Q&A: Warren Hue on Releasing and Being ‘BOY OF THE YEAR,’ Never Stopping & Doing More
IT TAKES A LOT TO BE THE — BOY OF THE YEAR, but in the case of Warren Hue, it almost feels like an understatement. Hue’s ambitious debut record contains an unimaginable number out of all imaginable branches of hip-hop. Experimenting with different flows between tracks and alongside other rising acts such as tobi lou and yvngxchris, BOY OF THE YEAR hits the jackpot by providing the best mix of hip-hop, hyperpop, electronic, old school R&B, and Y2K punk. In comparison to his prior collaborative singles and previous project, SUGARTOWN, Hue’s debut album is much more cohesive, fluid, and fluent, with a shiny, deliberate, and confident personal style.
2022 is undeniably the year of Warren Hue. Along his 88rising signees, Hue has been in modes of prepping and delivering ever since the world began to recover from the halt of live music from the world’s lockdown. It only makes it that much more impressive that Hue is still one of the youngest among his peers, but perhaps one of the most promising rising stars in multiple scenes.
Luna reached out to Hue at the dawn of his first headlining tour, just two months after the release of BOY OF THE YEAR, to chat about all things in the world of Warren Hue. Read below to learn more about Hue’s debut album and what to look out for next.
Image by Jason Ano
LUNA: How are you? What have you been up to lately?
HUE: I've been good. I've just been thinking about tour a lot and thinking about Heads in the Clouds in Jakarta, because those two are gonna be really big moments of my career. So we've just been working on that recently … visually and set-wise.
LUNA: I noticed there's a very big cyberpunk, also kind of Y2K aesthetic going on in terms of your visual direction. Would that be featured on the tour?
HUE: Yes, that's what I'm trying to do. Those aesthetics are really fitting for what the music sounds like, almost futuristic-leaning.
LUNA: I think it's so interesting that a lot of it feels very futuristic, but a college friend of mine, Karl Perkins, did the PARTY IN WEST recaps and those had a camcorder, 2000s aesthetic. How did that come about? Why does the whole camcorder aesthetic also feel futuristic?
HUE: Yeah, I worked with KP quite a bit before. I think he recorded the “MARNI” video too, which was a BOTYFREESTYLE video. And then PARTY IN WEST too. He assisted with the vision for both of those. I feel like it just feels raw, in a way. And that's what I was going forward with the camcorder. I wanted everything to be honest and raw for the aesthetics of this album. I don't know, I just really liked the raw aesthetic of the camcorder.
LUNA: In your own words, how would you describe this album in just a few sentences?
HUE: If I use one word, I'd probably say “energy.” I feel like that's the whole thing. Most of the songs were recorded based [on] what I felt during the day of recording. I didn’t really save lyrics that often with this album — I would just go in the studio and knock out maybe two songs in a day and [try] not to overthink it. So everything was based off energy. And because I did a lot of shows during the process of making this album, it affected my perspective on how I should write.
LUNA: Every single track of this album feels very different and belongs to a different sub sector of hip-hop. Is that intentional?
HUE: I wouldn't say it's intentional. In my mind, it's definitely what I see, what I want a perfect album to be; I just really like those types of genres. Sometimes I wouldn't even try to make that type of genre. I would just go into the studio making whatever, like freestyling or thinking of melodies on the spot, so it would just come out like that. I like including a lot of variety in my music. In a way, it’s never boring.
LUNA: Was Chasu still a very active collaborator on this album too?
HUE: Yes! He did 11 out of 12 songs, and that’s how I kept the album very concise, because I had the same producer, of course.
LUNA: You collaborate with a lot of different artists. For this album specifically, I want to ask about the two collabs with tobi lou and yvngxchris — maybe just talk a little bit about both of them?
HUE: Yeah, so yvngxchris was one of my favorite artists coming up in the underground — during that time, he was 16/17, so it was kind of crazy to see him all over the internet. I'm all about the internet. I still look at stuff and I still find new artists, I like doing that. So yvngxchris was one of them. He's very kind in person. We met up, made a video together. I felt like he was just perfect for that song. It's a very fun, energetic song. And he goes crazy at shows too, so performing with him was amazing. Tobi lou was one of my favorite artists growing up in high school. A lot of my independent music, like my older music, would be inspired by tobi, [specifically for] music videos, like having the green screen in the background. So I've been really inspired by him. When I finally met him, I told him all about that. He was like very nice about it. He said he loves the song that I did that featured him. And he doesn't usually do features, so that was a full circle moment for me, and I had to put them on the album.
LUNA: This is quite insane because I legit found tobi [lou] this year. So I'm just trying to understand, like, holy crap, you’ve known this guy for a long time just by basically doing your research. How do you go about with music discovery online?
HUE: Literally YouTube, or Instagram. It'd be on my recommended for some reason. I would just look at a lot of music videos. I see a lot of independent artists like tobi. Tobi's independent, and he’s been for a long time so his vision is very strong. I'm really into that, and I think he's passionate.
