Owning Your Box: An Interview with Yoh Phillips

There are few writers that can grab your attention the way Yoh does. His words are poetic, powerful, and insightful. He can make words jump off the page the way raps and lyrics did. The same raps and lyrics he would listen to growing up in Atlanta while trying to find the next phase in his life. Luckily, writing was able to find him and he’s been going hard in the paint ever since. From his contribution at DJBooth to now being a free agent, Yoh has always stuck to doing one thing: owning his box. I talked to the ATLien writer himself about what he learned at DJBooth, why OutKast is influential to him, his writing process as a free agent, and more.

When did you first realize that you were going to be a writer?

Probably later than most writers. I would say between the ages of 19 and 21. It’s something interesting about writing that grabbed me during a time where I was looking for something to do. I was out of high school and I was looking for work. We were in a recession so there were no jobs. Therefore, I spent a lot of time just listening to music and I noticed that the more I listened, the more I had opinions about what I was listening to. I had thoughts and I had this itch to express those thoughts. I wanted to do it in an op-ed style. I felt reviews were confining. I like album reviews, but there’s so much more to expand upon and op-eds give you infinite room to run thoughts across the page. You can pull in so many references and thoughts. You can source so many quotes. I started doing that early around 2013/2014.

I also read a lot of fiction from Fitzgerlad and Bukowski who were poetic and eloquent writers. Those were the guys who I wanted to translate. Those were the guys I wanted to embody with writing that was a little colorful and prose that was a little purple. I always wanted to have character. I wanted the words to jump off the page the way raps and lyrics did. I always wanted to embody a style of writing that reflected the style of lyricism that I was listening to. I just practiced that for a while and even when things weren’t moving, it was fun. It was fun to have ideas and express them in that way. It was fun to flip terms and find all these great ways to describe songs that you didn’t know before. Writing found me in my early 20’s, but I took to it immediately and I knew it was something I wanted to do for a while.

Many people know you for your writing on DJBooth. You’ve been able to make a name for yourself by penning words that made us feel. You made us think with words that would pierce our brains because it was that good. What was your biggest takeaway from working at DJBooth?

Man, everything. It was the job that taught me the ropes. I learned how important writing is for people. I noticed there are certain things you’re able to inspire if you write stories people take to wholeheartedly. DJBooth gave me a lot of room to figure out the kind of stories I wanted to tell and to hone my craft in the dojo. It was open-minded and it gave me a lot of space. They were very open to whatever I thought was a good idea. The door was never closed on me so I never felt restricted and having Z, Brendan, Nathan, and Donna helped me along the way. Every time someone new walked in, I learned something from them whether it’s to phrase things, headlines, and even captions. You learn all these little tricks of the trade being a part of a company. It’s one thing to work outside of the game, but when you get inside, you’re able to learn more being on the court than watching it outside. I went from wanting to get in the game to having a jersey. There’s no feeling like getting in the game.

One of my favorite artists is Donald Glover/Childish Gambino. We could both agree that he’s polarizing to many people. You wrote about his growth as an artist. What made you want to write that particular piece?

I have been following Donald for so long. It’s more fun for me to watch an artist grow and to be able to trace that movement through time because it gives you so much to work with. When an artist is new, there’s a lot of projection about what they could do and who they could be. When an artist hits that stride where they release a couple of albums, they’ve done mixtapes, they toured, and they’ve gotten into the groove of being an artist, it’s easier to trace who they were, who they are, and who they’re becoming.

Childish Gambino was one of those guys who I was fascinated with, not because he was the greatest artist, but he was polarizing the way that Kanye was polarizing. They’re not the same, but for him to be an artist who has done acting, comedy, scriptwriting, and culminated all his gifts into music? You don’t get a chance to see that every day. It was something I was very attracted to. I wanted to write about it because I knew it would be something necessary.

It’s necessary for all artists who are constantly transforming to have some type of road map to show you exactly how they got to where they are. Before you get to the treasure, you have to have some type of journey and that’s what I wanted to do with that piece. Walk the journey.

Have you ever written something that you look back at and say, “Why did I write this?” If so, how do you deal with something like that?

