Steve Lacy: Breakout Artist Spotlight

Its refreshing to watch and hear a singer that plays guitar and has a style that is as unique as his voice. Meet Steve Lacy. Steve Thomas Lacy-Moya (born May 23, 1998) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He was born in Compton, California, and gained recognition as the guitarist of the R&B group The Internet. In 2017, Lacy released his debut EP, a song-series; titled Steve Lacy's Demo.

Lacy attended private school for most of his childhood and has said that he grew up sheltered, a result of his mother wanting to shield him and his sisters from the environment at the time in Compton.Lacy's debut album, Apollo XXI, was released in May 2019. The album earned him a nomination for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. His second studio album, Gemini Rights, was released on July 15, 2022.

Lacy first gained an interest in the guitar at the age of seven through the video game Guitar Hero, but soon wanted to learn how to play on an actual guitar. He met fellow band member of the Internet, Jameel Bruner, while in the jazz band at the high school they both attended. Lacy got his start producing by making beats on his iPhone, creating his first songs on the device, using a plug-in piece for his guitar, called an iRig.

In 2013, he began producing on what would become the Internet's third studio album, Ego Death. Contributing on the production of eight tracks, Ego Death was nominated at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Urban Contemporary Album. Lacy appeared on Matt Martians' The Drum Chord Theory and Syd's Fin after it was announced that the Internet members would release solo projects.

J Cole is one of the most influential artist of the decade. Lacy produced songs for him as well as and began producing songs for Twenty88, Denzel Curry, Isaiah Rashad, GoldLink and even the one and only Kendrick Lamar, producing the song "Pride" on Kendrick's Grammy Award-winning album Damn, and gaining two features on the 2019 Vampire Weekend album Father of the Bride.

On February 17, 2017, Steve Lacy's Demo was released, with Lacy having created most of the song-series on his iPhone, producing the guitar and bass arrangements and singing his vocals right into its built-in microphone. He also programmed the drum patterns in Ableton. This is one of the key messages he has spoken about at TedTalks events. He shares his love for music as he inspires others to use the available technology to create and explore ones passions in creativity.

In 2017, he co-wrote and produced Ravyn Lenae's entire EP Crush, which was released in February 2018. After he and his Internet bandmates released solo projects in 2017, they worked on their 2018 follow-up, Hive Mind, released in July of that year. Lacy went on to produce for Solange, Kali Uchis on her debut album, Isolation, Mac Miller on his 2018 album, Swimming, and was featured on Dev Hynes' Blood Orange album, Negro Swan.

Lacy revealed in 2018 that he produced for fellow Compton native, rapper YG, and that he had begun using devices other than his phone to produce music. In March 2019, Lacy was credited for producing on two tracks off of Solange's When I Get Home album. He was also featured on the song and video for Vampire Weekend's "Sunflower" that same month. In April, Lacy released the debut single, "N Side", off of his debut album, Apollo XXI. He announced the release date of Apollo XXI to be on May 24, 2019. In the week of his album debut, he released two more singles, "Playground" and "Hate CD". The album was nominated for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, Lacy's first Grammy nomination as a solo artist.

On December 4, 2020, Lacy released a compilation album of his early work titled The Lo-Fis. His latest single, "Mercury", was released, together with a music video, on June 16, 2022.The video featured on YouTube is about half as long as the version published on Spotify, which spans 4:58 minutes compared to the 2 minutes and 30 seconds of the video. His second studio album, Gemini Rights, was released on July 15, 2022.

Bad Habit - Steve Lacy's new release