Channel Tres and I have never been closer to and farther from each other at the same time. The genre-bending groove-maker is sheltering in place in his Highland Park apartment while I’m doing the same in Santa Monica. With the roads almost empty, any location in Los Angeles is only about 20 minutes away, but for obvious reasons we’re talking on the phone instead of in a restaurant or thrift store that Tres frequents.
“Santa Monica is so far,” he says with a laugh, the connection breaking up. The truth is everywhere is far right now. As of publication, the United States has more than 81,321 COVID-19 cases, and the globe has breached half a million confirmed cases. Tres and I reside in the third of the world that’s on lockdown of some kind, and he’s trying to embrace the stillness.
“It’s been a lot of reflection and resetting,” says the South Central L.A. native. “I’m used to being on tour a lot. I had some special shows coming up, and I was excited, so it kind of still hurts that they’re canceled. But it also allowed me the time to be at home.”
Since releasing his first single, the dance-floor-ready “Controller,” in 2018, Tres has become one of the most sought-after artists and collaborators in the dance and hip-hop worlds. The “special shows” in question include Coachella, which has been pushed to October.
While other artists scramble with the immediate loss of income from canceled shows and tours, Tres is relatively unfazed. Insecurity isn’t new to him.
But being home at this moment, I’ve been able to really dig into my emotions.
“I’ve always been broke, real broke,” he says. “My life has kind of been uncertain, so I’m just dealing with it the same way I dealt with it before.”
Born Sheldon Young, Tres was raised by his great-grandparents in Compton and Lynnwood. After they died, he enrolled at Oklahoma’s Oral Roberts University. Music was his escape from homelessness and the welfare system.
“I’m happy I’m just prepared,” he says with a sigh, shifting back to the present. “I didn’t know it’d be like this, but even though my shows are canceled, I’m glad I saved up and didn’t splurge. It’s really easy to do that, because you want to keep up with the Joneses. But I’ve always kind of lived within my means—lived below my means sometimes.”
With two acclaimed EPs, a solid DJing career and opening slots on tours with Vince Staples and Robyn, Tres has been able to set himself up for this unintended break—which to him feels like Christmastime in L.A.: “Nobody’s outside and everybody’s at home…and it’s been raining. Very moody.”
For an artist and beatmaker who counts JPEGMAFIA and August 08 as friends and Elton John as a fan, it’s easy to assume this isolation would be tough. Once again, Tres has that figured out, thanks to his brand-new puppy, Willow.
“I just felt like I wanted to take care of someone or something,” he says. “She’s just cool; she brings a calmness to me.”
It turns out Willow has been offering input on Tres’s new work. “I’ll just sit her in my lap and make beats,” he says with a laugh. “I can tell when I’m making something calming to her ears because she’ll just sit in my lap and be calm. And then if I play a certain synth and it’s really hot, she’ll start barking.”
An album of beats for dogs isn’t in the artist’s immediate future—though he “just might write a love album for Willow.” Instead Tres has been hard at work on a follow-up to Black Moses, his late-summer 2019 EP.
“I’ve been working with people remotely,” he says about the untitled project. “It’s cool that I’m at home, because I have a lot of ideas, but I’m able to sit down and actually do them right now.”
Tres recorded his last EP while on the road, but he sees a silver lining to this touring hiatus when it comes to the new record. “It was kind of hard to settle down, because I was experiencing so many things at once,” he says. “But being home at this moment, I’ve been able to really dig into my emotions. Everything I do is really cathartic, and I just try to have a meaning and a message and make it really real. It’s been cool being able to live with all the songs—and wash dishes and listen to them.”
The first taste of this new vision is “Weedman,” a nostalgia-tinged, bass-heavy bounce track about a time in L.A. before cannabis was legal. “I remember when I was younger and there were no weed shops,” he says. “You’d always have to find a weed man. I remember working jobs, and when I’d get off work I just wanted to smoke a blunt—and if the weed man wasn’t there it was just a difficult time.”
With an instant shot of Funkadelic playfulness, poppy hooks and a hypnotic groove, “Weedman” begs to be put on loop to soundtrack your afternoon. But Tres isn’t looking at his past through rose-tinted glasses:
“I’m also touching on issues like, ‘I’m 16. Why do I have all these problems? Why do I need to smoke weed at 16?’ So it was just kind of detailing that time of my life.”
In this period of widespread nostalgia for less globally unstable times, Channel Tres isn’t just giving you a dose of memory; he’s trying to bring musical communion to the masses.
“I’ve always wanted to bridge the gap between all [my musical influences]. I’ve always wanted to be able to take stuff that I listen to at three a.m. at a warehouse party and bring it to the people that necessary don’t get that,” he says.
Ever since his early days in church with his great-grandparents, music has had a healing power for Tres. He believes that while we can’t pack sweaty clubs or giant arenas, the best way for us to stay creative and connected is simply by listening.
“I miss the days when somebody would drop a project and that’s what everybody was listening to for that period of time,” he says. “I think with so much music and so much access to so many things, people don’t take the time to actually listen to something. They’ll listen to it and be like, ‘Oh, this is wack.’ They said that about our legends, but when our legends were dropping [albums], we didn’t have the internet. So if we didn’t like it, we learned to like it, because we had to listen to it.”
He pauses, lost in reflection, which we all have time for now. “I just miss that feeling. Being in the position I’m in now, I would love for people to just appreciate and really take their time on things. And just listen to stuff; don’t listen to it with expectation. Actually listen to what the artist is trying to say.”
Now more than ever, it’s time to drop the needle and get sucked in.
BAILEY PENNICK 