Today we’d like to introduce you to Earl Moore.
Earl, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
First, I want to start off by thanking my boy Raymarc as well as Voyage for giving me this opportunity. To begin my journey, I’d have to say As long ago as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to do the same things I’m currently involved in, but I’m just now getting to a point where I can see how to turn those dreams into reality. The Origin of my music began with me making a “bar” around the age of five which was “I’m the best of the best and you’re the less of the rest”, which in my humble opinion was pretty fire for my age. This bar stuck with me the following years as my dad would never let me live it down.
Around the age of 7-10 is when I was finally granted an mp3 which was amazing cause to listen to music previously, I’d have to wait all day to come home and get online or use a CD player with burned songs from lime wire aka the “computer killer”. This played the biggest role in shaping my creativity and mindset in the art/music world, because at the time I didn’t know anything about artist, genre, and etc.. but my sister who was in high school at the time was up on all the latest artist and who was blowing up at the time. I was getting a lot of CDs from her and they included titles from N.E.R.D, The Black Eyed Peas, Maroon 5 to solo acts like Kanye, Common, and Lupe. I’d say this definitely boosted me as a kid cause while people were at school reciting Disney sing along I was spitting verses from albums titled “Food & Liquor” or songs like “My Humps” which was very different for my age my parents actually didn’t like me listening to that stuff back then.
Although lunchroom freestyles and writing raps in class when bored were a common thing, I didn’t actually want to pursue music until middle school when I discovered Mac Miller (rest his soul) and Kid Cudi. Mac gave me a sense of style and who I’d want to be portrayed as in the industry if I ever got that far, while Cudi gave me a sense on Sanity and Emotion as the Negative feelings and thoughts I was having about myself carried on throughout jr high school. Those two were always artists I could fall back on a think “maybe it’s not all so bad”. Fast forward to my junior year of high school, I’m literally the same person I was for years same thoughts same attitude just older. This was the beginning of the Soundcloud era which was actually amazing because I think I gave a lot of people including myself the confidence to make and put out a song cause it was so easy, which in tune spawned a-lot of well-known artist that are still relevant today. I would spend the night at my aunt’s house to play with my cousins ever since I was a baby, but years later I’m here to skate and destroy.
One day after we came from skating we went to one of his friend’s houses where he had a makeshift closet studio (SHOUT OUT WILL!). He had a laptop, an enclosed space and karaoke dora mic… For weeks we were in and out of that closet just having pure fun recording ourselves freestyling on YouTube beats when one day at school it hit me, “the next time I’m over there, I’m going to record a legit song” and thats exactly what I did. I named the track “SWIRL?” as I was just giving the nickname earlier that week. When we put out to the public it was just like every other freestyle we did I posted it on Instagram and that was that except this time I guess people were actually liking the song, by the time I got home it was at almost 300 views double what any song we made had in months. I was super shocked and surprised and immediately started pushing it. The next morning I checked I had reached a whopping 2,500 plays in less than 24 hours I was extremely shocked and didn’t even know what was going on. Before I knew it, friends I had already made in school were approaching me with stuff like “I didn’t know you made music” or “You’re the black mac miller!”, which was a very cool feeling cause it was like I was a rapper now. My Boy Ka$ approached me one day and explained how his dad and granddad had been making music for years and how he had a bunch of equipment piled up in his closet that he wanted to use cause he wanted to make music as well. Still, to this day, I have no clue how we got that stuff to work for us it was like begin abducted by aliens and then being told to drive the ufo.
