Washington D.C. native Rum.gold sat down with EARMILK to discuss his upcoming album, Is There Anybody Home?, as well as his humble beginnings, influences, process, and the stories and real-life feelings that inspired some of the songs from the new album.
Born Delonte Drumgold in Washington D.C., R&B singer-songwriter Rum.gold has been making his mark on the music industry since 2018, releasing music independently and steadily building a devoted audience.
Exploring themes of blackness, queerness, family, and trauma, Rum.gold’s music is an apt reflection of the artist himself. From the subdued, more stripped-back and rough-around-the-edges sonic palette of 2019’s yaRn, to the glossier, more traditional R&B-leaning soundscape of U Street Anthology, Rum.gold’s progression has occurred in leaps and bounds, and Is There Anybody Home is shaping up to be his most experimental and genre-pushing project yet.
Rum.gold got his start musically playing the trumpet in the 5th grade. “From 5th grade up until I left college, I was a jazz trumpet player… I wanted to write songs and sing for a while, but I was very insecure about my voice for a long time,” Rum.gold explains.
During this time, the budding artist was inspired by iconic jazz players who also sang, such as Chet Baker or Louis Armstrong, while listening to artists like Lauryn Hill and curation pages on SoundCloud like Majestic Casual to inform his style.
However, it wasn't until the singer graduated from college and moved to Brooklyn in 2017 that he felt confident enough to really begin pursuing his passion to be a singer/songwriter. “I started writing some songs that year, and then 2018 is when I decided to just release them.” The songs in question included tracks like ‘Where There’s Smoke,’ ‘Cashmere Cage,’ and ‘Get Through,’ which ended up on the yaRn EP released in early 2019.
So far, Rum.gold has released half of Is There Anybody Home on DSPs, and, so far, it pushes the formula developed on previous projects to the next level, with highly experimental, complex production accompanied by emotionally vulnerable lyrics and lush falsetto vocals.
“I was trying to find this balance [between] production that was texturally rich, interesting, and created [an] atmosphere and soundscape while also keeping the vocals clear and at the forefront,” Rum.gold explained after describing a lack of vocal exploration on musically experimental songs and a lack of sonic experimentation on vocally adventurous songs he was listening to at the time. “This [album] was much more collaborative, but I definitely would say that I was the executive producer of all these songs,” Rum.gold says of the album’s production. “We were just playing with sounds and textures and trying to see how far we could push it without it being like ‘okay, this doesn’t sound like a Rum.gold song at all, this just sounds completely different.’”
In addition to the album’s sonic backdrop, Rum.gold feels that lyrically, the album communicates exactly what he wanted it to. “All these songs on this new project, I feel, are so true to me because if you take all of the production and all of the interesting textures and the sounds away, it’s just this beautiful, heartfelt song that could be played acoustically,” he explained.
There’s a certain level of introspection in these songs that many artists seem to avoid, but that Rum.gold himself embraces with open arms, going so far as to dissect the song ‘Is It Something I said’ with psychologist Nim Tottenham on the Sing for Science podcast. “I’m never apprehensive because in a lot of ways it feels therapeutic for me… When I’m making music, I’m trying to get to [the truth]. It feels like the point for me is to find that truth that I’ve been trying to search for, so when I do feel like I’ve found it, it almost feels like a relief,” Rum.gold explains. “What the f**k’s the point if it’s not truthful or honest?”
Rum.gold further contextualized the album’s inspiration and the feelings that went into it by explaining that he actually went through a divorce while creating it.
“It ended up just sort of being [this] way…,” Rum.gold explains. “‘Is It Something I Said’ through ‘Good Bones’… [felt] sonically and content-wise much darker than part one of the project, and I remember feeling like ‘okay, there’s clearly some sort of narrative here…’ so I was trying to figure out what my subconscious was really doing… Part two was…[the] most recent [version of] me [reflecting] on a lot of things, and part one was [the] beginning stages of [grieving] something that I wasn’t quite ready to [lose].”
The eclectic singer goes on to explain that the album really started as an attempt to make sense of his failing relationship, hypothesizing about what in his past/childhood could have impacted his relationship to the point of separation. “The things that are harder to face are the things that I’ve always been more drawn to.”
Visually, Rum.gold is also drawn to those things that might be difficult to face or that address sensitive subjects, having an affinity for acclaimed film director Ari Aster specifically.
His music video for ‘Is It Something I said,’ which Rum.gold co-directed with Spencer Clark, seems to depict such a situation, with a premise that sees a young boy living with a neglectful mother who has a hoarding problem. Rum.gold explains that this idea came to him while watching a clip from an episode of the A&E TV series ‘Hoarders’ in which a mother expresses fear of her son becoming a hoarder. “I just thought [that] was such a beautiful, apt metaphor for inheriting things from your parents that you just don’t want. Not even physical things, but mental things.”
When asked about the album’s title, Is There Anybody Home, Rum.gold described a lingering sense of loneliness that he’s felt throughout his life, in both his parental and romantic relationships, that despite the people in his life with whom he shared a home, there was a persistent isolation.
He explains the following: “The line ‘is there anybody home’ just made me sort of reflect on my childhood and feeling like I was alone in a lot of aspects, even though there were people actually there… I felt that in my childhood home, and all the way into my home with my now ex-partner. Feeling like ‘why do I feel so alone in this home that I’m building, even though I have this partner with me?”
Rum.gold concluded the interview with a message to his younger self, a message that anyone who may have had similar experiences or can relate with his feelings may be able to use to inspire and empower themselves: “The things that you feel make you stand out in a negative way or the things that you feel like are the reasons [for] why you can’t fit in in specific ways are the things that you should water more and not try to hide… If I’d started watering those things earlier, I would [be] much further along in my journey of self-love than I am right now, but I’m getting there.”
Is There Anybody Home by Rum.gold is out on March 27th on all DSPs.
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