Sabbath
Sitting down with the young LA rapper to discuss his upbringing on the city's Eastside, the long-lasting influence of jerk music, and finding community in the Midwest.
“Bloom where you’re planted” is a Biblical adage that encourages finding beauty in your circumstances. I’ve always interpreted it to mean that your path in life is likely to be tied to your place of origin; time eventually returns us to where we’re from, though sometimes you have to leave first to find your way back. Sabbath is an LA rapper you could be forgiven for mistaking as a Milwaukee native, given how fully the city’s rap community has embraced him over the past few years. He first popped up on my feed about a year ago with the video for “forkitover,” which was distributed by the 414’s Run Along Forever crew. Still, I didn’t take proper notice until this March when another Wisconsonite, Lightris, reposted his single, “green+blue.” The track wastes no time in getting going; you hear the chopped-up claps, syncopated drum pattern, and ringtone-era synth melody from beat one. Sabbath’s pitched-up vocals enter in seconds later and everything signals high-energy dance rap, but it coalesces into a bleary-eyed and wistful break-up ballad. The song’s central refrain, “I tried to hide the pain but it’s bleeding through,” is repeated eight times in total, each utterance landing naked and suddenly.
From there, I dove into Sabbath’s back catalog and pressed play on his latest full-length, 2025’s Spiff and the City. The intro track is set to the opening theme of Sex & the City (of course) and features Sabbath on the phone with a homie making plans for a night on the town. As the saxophone ascends into the ether, I fully expect the next sound I hear to be a truck-knocking 808 or g-funk style bass line, but instead it’s a watery synth lead that sounds ripped from an old Ivy or POiSON GIRLFRIEND track. “He’s All That” is a bravado rap track executed with the gentleness of 90s ambient. Sabbath talks his shit while name-dropping PJ Harvey and quoting Shakespeare; he even cuts his verse short by 30 seconds to let the beat ride out like the end credits of a teenage coming-of-age movie. The rest of the tape is similarly unexpected, though consistently blissful. Whether it’s the Queensbridge soul chops on “Wobble” or the laid-back, Shwayze-style beach rap on “Load It Up,” everything has the dreamy aura of a marijuana-laced skate down Sunset Blvd. Sabbath is a slick talker who surprises with moments of introspection and tenderness. “Road Dog” flips a pitched-down sample of Infinity Song’s Hater’s Anthem into a booming jerk beat with lyrics about embracing positivity to overcome the trappings of your environment. And then there’s a line like “Geeking all night off that Nelly Furtado” off “Payso,” which is one of the sweetest hooks I’ve heard in years. “#idontpullout” does both at once as the young Angeleno teams up with Milwaukee legend Ayoolii for an incredibly lewd ode to freaky women everywhere, while also dropping bits of sobering wisdom like “I’ve seen n***** die ‘cuz they ain’t wanna give the streets up.”
Sabbath recently scored the biggest hit of his career with the mini-viral sensation “Cantu,” a proper lowend banger produced by party rap all-star Sunny Lou. At barely over a minute long, the song is primed to reap the benefits of TikTok’s last half-decade of influence over the music industry, and indeed it soundtracked a number of dance videos on the platform. Earlier this year, Sunny and Sabbath linked up again for “Village Candle,” a grittier cut that got a video treatment from Run Along Forever head Nolan Busalacchi. In the visual, Sabbath struts around downtown Milwaukee in a snowstorm, woefully underdressed in white shutter shades and a thin white jacket emblazoned with the years 2004 and 2009, respectively. He cuts an irreverently menacing figure that goes well with bars like “Betty Boop, alley-oop, I’m tryna slam something” or a mid-song diatribe about how he “might just” take a sip of tris if anyone’s got it on them. All this is to say that the world of Spiff (Sabbath’s trademark catch-all for himself, friends, family, and good vibes) is wide and ever-growing. A few weeks ago, I caught up with the rapper on a Sunday in Echo Park to discuss growing up on the Eastside, the long-lasting influence of LA jerk music, and finding a creative community a couple thousand miles away in the Midwest.
Nick DeMasi: Where in East LA did you grow up?