I try not to look back too much because there’s a lot of writing that I do not remember. Let me read this quote that I’ve been looking at. It’s from Steve Jobs and he says, “If you want to live your life in a creative way as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done, whoever you were, and throw them away.” I think of that a lot because it’s almost like baggage. You don’t want to carry too much baggage forever. You don’t want to spend too much time looking at what you did and how you could’ve done it differently. There are certain shots you take because of the timing, opportunity, or an idea you didn’t fully think all the way through. However, you really can’t regret it because you took a shot. I remember how all my shots feel and writing is a big feeling base for me. When ideas come, it’s usually very instinctive and you could be wrong. You could be wrong about your instincts, but you have to work them out. I’ve had some ideas that just didn’t make sense and those ideas weren’t published. However, the ones that do, those are the ones that I remember where I was. I remember there was a point in time where it was in your gut, on your fingertips, or at the tip of your brain and that just felt right. That’s the feeling that’s always going to get you the right ones. It’s going to get you a few wrong ones, but the right ones always come from the same gut and fingertips. So I try not to look back too much, but what I do is remember where I was.

This past decade has been full of artists that have a mystique towards them whether it’s The Weeknd, Bryson Tiller, H.E.R., PartyNextDoor, etc. I consider you in many ways a mystique writer. You don’t show your face a lot. You normally let your words do the talking. Is that the route you always wanted to go towards?

Yeah, I can say that. I’ve never been a big social media guy. That’s just my temperament. I prefer the work being as loud as possible because that’s where I want to be the loudest. At times, that could be a difficult thing to wrestle with because you’re relying on the work to do all the work. I see other ways to maneuver in the world now. Social media plays a big part in social media performance in a way. Everyone is performing, but there are characteristics that you could see that people add to their persona and social spaces to continue to push their brands. I didn’t want to be a brand. I wanted to be a writer and a writer’s writer.

So that’s all I was focused on and it got to a point where I don’t think I was even paying attention to what was happening. I was just paying attention to what the next story would be and what the next idea was. I was moving around really fast at one point. I remember concerts, studio sessions, stories, super late nights, too many cans of Redbull, too many phone calls, and just churning out as many ideas and reviews as possible to keep the ship moving. You look up and you realize you arrive somewhere.

Based on the previous logo that you had as a profile picture on Twitter, it’s obvious that OutKast was very influential to your professional and personal life. Why is OutKast so important to you?

They were the first rap group that I remember just looking at and being enamored by. They were transformative. They went from these 2 dope boys in a Cadillac, to these aliens in Atlanta, to these mystique and mysterious zodiac signs, and they gave us Aquemini and Speakerboxx/The Love Below. They were always changing and yet, you never forgot who they were. They left such a great impression on you. I always looked at Andre’s writing like painting. He’s Van Gogh, he’s Picasso, and you want to just take his words and hang them up on a wall. I believe Big Boi has a similar gift, but Big Boi’s raps are the ones that you want to live in. He just made life sound cooler. So you combine these two guys who give you different forms of writing that are potent and they inspire you to create your own stories. That’s what always drew me to OutKast. People always talk about them as lyricists and storytellers. They were those guys. They had the production, features, sales, and all the accolades. However, when people talk about OutKast, it’s writing and I wanted to be talked about like OutKast.

If you could compare your writing career to any Atlanta rapper, who would it be?

I have no idea. I’ve always liked Killer Mike’s path. You put out “Monster” and it’s not super well-received, but then you join a group like OutKast. Your star power explodes and you’re able to showcase your chops next to people who’ve been showcasing their chops. After that, you make a pivot and you do your independent route. You do your mixtapes, you build up to your next album, you drop that album, and people look at you like: “Damn, this Killer Mike guy. He still got it.” Then, you keep releasing tapes, link up with El-P, do Run The Jewels, and you are in your third career phase but you’re still in a locomotive.

People recognize how consistent you’ve been and how you’ve been able to move through time without fully losing a sense of self. I feel like I’m about to move to that mixtape Killer Mike phase. I’ve been thinking about the stories I want to tell and the kind of writing I want to do this decade. I want to run over beats and spill out my guts how Killer Mike did.

Has your writing process been different since you’ve become a free agent?

