FiveFilo is a young rapper and singer based in the UK, originally born in South America, Brazil. Here he found himself taking a very deep interest to music at a very young age and since has carried through with it.
Gabriel Garcia – from his real name, touched to a certain amount of inspiration during his childhood. Starting by playing guitar at eight years old, he took the initiative to write his own lyrics and make beats at the age of fourteen. The musician evokes one eclectic source of inspiration and says, “I’d say, a big chunk of what I know now, musically comes from just playing music with other people at the church. It’s thereby one of the reasons why I try to always include live instruments in my tracks, I like the way it gives raw emotions to whoever’s listening.”
Indeed, FiveFilo’s inspiration doesn’t only stop at classical and gospel music. The twenty-two year old rapper mentions the producer Timbaland as well as Will.I.Am. as his main brain waves of that time. “I grew up going to church and I was very familiar with its music. Then I started secondary school, and that’s where I got exposed to other type of music like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers for example.”
Songs such as ‘Worth the Risk’ or ‘It Could’ contains classical Hip-Hop rhythms at the lyrical level but the productions brings less common tones including drums and melodies that take us to some exotic destinations. When questioning FiveFilo on the genre he performs he responds with, “Difficult one. I’d probably say Alternative Hip-Hop. Basically, my main thing is mixing Samba music from Brazil with Hip-Hop”.
In July 2016, FiveFilo released his very first EP called ‘Harmonia’. The project does honour to the summer vibe: the lightweight and groovy, good memories-making sound. “That sort of music is a reflection of myself, two cultures in one thing. And even today I feel like I’m catching up with all the music that I missed up.” Says Filo.
He then highlighted two songs. “Immigrant Boi”, -It’s about my experience growing up in another country. And “She Don’t Know” is basically summing up today’s youth culture when it comes to dating. We seem to play this game where we can’t really let each other show the other one how we feel… I think it’s quite dishonest because it even makes it hard to simply say I like you. However it’s one of the reason why I do like a lot of 60s-70s music, I feel like it was really honest as it was genuinely romantic. I also released a track called “She Knows” which is a remix or continuation of the last bit of “She don’t Know”. This song has that 80s vibe coming from high pitch falsettos, let’s go party!” He says. When the album cover topic was mentioned, the singer explained how he interprets the visuals. He mentioned Mac Miller’s album cover ‘Watching Movies With The Sound Off.’ (2013)
“Simplicity and colours are what attract me. Because of simplicity nothing seems clear, it’s really broad. It just makes me wonder, everything that’s on the cover isn’t there by coincidence, it has been thought out. So I always wonder what are the reasons behind. I’m a big fan of artworks that have the face of the artist on it. ‘Live. Love. Asap’ is one of them and Lana Del Rey’s ‘Born To Die’ too. These type of cover is kinda brave in my opinion, it shows you. The face as you are at this moment, you assume to be the master of the piece.”
Young Gabriel Garcia has been asked about a producer he would work with. Without blinking his eyes, he mentions Rick Ruben as an indubitable source of inspiration. He continues, “he’s just an alien. If you look at his catalogue, it goes from Rock to Hip-Hop. It’s like everything he touches turns into gold. And Timbaland for sure. He’s probably the main reason why I started making beats.”
“Stay away from negative energy, and surround yourself around positive people, because that will always be reflected in your music. One of the messages I wanna give across as well is that you can do anything you put your mind into. I don’t feel that I can do that right now, but if I do become successful, I really want to put that out there. A kinda voice for the voiceless.”
To anyone who could relate to the artist, here are five aspects of the Filosophy: “Human. Observant. Loving. Right. Patient.” Finally, FiveFilo shares the last track he most recently listened to: Lana Del Rey & A$AP Rocky – ‘Summer Bummer.’
Words by,
Tharushi Stephen