Sabbath: I grew up in Virgil Village off of Santa Monica near LACC.
What was it like growing up there back in the day? Were you there the whole time?
No, I moved around a lot. I’m from LA, but I was born in New York and moved here when I was three. My family’s from Philly, so during summer vacation and winter break, I would go over there and live with my cousins for months at a time in North Philly and the Kensington area, like where Skrilla’s from. I know a lot of homies that are mutuals with him, and I know a lot of homies that know Uzi. It’s just very small, and a lot of Philly legends stay around and tapped in. Growing up, I saw a lot of different walks of life, but East Hollywood is my home, and growing up there was awesome. It was beautiful. I had a community of friends that all lived on the same street, and we would just wake up every day, skate, and go to school. Tagging was a big part of life for sure, shout out my boy Ricky, RIP, he was the one who put me on to that. I got a different perspective of LA because I was in a mostly Hispanic area, and I was one of the only black kids around, so I grew up aligning with them. I looked at the way they held family and community very important, and that’s something I always wanted to implement in my life, but never really had because I was an only child. It gave me a different outlook on avoiding certain traps of LA, like gang banging. My area did have that shit, but it didn’t apply to me, just off the race alone. We were more into graffiti, which is like gang banging for beginners, for real for real. But I just love art, that’s why I did graffiti, and once it started to get violent, I was out.
What type of stuff were you listening to growing up?
Honestly, a lot. My mom and dad were rappers, so for a long time, I didn’t really like rap music, because I was seeing my parents do it. I was like, “I’m not gonna do that shit, I’m gonna be a scientist.” At one point, I really thought I was gonna be a veterinarian.
You always gotta not do what your parents are doing, even if what they’re doing is cool.
They were in the underground circuit back then and starting to get motion, but then once I was born, they chilled out. So I didn’t start liking rap until I found shit that resonated with me. Taking the school bus for an hour, I would listen to the radio, and the shit that was on at the time was Tyga, New Boyz, and Kid Ink. I love Kid Ink; to this day, I think he’s one of the best artists ever. He has classic music; if you go back and listen, it’s hits, hits, hits, and it’s feel-good music too. You can play that shit no matter where you are. And DJ Mustard. DJ Mustard was very influential. Obviously, he changed the world with his sound, but for me specifically, his beats influenced me to start making beats.
What was first? Producing or rapping?
Rapping was first. I’ve been writing since I was 12. I would write raps and practice and try to get better. My mom used to bust her ass to get me studio time. She always supported me since day one, my dad too. My dad used to record my first songs, he would help me with Logic and shit. They were always helping me. To this day I’ll send them some shit and they’ll be like “This is fire,” or like, “Yo, you could do it like this.” I still value their opinion because they’re some of the best to me. Their beat choice was always good, and that made me want to have good beats. It was always a hassle trying to find a producer when I was young. I remember listening to Fergie and “Sweet Escape” and I was like, “I need to make a beat.” Like, Kanye, “Bigger, better, faster, stronger,” all that type of shit was the era I grew up seeing as a kid. So fast forward to 14/15, my homie just gave me a computer, and I started doing that.
Both of those tracks you named are from when hip-hop was starting to cross over into the pop sphere.
Yeah, I like that and trip-hop. Portishead, Tricky, Bjork. Even Frou Frou. Pop music has always been something I want to do. I have about five projects ready and the third one is gonna be my Justin Timberlake moment. People know me as a rapper, and I have bars, and I can make something groovy with bars, which I really love, but also I’m a producer and I really love song structure and writing. I’ve been working with a lot of new people and it’s been really inspiring. Shout out, Lightris, he’s really inspiring me recently just to be myself. It kind of brings me back to when I first started dropping, “don’t believe the hype,” and my older tracks, just that old energy of being myself. I feel new again. It’s just like a really good time for music right now, anything goes as long as it’s you. The tracks I’m doing right now are really fun, and they’re bringing people together, especially with the TikToks. I want to utilize that to get to a message across.
