Interview: YonnyOtaku on Return of the Otaku

YonnyOtaku is Cornell’s very own rising superstar, and I’m very excited to feature him today as the blog’s first written interview. The topic at hand will be his new EP Return of the Otaku. Personally, reading what he had to say about the creative process, and what it means to him made a good project even better for me. Make sure to stream his new EP, and check out what he has to say about it below.

How personal is this project to you?

Very personal, if you listen to the second half of the EP it contains some of the songs that emphasis like love, drugs, and depression, its all things that have happened to me or someone very close to me, sooo yeah I’d say it was a pretty personal album in that sense.

What are some of your favorite aspects about the EP, is there anything specific you would want your audience to listen to?

I love that you are able to see the growth in this EP from my older work as I took a long break to really find my sound and really work on it. Specifically I guess I would want the audience to see the versatility in the EP as I didn’t really stick to just one of my sounds but gave them a broader view of the sounds that I have.

Would you say the first half of the album has a different persona than the second?

Yes, glad you realized that. The first half is more of Otaku rapping. He’s kinda like my alter-ego. He’s eccentric, confident, flashy, and just raps his heart out. The second half is more of Yonny rapping, as it contains more personal content and is kind of like me using music as therapy.

Who did you collaborate with? And what was that experience like?

In this EP I collabed with three very talented people. On “Savage”, my bro Xay here at Cornell went crazy, shocked me fr. I had posted the snippet of the song on my IG story and he swiped up sayin “Yooo I was finna use that beat but you carried it” and I was like “WTF just hop on bro”. So I sent bro the project and he killed it.

Alayna, the amazing voice that you hear vocalizing in “Whispers in my Head” is also a student here at Cornell. I had actually finished the song before I added her vocals, but I felt like something was missing to make the song jump fr. Well Alayna, the same day I finished the song, posted a video of her singing on her IG, and I said YESSSS this is what I needed. DM’d her right away and we got to work.

Tune, featured on “Drugs Vs Her”, is another rising artist from Maryland. Me and him always talk music but this is our first song together. I knew his sound would match the song perfectly, so I DM’d him and he delivered exactly what I had needed. Shoutout to him fr, Go crank bro!!!!

Who are some of your musical influences?

Mannn, when people ask me this it takes me the longest to answer only because I listen to so many kinds of different artists. But if we were to trim it down to Top 5 I would say: Juice Wrld, A$AP Rocky, MF DOOM, Tyler, the Creator, & Cowboy Caco

What was it like making “Whispers in my Head”?

It was very therapeutic for me because when I made the song I was in a really bad place in life, I used the song as a way of just letting out how I felt and not just keeping it suppressed.

Do you feel music is a place you can truly express yourself?

Yeah, iont really talk that much and I’m a pretty introverted person, so music is kind of a safe space for me where I feel like I can pour how I feel out or just have fun. It’s very therapeutic for me too….if I ever have a bad day or am really stressed, I just plug my mic in and start working.

What’s next?

Well I plan on working on my engineering skills to make my music sound even better than it is, I also plan on working with more artists to learn from them too, cause ya know that’s what musics all about. Other than that I want to either get better equipment or go to a real studio for the first time….cause I always record in the closet with my mic

Again, make sure you check out his new project Return of the Otaku. He told me he worked really hard on this and I already know he’ll continue to grind and improve his craft for future works to come. He also just dropped a new song on his SoundCloud “What You Say Otaku?!” make sure to stream that as well.