But we eventually got it so work out for us a began recording. For about two years, everything was going great I was a rapper in high school living through my music it got me introduced to new people, party invites, and even y sometimes girls. After a while I started focusing on who was around me and what I was doing more than the music and in turn I was stuck with the same negative thoughts and feelings about myself that I was haunted with in middle school but now that I was a “Somebody” in my head I just tried to ignore these feelings and just “flex” in my music which did nothing but make me feel worse. As a result, to regain sanity, I slowed down on music and picked up substances to try to make me feel better which also didn’t do much but make me feel worse. One of the substances was LSD and it was the preferred one because I could imagine and see whatever I wanted, after multiple trips I was finally faced with and epiphany of my life, how I was living, and where I was headed vs what I wanted to be and it scared the shit out of me lol, from that point on it was almost as if the negative thoughts were banished for good and I could do no wrong as wrong was opinionated the whole time.
The following months, I continued to create with my new outlook and I was pleased with the work I was producing but I realized how I started the journey wasn’t as genuine as I feel about the journey now which made me release the song God Complex on my sound cloud which is the last song I publicly released two years ago, in the lyrics I pretty much explain my journey and where its taken me and how I feel/felt about it. In this two year break I have gained extreme knowledge and understanding of myself and where I want to go in life through my art, and I’m still currently creating music as artwork and fashion which I’ve always also had a passion for. I have plenty of music to release in the near future as I’m still getting everything settled as well as a clothing line in the works so the journey continues! Its a lot of work and sometimes honestly get overwhelmed but I love the busy feeling and the fact that I can look back at darker times and smile cause I can only shine from here!!!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I can say the road itself has been smooth I’ve been going through the journey with no major issues or hiccups, but I wasn’t always in the driver’s seat and when I got to drive I didn’t always know where I was going or who would even be there when I arrived. I’d say the biggest struggles are procrastination and lack of support which go hand in hand. For example, if no one is listening to my music it might make me want to delay releasing some songs or I might not have been as confident about the material, But those feelings are always temporary as I’m not only creating for the outside world but myself as well.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
Well, currently there technically isn’t a “business” as I like to call it more a family growing into our lifestyle. Arete was a company the A partner and I brought to the light in 2017 and also failed in 2017 but for reasons other than the brand itself. In the process of watching it slowly crash and burn I asked myself this same question and what I want to do from thereon. I myself am mostly known for my music and presence in the community but also by who I’ve associated myself with and the actions that come with being around different groups of people is why I’ve named my brand/team/family Social Life because being Social is more important then a lot of people know its a gateway to endless possibilities and perspectives and the key to happiness believe it or not. The thing that I love the most about the current journey I’m in with social life is that I can look back 15 years ago to when I was six years old telling myself, my friends, my parents, I want to make a clothing line not even knowing what I’d call it or what it would be about, to now be able to answer. My six years old self makes me very proud because the source of most of my darkness came from confusion, not knowing, and not being able to find out. The biggest thing that I like to point out that makes social life different is that I value other opinions very highly all the time and I value peoples opinions that have nothing to do with anything I have going on which in tune sparks new ideas for me to reach new demographics of people who could care less about clothing or music, I’m attempting to use my art to sort of bridge a gap between opposites to make everything social, whole, rather then to look cool or for monetary gain.
What were you like growing up?
I can proudly and gladly say that I have yet to grown up! and never want too. For the most part my interest hasn’t really changed but I’d defiantly say its been enhanced, for example I mention how I listened to Kanye when I was younger and I remember going crazy over the graduation album cover but not even thinking about who made it or how because music was the only art I saw back then and I didn’t really think there was anything more to it, fast forward to now and I know the amazing Takashi Murakami is behind that and many other amazing bodies of work.
That also describes my personality pretty well as I’m still currently into a lot of things that I haven’t even taken the time to look into yet, and I’ve always been that way whether it’s with something or someone, and thats just because I like the randomness in life. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said something or maybe drawn or done something, and someone will say “have you ever heard of_____” or “did you see ____ doing this”, which most of the time the answer is no and then ill have to go look into it and get mad cause someone has already done something I randomly thought of. I’m joking about the mad part lol but thats pretty much how that goes.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ogswirl
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ogswirl
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/sociallifecc
Suggest a story: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
