BR33Z WORLD
San Francisco-born, Oakland-raised artist BR33Z WORLD opens up about survival, resilience, personal experience, and the creative journey behind Black Heart and its upcoming trilogy.
1. You were born in San Francisco and raised in Oakland, and your journey into music has been shaped by everything you’ve lived through. What first drew you to music, and when did you realize that becoming an artist was part of your path?
Music was around me from an early age, even before I really understood what being an artist meant. My mom’s cousins, Jackie and Johnny Villanueva, were like uncles to me, and they worked as equipment managers for Carlos Santana. I remember going to their house as a kid, seeing records on the walls and hearing stories about their experiences in the music business. Back then, I actually thought I wanted to be a manager because I was fascinated by that whole world.
But there was another moment that really planted the seed for me as an artist. I’m the third born, so I was younger than my older sister, and I remember her listening to KMEL one day while a Tupac song was playing. I was in the back singing my own words over the music. She turned around and told me, “Those aren’t the lyrics.” I told her I knew I was making up my own song. She laughed and playfully told me I couldn’t rap, and I immediately said, “Watch, one day I’m going to be on the radio.” She probably didn’t realize it at the time, but that little moment gave me something to prove to myself and sparked something in me that never really went away.
As I got older and went through more life, music became much deeper than just wanting to rap or be heard. I had real experiences, real pain and real stories to tell. That’s when I understood that being an artist wasn’t just something I wanted to do as a kid it had become part of who I was and how I expressed everything I had lived through.
2. How did surviving being shot and having to relearn how to walk and talk transform the way you see life and express yourself through music?
That experience changed everything for me. When you go from living your normal life to having to relearn basic things like walking and talking, you stop taking things for granted. It gave me a completely different perspective on time, life and what really matters.
There were moments where I had to rebuild myself physically and mentally, and that taught me a level of patience and resilience that I don’t think I would have understood otherwise. It also made me realize that tomorrow isn’t promised, so if there’s something I want to say or something I want to accomplish, I can’t keep waiting for the perfect time to do it.
That carries directly into my music. I’m not just making songs because they sound good. A lot of what I write comes from things I’ve actually felt, witnessed or survived. Music became a place where I could take pain, anger, ambition, loyalty, loss and everything else I’ve carried and turn it into something. Surviving gave my music a different purpose because now I know what it means to literally get another opportunity at life.
3. How much of Black Heart comes from your personal experiences, and what did you want listeners to understand about your story?
A lot of Black Heart comes from real emotions and real experiences. That doesn’t mean every single lyric should be taken like a page out of an autobiography, but the feelings behind the music are real. The pain is real. The loyalty is real. The ambition is real. The survival mentality is real.
I’m San Francisco born, Oakland raised, but the Fillmoe made me. I’ve seen different sides of life, and all of those experiences became part of who I am and ultimately part of this album.
What I wanted people to understand is that there’s more to my story than whatever they might see on the surface. Black Heart isn’t about pretending everything is perfect. It’s about what happens when you’ve been through things that could have broken you and you still keep moving. You can carry scars and still have ambition. You can experience betrayal and still believe in loyalty. You can come from darkness and still be building toward something bigger. That’s really the world of Black Heart.
4. What is the story behind “Can’t Run,” and how does it connect to the album?
For this one, I would not invent a super specific event unless “Can’t Run” was written about one particular situation. I’d answer it around what the record represents:
“Can’t Run” is really about reaching the point where you realize there are certain things you can’t keep running from. You can try to bury pain, ignore situations or act like certain experiences didn’t affect you, but eventually you have to deal with them.
That’s why the song fits Black Heart so well. The album deals with survival, pain and the darker emotions that come with everything I’ve experienced, and “Can’t Run” puts you directly into that mental space. There’s strength in the record, but there’s vulnerability in it too.
For me, being strong doesn’t mean pretending nothing affects you. Sometimes strength is being able to face what happened, live with it and keep moving anyway. That’s really what connects “Can’t Run” to the rest of the album.
5. Looking at yourself from the person you were before your survival story to the artist you are today, what do you feel has changed most about you personally and creatively? Has your approach to writing and making music evolved along with you?
I’ve definitely changed. When I was younger, a lot of it was about wanting to rap, wanting people to hear me, and wanting to prove that I could do it. Now I’m much more intentional about what I create and what I want people to feel when they hear it.
They say pain can make you great, and I don’t think I fully understood what that meant until later in life. Now I understand how pain can be turned into purpose. A lot of my music comes from pain, survival, loss, disappointment, loyalty, and different things I’ve been through. Those experiences shaped me, but they also gave me different outlets creatively. Instead of just carrying those things around, I can put them into a record and turn them into something people can feel and relate to.
Life gave me more to talk about. I don’t have to reach for a story or try to manufacture an emotion. I can pull from things I’ve actually lived through and emotions I’ve actually felt. I think that has made me more honest as an artist and has given my music more depth.
Creatively, I think much bigger now too. I’m thinking about the entire song, the production, the visuals, the sequencing of a project and how everything connects. I’m not just thinking about making one record anymore I’m building a world around the music.
The biggest difference is that I understand myself more. I’m not trying to sound like anybody else or fit into whatever is popular at the moment. The pain, the growth and everything I’ve survived helped shape my identity, and now I’m turning all of that into purpose through BR33Z WORLD.
6. What can listeners expect after Black Heart, and what are you building toward?
Black Heart is really the beginning. It’s the first chapter of a three part journey with Purple Heart and then Kiss of Death. I wanted to build something where people could follow the progression instead of just releasing random projects that don’t connect to each other.
With each chapter, you’re going to hear more of who I am and see different sides of the story. I’m continuing to develop the sound, the visuals and the overall world around BR33Z WORLD. I want every project to feel bigger than the one before it while still feeling connected.
I’m also putting more emphasis on the visual side of the music. Black Heart has allowed me to experiment with different kinds of visuals, and moving into Purple Heart, I want to bring more real world music videos back into it too. I don’t want everything to look or feel the same.
Ultimately, I’m building something that’s supposed to last beyond one song or one album. The trilogy is part of that. It’s me documenting different chapters of my life and evolution as an artist while continuing to build BR33Z WORLD into something people recognize for its own sound, story and identity.