I feel like you did that already on Spiff in the City, it’s such a positive album, but so danceable too. What was the writing process like for Spiff? I heard that you had it written for a couple of years, and it was only when you linked up with the Run Along Forever guys that you finally dropped it. When you wrote it, where were you at?
That album was really an intro story. It was me trying to find my sound, trying to impress my ex at the time, make her feel something, and then us breaking up in the middle of that. There’s certain records on there that I put more somberness into. There’s this liminal loneliness here in LA. I don’t know if other people feel it, but when you’re from here, it’s kind of isolating at times. So “He’s All That,” that’s when I’m in relationship, I’m happy, I’m good. And then “T’D Up,” that song is like, alright, now I’m changing, I’m going into a dark space. I was in a dark space after that for a while, to where I was like, “I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing.” I just was mad bummed about that relationship, and a bunch of shit with friends. I had my friend die. Spiff was really a compilation of my life going from being 17/18, leaving my mom’s crib, getting my own crib, getting a girl, and then not having the crib, not having the girl. All that music I had for at least two, three years. I had the idea for the cover too, we made that cover a long time ago, around when I made the music. And then when I met Nolan we started doing these videos, and capturing this vibe. And Jack as well, my friend Jack, shout out him, he’s my best friend since sixth grade, and we developed a bag of videos.
Jack’s done some of the recent visuals that you’ve put out too right?
Right, “hidenseek,” “green + blue,” “don’t believe the hype,” “Spanto.”
I really like “Spanto,” the treatment on that one is cool.
I love that one too. Tombo and Sawyer shot that, those are my friends in Milwaukee. Shout out to them.
On Milwaukee stuff, were you aware of those guys before Nolan reached out?
I was aware of Ayoolii for a long time. Me and Jack were bumping him right when I got out of school. I don’t know, I dropped out so the timeline is hazy for me. It was COVID era, and it was right when Xaviersobased blew up too. And I was like, “Damn, this is my music.” Because I was making shit like that too, not the Milwaukee style, but the LA jerk that people now categorize as jerk music. Respectfully, that does come from here, that is LA. I love that everybody has adapted that shit and made it what it is, but it’s always been a part of our sound. That tempo, 96 to 102 bpm beats, that was so core for everybody’s beats. There’s a lot of classic LA producers, DJ Mustard, RonRon, Icez. Icez is cold, and he’s up on his rapping shit now, I love to see that. And he’s been around since the real jerk era, since Young Sam, The Ranger$, Rej3ctz, all that. Young Sam alone, he’s a sick producer and rapper, he’s the goat, I really fuck with him to the maximum, I want to work with him soon.
Were you tapped in on the jerk shit when it was happening here?
I was in fifth grade, maybe fourth grade, when that shit was really booming. That was the time of my life where it was like, go to school and go to crib, you know? So I wasn’t really involved, but the sound was always around, and it just kept evolving. I watched it progress and knew what it was from seeing Tyga blow up, and then YG become one of the biggest rappers in the world at one point. YG really had the game on lock for a second with “Who Do You Love?” and all of those classic anthem songs. We hadn’t had somebody that embraced being from LA and wanted to be that big in a long time. I think a lot of us here think small. With all this opportunity here, people are laid back and don’t go for it, as opposed to in New York they’re always go, go, go, everybody’s off an Adderall over there. And they work together, same with Atlanta, they work together. LA, or California in general, we’re very slow to tap in with a person that might live down the street from you. It might be hard ass music, but you’re just like, “This is competition.”
You did that interview on WXRW in Milwaukee and said “My scene here is very small,” referring to LA, which was surprising to hear because there’s so many people doing music in this city. Has that expanded at all since Spiff and since you started tapping in with the Milwaukee guys?
