GELO recently stopped by Audacy Atlanta’s V-103 to chop it up with Greg Street all about his hit single “Tweaker” and more.
LISTEN NOW: GELO talks with Greg Street
While it might seem that GELO, otherwise known to many as LiAngelo Ball, might have just recently switched lanes from basketball to music, fact of the matter is, he’s actually been making music since he was a kid.
“I got a lot of songs unreleased,” the now 26 year-old shared, “and I still make music, I still add on every other day. I'll be making like 4 or 5 songs sometimes, so and I've been writing since I was like 3rd grade, so like 8 years old, 9 years.” Mentioning that it wasn’t until he was around 17 or 18 the first time he got in a studio to record, “but I’ve been writing and freestyle and messing around since a baby, 3rd grade,” GELO reiterated.
Formally introducing us to his musical alter-ego by dropping his first official single “Tweaker,” on January 3, GELO actually admitted the decision to drop the track was “out of the blue.”
“I ain't had no plans, I ain't even expect to do music like that. I was just hearing my song, trying to show Neon my song for real… I went to sleep, woke up, and my phone was cracking — ‘like bro, you gotta drop that one,’” GELO recalled.
Next thing you know, he’s securing a management team, “and then we just went from there for real.”
Noting what he admires about GELO compared to “most young artists that are streaming,” Street expressed, “they don't understand the partnerships with a label. They don't understand how much bigger they can be than just getting 100 million streams and getting them 10, 15, $20,000 shows. Like right now you're doing promotions,” Street pointed out. “You're doing a promotional tour basically, like young artists now that are streaming don't do promotional tours, they don't understand it.”
Not negating the legitimacy of choosing the independent route, GELO said, “I just know me and my team move professional. Like if I'm gonna do something, it's gonna be at the highest level, whether it's basketball, music… anything… it’s gonna be getting done at a professional level.”
Listen to Launch: New Hip Hop and more on the free Audacy app
GELO also clued us in to his ATL agenda, which included shooting a music video for his new track, “Can You Please,” shared what’s its like to be linked up with the Def Jam family, and indicated he “got an album coming out in… May, June around there, summer time,” plus a whole lot more.
To catch the entire conversation, check out the interview above.