I feel like I've done that. I feel like just flow-wise I got to master my flow a bit more. I still have more work to do, you know, but I'm just getting better and better each day. That's good enough for me, you know?
I can tell your beat selection has evolved over the last couple years for sure.
Yeah people love my selection.
You definitely got a good ear. I know the one record that stood out to me on the project was "Benzi Boyz" produced by Tay Keith. How did you connect with him and how did that track come together?
With Tay Keith, he's my boy. We have actually so much records together. It's so crazy. Every time we do a record and it's actually like me and him, it's a good record. I feel like with each tape I'm looking to have a song with him, and it's gonna be one of the best songs on it. Like the last project, we had the one with Pressa, which is probably the one doing the best, called "38." After "Over The Top", which was, of course, a Tay Keith beat too, I feel like me and him have a good working relationship like... we hit! We deliver on both ends. For "Benzi Boyz", I asked him to send me a [beat] pack and then he sent me a pack, and then that was just one that I liked. I was like 'Oh, this beat right here, I'm gonna pick this.' I actually just wrote that quick. This sounds like a song I could put a hook to it. I came up with that hook and then put it down and then, yeah, that's how it came about. I was playing in front of my team and they were like, 'Yeah, this is a little hooky right here.' But I wasn't expecting it to be the people's choice. A lot of people picked it, like, 'Yeah Benzi Boyz.'
"Long Nights" is another record I want to touch on too because you definitely went in on that one. There's a line in there where you say "When my broski got shot, was the worst night/It was ironic, 'cause I met Drake that same night." Talk about that line. Why did you want include it in there?
I felt like, as I was writing, the beat sounded like a storytelling type of beat. I was already going towards that direction. And then, yo, it came up as the next bar and the next rhyme I was like, ah, like I was thinking and it just all went together. And I'm like, yeah, that's some real s**t because it happened. I went to L.A. and then I had the best night of my life, one of the best nights. I met f**king The Boy [Drake] which is my f**king guy. Shout out The Boy. That was a super important night of my life too, you know? 'Cause that's the first time we ever met. So that was important to me. But then also that same night, back home in Toronto, my brother got shot. So then I woke up to this news 'cause of the three hours difference and I was so drunk that night also. I fell asleep early and I was hungover and I woke up to this news. So it was kind of highs and lows, two different energies combining together, you know? So yeah, it was crazy.
My condolences to you man. Was that your blood brother or your friend?
Thank you brother. No, it was actually my blood brother. I actually have his name tatted twice. I have like "HB" and then I have "Long Live HB." His actual name was Yohan, called him "Yoyo." Yeah that was a crazy, crazy time. And Drake posted it too. He probably never even knew that happened that same night too.
Oh, wow. So you don't think Drake knew about the shooting?
No, because I never posted anything about it like that same night, you know, because he ended up dying seven days later. So he wouldn't have known. I never told him or anything, you know? Yeah. I didn't post nothing that same night or next morning. So he probably just heard in the song and probably was like, "Oh wait." I put it in such a sick way too. I was like, f**k!
Yeah, I was about to say you definitely delivered it in a way that even hit me. I was like, whoa. So I can only imagine how he felt. Where were you in your career at that time?
At that point I had hype Canada-based. This was realistically first time going into Hollywood life, entering the states, entering the Hollywood life. This was my first time seeing so much celebrities in the one place. This was my first time being in L.A. and being in the L.A. Streets going on Fairfax and just seeing Fabulous right beside of me. I'm like, wow, this is super motivation. Like this is the s**t I want. This is the life I want, you know? And that's why I love L.A. so much right now because that's the place that motivated me. Now I'm on Fairfax and people are doing that to me.
What year was that?
2019, I believe. Probably a year off or something, but I'm pretty sure it's that year.
You've come so far in between that time. What would you say is your favorite song off the project and why?
Before it was "You Went Ghost," because I super like the beat selection on that one. I like those types of beats and I kind of like my direction on it. And I like the girl songs, like, you know because the girls like it too, whatever. But now it's "Long Nights," because it's doing super good and I always believed in "Long Nights" before it came out. That was a song I told the label 'This is the one." This is the one I wanna go with.
That's what's up, man. So who are the artists that you wanna collaborate with but you haven't had the chance to yet?
Future. Future, and I wanna do a big girl feature like Cardi B.
Those are dope options right there. Future and Cardi. As far as producer wise, who do you want to get into the studio with next? I know you've worked with a couple of big producers already.
There's actually so much good producers right now. I like a lot of the underground guys too. There's a lot of producers in L.A. right now that I'm working with. There's a producer called Gunboi, I've been recording with him like each day in L.A. So me and him we're building right now. I'm down to work with whoever and I just be answering all my DM's with producers and tell them to send beats to my email. I just be going through every single beat from my email.
That's cool. This is the time now to be creative. So it's Hip Hop 50 right now. What exactly was the moment or who was the artist that made you fall in love with hip hop?
I won't even hold you: 50 Cent. When I was growing up, that was the first tape I ever got. I remember me and my brother were in Montreal and then the Get Rich or Die Tryin' album came out and we robbed it from the store *laughs* Hey, we're little kids, you know? Yeah. And then we're bumping it in Montreal driving and we're like, "Oh s**t, this is crazy." So like, him and Lil Wayne. But that never made me wanna rap. I was just super fans of their music and yeah being famous looks thick. These guys' life like even from the "Window Shopper" video, but like, Drake made me wanna rap. Now I'm older, I can see this is the vision, you know? Before with 50 cent, I was just like, yeah, this is music I'm bumping to. I wanna hear this everywhere I go.
But Drake is the one that made you wanna rap. What song in particular got you hooked?
I would say there's too much of them *laughs* But like "Believe Me." I remember at some point I was just bumpin' "Believe Me" a lot. "I'm the only one to get a job done/I don't know a n***a that could cover for me."
That record's hot. As far as anything else that's going on, what do you got coming next?
I'm dropping another tape. So I'm just working on that, but I haven't announced that yet and I'll announce it soon. But yeah, I'm just trying to keep delivering, you know, I'm trying to f**king kill the game, man.