It def has translated. The last time Nolan and Sonny were out here we went to the club and were in line waiting, and this group of dudes behind me were like, “Yo, bro, you from Milwaukee?” And I was like, “Nah, I’m from here, but they’re from Milwaukee, and I know what you’re talking about.” I love that people claim me over there. When I go they’re like, “Oh he get down, he from Milwaukee.” I love that because I fuck with them. That’s one of the best cities in America in my opinion. There’s such a beautiful energy there. The people are real down to earth, they’re not afraid to dance at shows, they’re having fun. The dance culture alone is so liberating to me, because there’s not a lot of energy at shows here. People are afraid to be visibly having fun, and I want to break that down so bad. I just feel like, if you’re paying to go out, go out with a bang dude, like, jump around and feel free! I feel like we’re building a community out here now. My homegirl Keily Rude, Nerdcore, New West Coast, there’s a lot of us now, and we just have to stick together and keep spreading the love. We can’t wait around for co-signs, or whatever people are afraid to go get. You have to make it yourself and show people why you have motion.
This new thing you’re talking about, is it a return of sorts? Because it’s interesting that the revival of jerk has largely happened outside of LA up to this point. Is that what you’re referring to when you’re saying you’re starting to find community?
Yes, in terms of a positive alternative to the violence in the city. Because that’s where jerking came from. Jerking was an alternative to gang banging. I know a lot of gang bangers that were jerking before they started gang banging. It was really a movement for the kids back at that time. And there was a crossroads of hipster culture and South Central hood culture. It was a weird moment, but everywhere started looking like that. The swag era, that’s the hipster and South Central fashion blend, like, Santee Alley fashion low key. That’s where that comes from, Santee Alley cheap clothes or Venice Beach teas, shit that we’d just go get because that’s what we could get. Especially because back in the day, Venice Beach was a fly spot to kick it at, now Venice Beach is not fly, respectfully. People are replicating that look again, the swag look, like how Zendaya used to look back in day, her hard fit pics with the split screen and all that. But I need to tap in with more dancers, because that’s a core element of hip hop in general, and it’s been missing for a long time. The last person to really integrate that was Uzi with “Just Wanna Rock,” and, again, that’s some Philly steez that had been around and took him, the biggest artist out of Philly, to shed a light on. Now everybody understands Philly culture, but it wasn’t like that before. Things take time. Even with the jerk movement back in the day, it took time for them to get to the point where they had deals, and it took time for them to bounce back from that, because obviously the labels did not show them the love that they needed, they just exploited the fact that they had the most influential sound ever.
You just recently released your biggest song “Cantu.” Why do you think that was the one to hit? Was it the dancing?
I’ve been doing music since I was a kid, I dropped out of school for this, I put everything on the line for this, and at times I make too much music and don’t allow myself to live. That song was a moment where I didn’t... I didn’t care for the song, and that’s why it did so well. I didn’t stress it. I was sick as fuck when I made it, I was losing my voice and didn’t think I even sounded good. I literally made that with Sunny at his house the night before I left Milwaukee. Then Sunny posted a snippet of it on TikTok and it just started going. People started making dances to it. I’ve never seen that shit for any of my songs ever, and I’ve been posting music for years. It just kept doubling and doubling. Sunny was like, “Bro, let’s just drop this, people are fucking with it.” So we made the cover, we dropped it, and it went boom. People from Atlanta, people from Milwaukee, people from New York, people from Miami. Girls, dudes, families, kids, I’ve seen everybody using that shit. After seeing that I was like, “How do I make my music bigger?” How do I make my music sound bigger and not abandon the core elements of Sabbath?
You’ve been pretty consistent over the last few months with putting stuff out. Is that a carryover from that learning?
For sure, because now I know to just be myself no matter what I’m doing. At first I didn’t like “Cantu” because it didn’t feel like me. Not to say I didn’t like the beat, or I didn’t like the Milwaukee style, I just didn’t know if people would like me on it. I didn’t know if they would fuck with it, or be like, “Who the fuck is this n***? He’s not even from here.” That was one of the main reasons why I was like, “Oh, I don’t know if I did it justice.” Because I fuck with Lii, I fuck with 45Gbaby, Lil Sinn, all the hard Milwaukee fools, and I don’t want to slide on their beats and be ass, you know? Especially because I’m doing shows there, I gotta show my face. But when I heard how much they loved it, it showed me that people just like to hear me talk about my life and the way I do, and that’s all I know how to do. For a moment I overthought it. I get that I have to keep building my audience, but right now I’m going to challenge them up to the point where I really make that big transition from rap to, I don’t know, r&b, electronic? I don’t know, it’s just gonna be what it’s gonna be when people hear it.
