INTERVIEW | WE MEET HOTT LAVA TO DISCUSS HIS FREESTYLE PROJECT ‘A DOLLAR A DAY’

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Intro­du­cing Hott Lava, the artist behind the deeply per­son­al and intro­spect­ive album ‘A Dol­lar A Day.’ Born out of his troubled exper­i­ences grow­ing up on the South­side of Chica­go, this remark­able pro­ject cap­tures his extraordin­ary jour­ney.

Hott Lava’s music revolves around poverty and struggle, authen­tic­ally con­vey­ing the raw­ness of these exper­i­ences. His lyr­ics and sound res­on­ate deeply with listen­ers who can relate to his jour­ney or have over­come sim­il­ar chal­lenges.

Join us as we delve into Hott Lava’s artistry, unrav­el­ing the depths of his music and the incred­ible stor­ies he has to share.

‘A Dol­lar A Day’ is a deeply per­son­al and intro­spect­ive album that reflects your troubled exper­i­ences grow­ing up on the South­side of Chica­go. Can you tell us more about the inspir­a­tion behind this album and
how it cap­tures your jour­ney?

This album is based on My life exper­i­ences grow­ing up on the south side of Chica­go and all of the tri­als and tribu­la­tions I faced. Grow­ing up and how I did made me want to tell my story because I believe my life is like a movie I was inspired by cer­tain things in my life that could­n’t get out my head so I basic­ally just wanted to explain it in my lyr­ics. Even though it’s free­style I free­style my life to the T so this jour­ney has been a travel back into my past.

The album fea­tures pres­ti­gi­ous pro­du­cer HC THE CHEM­IST, who has worked with renowned artists like Bone Thugs-N-Har­mony. What was it like col­lab­or­at­ing with HC THE CHEM­IST, and how did his pro­duc­tion style con­trib­ute to the over­all vibe of the album?

HC THE CHEM­IST is one of the greatest pro­du­cers I ever worked with in a great friend of mine we met through a friend and fel­low artist King Arnice. Without HC THE CHEM­IST I don’t think my album would have came out as good as it did so col­lab­or­at­ing with him he was able to fit right to my style of hip Hop and made the over­all vibe of the album a legendary depic­tion of real hip hop.

‘A Dol­lar A Day’ is described as a free­style album. Can you explain your approach to free­styl­ing and how it influenced the cre­at­ive pro­cess for this par­tic­u­lar pro­ject?

I wanted to keep this album ‘A Dol­lar A Day’ to be as real as I could so free­styl­ing this album was easy because it’s about my life and only I know my life, know one knows you like you know you. So it helped the cre­at­ive pro­cess all I did was think about situ­ations I went through then rap about that situ­ation.

The album includes guest fea­tures from Play­boy Hendrix and the late Arince. How did their con­tri­bu­tions enhance the over­all storytelling and them­at­ic ele­ments of ‘A Dol­lar A Day’?

Well PLAY­BOY HENDRIX and KING ARNICE are very respec­ted hip hop artist loc­ally so work­ing with PLAY­BOY HENDRIX on song 3 on the album ON MY SHOULDERS was great. In the chor­us he sang about the struggles that I went through in an octave voice that made that song the hit that it is today. KINK ARNICE FEA­TURED on RIDEN, RIDICU­LOUS 16 ZIPS. His raw energy and style earned him a single on ‘A Dol­lar A Day’ called KING ARNICE. His sud­den passing effected the under­ground hip hop scene, and we’re pray­ing for his love ones.

Poverty and struggle are recur­ring themes in your music, and they res­on­ate deeply with your audi­ence. How do you ensure that your lyr­ics and sound effect­ively con­vey the raw authen­ti­city of these exper­i­ences?

I cre­ate music that relates to the exper­i­ences of indi­vidu­als grow­ing up in poverty and facing vari­ous struggles in their lives. I res­on­ate with my music by draw­ing from my own per­son­al jour­ney and the chal­lenges I have encountered. I believe that many oth­ers in the world have gone through sim­il­ar exper­i­ences, which makes the authen­ti­city of my music essen­tial. The demand for authen­ti­city stems from the fact that my music is groun­ded in real-life situ­ations. As the say­ing goes, “real recog­nize real,” and that is why my fans con­nect with my music. They can relate to the exper­i­ences por­trayed in my songs because they are either cur­rently going through sim­il­ar cir­cum­stances or have over­come sim­il­ar chal­lenges in their lives.

Com­ing from a tough back­ground your­self, how import­ant is it for you to provide relat­able con­tent for your listen­ers? What mes­sage do you hope they take away from ‘A Dol­lar A Day’?

I think it’s very import­ant to give your fans relat­able con­tent because they’ll know that they’re not the only ones going through situ­ations in life that’s sim­il­ar or the same to the life exper­i­ences I exper­i­enced and know that you can make it out —  Look at me!

With an expans­ive dis­co­graphy and your own label, Poverty and Pain Enter­tain­ment, you’ve estab­lished your­self as a prom­in­ent artist. How has your music­al jour­ney evolved over the years, and how does ‘A Dol­lar A Day’ fit into that pro­gres­sion?

“A Dol­lar a Day” being my first album made it easy for me to fit into the pro­gres­sion of my future albums. I cur­rently have an album out called “Pain,” which is essen­tially a com­mer­cial album show­cas­ing the raw­ness of my music. The first time around, I made an album dis­cuss­ing my life exper­i­ences, while the second album took a com­pletely dif­fer­ent, com­mer­cial dir­ec­tion that listen­ers can vibe with. Addi­tion­ally, I have a new single on the way that rep­res­ents a total trans­form­a­tion into my true artist­ic self.

Fur­ther­more, I have sev­er­al tal­en­ted indi­vidu­als on my label, such as LA RECK­ON­ING, Malaijaa Walk­er, BILLA, and Rus­sell Mimz. Their albums are approach­ing just like any­one else’s, and they elo­quently depict poverty and pain, sim­il­ar to my own exper­i­ences. How­ever, it’s import­ant to note that they are also artists in their own right, so don’t just per­ceive them solely based on that aspect. We are a tight-knit fam­ily that I’ve built, and I want you all to be able to listen to my fam­ily’s work and embrace them as your own. Wel­come to Poverty and Pain Enter­tain­ment.

Can you share any mem­or­able moments or chal­lenges you faced dur­ing the record­ing pro­cess of ‘A Dol­lar A Day’? How did you over­come them and shape the final out­come of the album?

I face no changes in mak­ing A Dol­lar A Day, I just went to the stu­dio and free­styled my life and that was it.

Look­ing ahead, what can fans expect from you in terms of future pro­jects or col­lab­or­a­tions? Are there any spe­cific themes or dir­ec­tions you plan to explore in your upcom­ing music?

Yes I wrote a song on the album pain about a con­cert in heav­en and on my future single I made a song The Jerry Spring­er song The Maury song and also a song called movie depict­ing My Life as a movie.

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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