LUNA: On a topic of collaborating with young artists and people who are coming up on a scene, you are especially young, even among your peers. What's it like growing up in Indonesia and knowing that music is gonna be your thing? What's it like being the youngest in the crowd?
HUE: Honestly, I don't really even feel young. In Indonesia, I definitely already wanted to pursue this. I was half serious about it when I was 16, but it got the most serious when I was 18. I was in the Indonesian rap scene for a little bit; a lot of people from Indonesia did music, so that kept me going. They invited me to a lot of shows and I did a lot of shows in Indo. So I don't know, it just happened that way. When 88rising finally went and connected with me, I started taking music to the next level and fully committed to this music thing. My parents were very supportive, too.
LUNA: That’s great. I was gonna say, even with 88rising, you were one of those artists that, once you were signed, everything just happened very quickly. And it makes a lot of sense because you are such a well-versed artist and you can really work well with a lot of different people. But is it ever scary to think about how many people are going to be looking at you and saying, “Hmm, maybe I can be like him too. I should look up to him and try to do what he does.”
HUE: I necessarily don't think it's that scary. I'm just making what I really, truly enjoy. If you're a fan, then you’d know it's cool that you should be yourself, like that's how you should be inspired, just to push your own vision. So I'm not really scared of that — I think that’s a cool thing.
LUNA: That's actually so amazing to hear. Circling back to you being 20, you're obviously doing a lot as a 20-year-old. And, like you’ve mentioned, you don't really feel as young as you should feel. What's it like to think about a future when so much of what you want to do, you're already doing it?
HUE: I make sure I'm always onto the next thing. I'm very careful about the steps I take. I'm already planning future albums and things that I'll be doing in between. I'm not only going to be focusing on music — it feels very open-field for me, maybe since I'm young. I'm very down to explore all these ideas and not overthink it, so I might as well just pour out my creative juices at this age.
LUNA: Well, I'm gonna stick to the present just a little bit longer for BOY OF THE YEAR. How did that title come about?
HUE: So, it started off as a rap beat that I just made a song on. It didn’t sound at all [like] what it is right now. But it was just like a whole different song before. I just gave it to Sean [Miyashiro] from 88rising, and he was like, “Yo, you should name your album BOY OF THE YEAR.” That kind of just stuck with me making more music onward. And I thought it was the most fitting title for what I went through in a year, and it almost felt like the slogan or almost like a lifestyle instead of an album name.
LUNA: Given that you had a huge year, what was the most memorable moment in the past year or even two years?
HUE: There's definitely a lot, but Coachella would probably be the most memorable. Especially because [I was] doing it two weeks in a row. And just experiencing the whole energy of Coachella in general, it was just very surreal. It was also a really big moment — a lot of family were there, so it was nice.
LUNA: What was your personal favorite song from the album and why?
HUE: I have to say it’s gotta be “BOY OF THE YEAR.” That's the only song that was previously recorded. It was an idea that I had since 2019, and me and Chasu worked on it since then. He recorded it so it could fit for this album, but the themes were already there in 2019. It's my favorite song on the album. I think it just captures everything that I want to talk about.
LUNA: What’s the process of perfecting a song from an idea into the final product?
HUE: I think it always depends on the mood of what we're really going through and what we want to urgently put out there, like, what do I want to say? It also depends on the instrumental that I'm playing with. The idea would obviously come from what the energy of the beat carries, so I would always study that, think of melody ideas, then I would always perfect it. If I really wanted to perfect it, I would do it; I would take a week or two. Sometimes I just write one day and keep it like that. It's always different.
LUNA: Something I caught on very early while listening to the album is that the flow changes from song to song, which for a lot of people in hip-hop can be difficult. At this point, is this part of your personal brand?
HUE: I don't know if it's a personal brand — I just like rapping like that. I feel like it’s from freestyling with a lot of my friends back in Jakarta, or being a geek over Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt or artists like that. Or wanting to impress someone, or be like, “Yo, I can flow like this” — that would always be a fun thing in my friend group, and then it just translated to my real music.
LUNA: Are you mostly based in LA now? Or are you still going in between Jakarta and LA? Has it been different, the two cities and working with different teams of people as well?
HUE: I'm mostly based in LA but I would definitely want to go back and forth. That's what I want to do. I think in Jakarta I'm more of a homebody, I don't really work and I don't go out like that. But in LA, it's definitely more like going to the studio or having photoshoots and video shoots. In Jakarta it is just more chill.
LUNA: Is there anything that you want to change about this album?
HUE: Probably not. There's nothing that I would want to change. I think it highlights a little moment that I had, and I'm not in the same places from when I wrote this album right now. So it's cool to look back and see, “Oh, that's what I made back in 2020,” and just leave it as it is. I'm pretty satisfied with how the album sounds, and it was definitely a moment for the album to come out.
LUNA: Any other plans that you have for the rest of the year?
HUE: I’m excited for tour. I'm visiting many cities for the first time, like Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, San Fran. Those places are just gonna be very exciting for me. I've heard a lot of good things and bad things about tour life. It's only six days so I'm not really bugging about that, but hopefully it's gonna be a fun experience.
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