Adot
By Paul Jimenez on February 26, 2014
Trying to make some noise within this deep pool of Chicago rappers is Armani Bullock, an upcoming artist known as Adot. The Ace League representative has been rapping for about 2 years now, developing an aggressive, gloomy style that bring to mind rappers like Earl and MF Doom. Surprisingly, he wasn’t into these type of artists growing up. Instead, Adot would listen to either rock or metal, which is probably why he has such a dark mentality today. Retaining this mindset in his music, Armani uses a bleak, grimy language to correlate the tenacious beats he rhymes over. Even though he hasn’t released much, his tracks and videos reveal he isn’t new to this. He plans to continue building on what has been a productive start, so expect much more music from this kid in 2014.
Interview
What type of person is Adot? Describe yourself.
"I'm very non-chalant, pretty laid back most of the time. I try to keep peace within my group of friends because I feel drama is very unnecessary. I would consider myself reserved, being alone sometimes makes me happy because it's just me and whatever I'm focusing on. Pretty much I don't care about a lot, just having fun with making music. Although I'm pretty unsatisfied with where I am in life, I look to change that with my music."
How long have you been rapping for?
"I've been rapping for almost 2 years, however I've been dropping songs for about 8 months."
Talk about your music video, "Circles". What was the idea behind it?
"Well originally it didn't have a witch doctor in it, but when I sat down with Nick and Chris(Visual Mecca) we were listening to the song in Nick's car, in a random parking lot and just came up with the idea to have a guy following me. I then told them I was working on another song I wanted to include it in the video also known as "Chilling". The video was filmed in 2 days, both days were cold as fuck. I stood outside in only a hoodie in like 20 degree weather for about 4 hours holding an extremely big camera strapped to my chest. It was fun though. I had my friends with me because those are my niggas, more like family to me actually."
Your style and tone remind me a bit of Earl Sweatshirt's, would you agree?
"Yes, I would agree. However, we don't make the same kind of music. I want to drift off and do other things eventually, not just rap all the time. Everyone tells me I sound like Earl and I'm not sure if that's an insult or a compliment, it's pretty annoying. He's an influence to me for sure because he's my age doing the same shit, but is largely more known than I am. I'll change that though, this is only the beginning for me. I'm ready to keep going until I am the best. I do want to collab with him one day though."
What type of music did you listen to growing up?
"Growing up I listened to a lot of mainstream music, haha. Rap, R&B, and sometimes rock. I never really discovered underground music until I was in high school, so it's still fairly new to me because there is so much I missed. I stopped listening to rap and R&B at the age of like 13 and only listened to rock and metal until I was 16."
Tell us about your usual daily life.
"My daily life is pretty average. I wake up in the middle of the day, talk to my girlfriend, find something to do which differs each day and come home to think all night. My brain never sleeps which is the most frustrating thing because it fucks up how I view my music."
What kind of music can we expect from you in the near future?
"New music is all going to be different. It's going to feel like an actual song you could say, instead of just a verse. I want to try to make a bunch of shit that I think sounds really cool, but I love grimy and dark songs because that's just how my brain is, haha. "Never satisfied" is my motto. That and "shit on everyone". I won't stop until I am the best."
If you could get any artist to feature a song with, who would it be?
"Earl, just to show people that we aren't the same. I think it would be tight to fuck with people's minds and have them guessing which one is which, haha. I also just want the competition. I feel like I could keep up, I can write pretty try-hard songs. He's been doing it longer so it's pretty easy for him, but if I research diction and literary devices, like I sometimes do, I think it'll be fun. He'll probably never see this though, so my dream may be achieved by doing other shit to get notice."
Can we expect more phychedelic visuals like "Circles"?
"Maybe. I want to stay away from the trippy visuals because way to many people are doing it, but I have some cool ideas me and Visual Mecca could work on one day."
What's your favorite part about making music?
"My favorite part has to be making a super hot song, showing everybody and then it doesn't get anywhere, haha. For real though, it motivates me to say fuck blogs and just try harder. I just have fun making music without a time limit also."
To finish this off, what would you like to have accomplished a year from now?
"This year I'm going to get more notice and that's for sure. More fun videos, starting with "Circles" and "No Name". Hopefully I have an EP out as well. I also want to collab with some artists outside of Chicago. I would like to travel to New York or Cali and do some shows at those places, but most definitely I will have show done here first. I would like to see my name in a magazine and the newspaper, that'll be tight. I also want to model for Supreme or at least hook up with them for a sponsorship. I think I'm going to work on all these things, but most importantly I'm going to make a name for myself regardless and continue to make music while influencing those around me to show they can do this shit with no money too, haha."