So for these next projects, it sounds like there are going to be parts of your sound that existed on Spiff and these singles, but then branching out further in various directions.
Definitely. I was talking to my friend Azad about this. He makes great music as well, shoutout TeamAlice. I was like, if we’re not putting our best foot forward, what are we doing? I make a lot of music, I probably have 1,000s of songs, so now I can choose what displays me best and showcase that. The type of time I’m on right now is giving people bars and high energy tracks, but still pushing to tell my story in those ways. “Cantu” grew on me because when I listen back to the verse I wrote, I really am talking about a lot of shit I was going through at that time. It was just a refreshing reminder of why I make music. And sometimes we need those reminders. You’ll have these high moments, and these low moments, and sometimes you get lost. That was a good reminder for me. I’ve started to sprinkle in elements of the music that I’m going to lean into, and I think it still works. I’ll have people come up to me and know the more melodic r&b songs as opposed to “Cantu,” like, the newest release I dropped “green + blue.”
That song is what got me. That’s what I saw Lightris repost. I also recently went through a breakup and I was like damn, there’s really good bars in here, but it’s also such a lovely listen.
Thank you bro, I appreciate that. I do feel like... not that that side of me is overlooked, I just haven’t displayed it enough. I’m definitely trying to lean into that more intimate, reflective side until I can release a body of work that fully dives into it. Now I have fun doing both, I might rap and sing on one song. It’s me trying to emulate old hit record structures, like a Ja Rule song with Ashanti or something, I’ll emulate that and do both parts. It’s like the duality of Spiff. That’s definitely the direction I’m gonna lean into.
Part of what got me into your music, and the Milwaukee sound, is not just the danceability, but also the positivity. Where does that come from for you? How do you carry it through your life?
Really I’m just big on life. I’m grateful to be here. I think that’s the number one thing you have to have, you gotta be grateful to be living. I know a lot of people that are depressed, and I’m depressed too. I go through depression too. But when you lose gratitude, that’s when the darkness enshrouds you. For me, I always try to look at the glass half full, because if I don’t, I know how dark it can get. I have no other choice but to present myself in this positive way, because if I don’t, I’m not going to be my best. It’s tricky because there are artists that showcase the dark side and embrace that image, but that’s just never related to me. I don’t want to be a figure that doesn’t inspire people to be the best version of themselves. I’m not gonna go tell you to pop a bunch of pills and do a bunch of shit that is detrimental to your health, that’s just not me. And no hate or shade to anybody who talks about that, everybody can do as they want. But personally I know what my purpose in life is. I’m supposed to make people feel happy, and sad too, to feel out all their feelings, because if you don’t feel them out, you’re not gonna get to a better place. I think we live in a society where we all just want to mask how we feel. That’s why, with this new music, I really want to dive more into how I’m feeling, and how it’s okay to be sad because we’re gonna work it out. You just have to be willing to feel it out. That’s the biggest step I had to make to get back on track with consistently dropping music. I’m glad that people notice I’m being more consistent, because it was bothering me for a long time. I was going through life things, and I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost for a moment. But now I feel refreshed, back in my own skin. I learned so much from January to now, especially about how with music, what you talk about is your reality. I have manifested a lot of things for myself, good and bad. That power is crazy. I need to be more intentional about my lyrics, about the story I’m trying to tell. I feel like I’ve done that already, but I could always do better, and I could always articulate the point more. The point of who I am, not of what sounds cool.
That’s dope man. It’s great to hear. My last question is, are you a Miranda, a Carrie, a Charlotte, or a Samantha?
Lowkey, I’m mix. I’m a mix of Charlotte, and Samantha.
You got both sides of the spectrum.
Yeah, extroverted, like how Samantha knows how to pop her shit and say what she wants, but then introverted like Charlotte, because I’d rather just stay at the crib and eat ice cream and watch anime. I fuck with Carrie, but never really related to her personality much, only the way she overthinks love, which they all do in their own way. Everybody does, because we’re all people.