Yeah. Right now, this is probably my least output over the last couple of years. When I decided to step away from DJBooth, I took some time to recuperate. During the five years, I never took a break. I had a few off days and holidays of that nature, but it was a pretty consistent operation so I took some time to refresh the brain. During that refresh period, I realized how writing for me had changed so much. I don’t think I realized how it changed. It’s been fun transitioning into picking your subjects and topics differently and thinking about music differently. I don’t think about music the same way I did when I first got into writing. I’m honestly trying to get back to that.

I want to get all the way immersed into loving music and not making it feel so much like a job. However, the thing you have to stand on is music so music isn’t inspiring you the way that it used to. Therefore, you have to regroup and find out the stories that are the ones you want to tell. The biggest thing about being a free agent is you don’t have a home anymore so you can sort of be a vagabond. You can knock on all these doors and ask people what they’re looking for.

However, I want to have a clearer perspective on the stories I believe I can tell. I’ve been doing a lot of interviews with people in Atlanta that should be rolling out pretty soon. Stories that I’m excited about that are more local and less expansive. I’m so enamored about Atlanta right now and what’s happening with the city, artists, and people. I’m looking at home and I’m wondering how long that’s going last. I’ve been getting into the stuff from Fly Anakin and Pink Siifu with their recent album. It got some joints on there. My taste varies so much.

Some of the best advice a writer has given is: “Pick your box. Pull everything you want into that box that you want to cover and own that box.” If your box is Southern Rap, own Southern Rap. If your box is a certain kind of lyricism, own that box. Be the best storyteller in that box. My box is changing and I’m deciding what the label will be, but I know it’s going to be something I’m excited about.

You have a podcast called “Sumn to Say” with Christina and Jah in which you guys discuss historical hip hop moments in the South. Why was it important for you guys to highlight and acknowledge these moments of Southern Hip Hop?

I got to give credit to Jah. He saw something was missing when it came to Atlanta media and when it came to media covering Southern Hip-Hop. He was able to recognize how few Southern voices were on prominent platforms discussing rap music. He just felt the South needed a space where what’s happening here is covered by the people who live in this world. Whether that’s Atlanta, North and South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, etc. We’re able to live in the South because that’s where we all encountered music.

The way music moves in the South is how we relate to it. So it was his idea, he reached out to Christina first, and I bumped into him at a party before I even knew who he was. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but I feel like Jah said, “Man, I’ve been looking for you.”Soon after that, we all talked about the podcast and we recorded the first episode. It was just good vibes. They are two of my favorite people and two of my favorite minds. I love what Jah is doing at Bossip. Christina is freelancing and her other podcast work is amazing. It’s a great combination of minds so I’m very excited about keeping that moving and keeping those stories fresh.

What advice would give to young Black writers who want to go towards this path of music journalism?

That’s a hard question because the whole space is changing. It’s way different than what it was five years ago when I started at DJBooth. You’re having to tell people how to move in a moving time. We might look up and publications might be gone in three years. Everyone might have newsletters and it could be the future, but I don’t know if that’s true. The only thing I know is true is that you have to find the subject that you love, hold it as dear to you as possible, and write about it as if you are the only person covering it. The only person covering that sound, style, and music and doing your best to make people recognize that it’s you who contributes these stories on this subject. If they want that, they have to come to you. There’s no one else. There’s no other writer who says it the way you say it. Who makes them hear the songs as you hear them. If you do that and you do that consistently with a lot of luck, patience, and love then you’ll own that space.

I think you’ll get all the opportunities you’re looking for and all the ones you can’t imagine. It’s a grind and I would tell everyone to look at music journalism like how rappers look at the business. This is the time of the renaissance creator where you can build your world and attract the people who want to come into that world. There’s a lot of different forms of journalism. I look at those YouTube videos where guys are breaking down all the street rap gang stuff. It’s not my kind of journalism, but the level of intricacies and information breakdowns are insane. Those have millions of views because people are hungry for that information. If that’s what you’re interested in, then don’t let no one tell you otherwise.

This is a time where we can decide what it is for us, but it’s also scary because there’s no certainty. The ground shifting, the ship is sinking, and everything is influxed. However, if you can get control and build your ship, then you can sail for a long time.

Follow Yoh Phillips on Twitter and check out his podcast “Sum’n to Say” with Christina and Jah.

You can also find all of his amazing work on Muck Rack