Milovay Interview: Why His Self-Titled EP Is Pure Confession

Milovay’s self-titled EP is him being completely real, mixing personal confessions with smooth Afro-RnB vibes while showing off 15 years of growth in the game.

From heartbreaks to freestyles and rebranding himself, he’s all about vulnerability, honesty, and finding his own sound without losing his edge. Read the full interview below.

1. You’ve been in the game for 15 years. What finally made this the right moment to release a self-titled EP?

Trial and error, my friend, haha. You know, rebranding yourself takes a lot of discipline and dedication because you’re literally trashing an old alias that probably took a good five years to build and giving yourself basically a fresh new start.

For me, I have been learning, growing, and understanding a lot more mature things than I have in my recent years, so along with the rebrand… I figured it would be best to have this staple of a project be the very thing to introduce me as Milovay.

2. At what point did this EP stop being music and start being a confession?

Dude, it became a confession the minute it became a concept. There was a night where it was like 2 a.m., on the way home from the club with the homie, and we were just voicing our opinions as to why I wasn’t poppin’ off in the past 15 years… like, I got the talent, I’m smart, I’m sexy, and everything else… until he brought up the idea that maybe it was the name “Punani Papi” being my alias that was just a wall I couldn’t overcome.

I wanted so badly, but the older I got, the more I realized… yeaaaaaaa naaaaah. So we both thought about how the rebrand would go, and being that I write what I live and live what I write… that was it right there.

3. Was blending Afro-fusion with urban bounce a conscious decision or just how it came out?

Kinda both. I had to rethink how I wanted Milovay to sound. Before the rebrand, I was a melting pot of every genre, trying to prove I couldn’t be boxed. Afro and RnB were already genres I had been working with, but we found that RnB is the epicenter of all music, and the most brandable.

So, because I hate boxing myself in one genre, I used RnB with Afro to create an almost Partynextdoor, Drake, or Tory-sounding sound. A little more research, and I found that RnB can be blended with other genres nowadays—I’m talking new Jazz with RnB components, or Afro and RnB, or Hip-Hop and RnB.

The only reason I stuck with Afro and RnB was that Afro is made to move people… dance-wise, RnB is everything music can be and then some… it was one of those, “ight then, better let’s be smooth one moment… and I’m allowed to be my energetic self by making dance-type music… aka the beautiful West-African sound.”

4. Artists like Tech N9ne and Tory Lanez live on opposite ends of the spectrum. How do you bring both worlds together without losing your own identity?

Tech N9ne made me fall in love with music. Point blank, period. Like, I was 14, learning how to speed rap to Worldwide Choppers, but then I found myself heavily inspired by his work ethic and everything else he did. I watched all his interviews and researched everything he had a part of.

Strange Music is god-tier in my eyes. But yeah, Tech also taught me the importance of lyrics, and this is when I started writing music. A couple of years later, unfortunately, Tech isn’t an artist who drops as frequently as he used to back in 2010–18, so I hungered for more inspo, and then I found Tory Lanez. I heard I Told You when it debuted, and from there, everything he did was adjacent to how Tech moved.

They both are bosses of their own label, they both are heavily inclined in the production aspect, both are heavily involved with their fans, and both are versatile… literally, the cream of my crop. All that was left was to not copy their every move and incorporate my personal love for music with their methods and make it my own.

5. What was going on in your life when “Silver Lining” was written?

So, actually, “Silver Lining” wasn’t written at all. All freestyled. And how I felt recording it?… It was a topic that I juggled around a lot in my head ‘cause I was literally going through what you hear.

Everything I say is because it’s a part of me. I don’t lie in music. Tech N9ne said, “Speak the truth, and people will forever feel you,” and I took that and ran with it, haha. But yeah, I think we all know I sometimes struggle with actually speaking my feelings in person, haha.

A lot easier to record my feelings, but regardless, there were two girls I worked with: a daughter and her mother, and everyone wanted her mom, and I was the only one who had MAD hots for the daughter.

We were working at Amazon Robotics, and I could never tell her my feelings. A couple of weird self-heartbreaks later, and I think to myself, “Maybe I should get her flowers”… but then I fight with myself, saying, “Ok?… Why would you do that for someone you have no idea likes you that way?” It was a whole lot of self-doubt, and I battle with it even today.

6. Were you hands-on with the music video, or did you let the director take over?

The way I see this industry is, “If you’re starting off… be a sponge,” and even though, yes, I have 15 years of XP… the world changes constantly, and there might be some things I’m not aware of. So, in this specific case, the director and I worked together.

A lot of the scenes were thought of on the spot or improved. All my thanks go to Trill, Tes, and Vino for lending their two cents every time they got. So I won’t say I had FULL HANDS, but it was a collaborative project.

7. Was there a track on this EP that was harder to finish than the others, and what made it so difficult?

HAH! “Battle of the Two-Heads” SUCKED. I stumbled on the beat like three years ago, and from that day on, I STRUGGLED to find a worthy concept. So, I never have writer’s block mainly because I freestyle everything, and every day brings me a new concept to speak on, but I had the flow, and I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound…

The issue was applying lyrics and making them nice enough to be worth speaking on. A couple of years go by, a couple moves go by, and I find myself in the exact situation you hear me speak on.

And then it hits me, and that entire song is all based on a true event… as I’ve said with all my music before, haha.

8. How did evolving your sound shape the direction of this EP?

Eeehhh, it was more of me accepting that I was very much in the wrong for how I was going about my internal heartbreaks. I started resenting women… using them even… of course, I wasn’t downright awful to them.

There’s nothing more in this world that I respect than women… it was just a lot emotionally for me to handle, and I only coped with it the only way I was shown how to.

That was how my sound changed the direction. Because for so long, I was singing songs like older Brent Faiyaz, and although it worked… it didn’t align with who I was personally. Taking a whole year to dedicate to finding my sound also involved finding myself.

9. How do you balance being Milovay and being part of Luvluss at the same time?

Very simple, actually. Luvluss was founded in 2020 during quarantine by my bestie, Vinothekidd. He didn’t officially make me a co-founder until he started getting it a little poppin’. So basically, he managed the pitching aspect of it all while I was kinda busy promoting it to the masses with my own brandable aspects.

It was easy to balance because, at Luvluss, there’s no agenda to weigh things out. It’s a collective of talented individuals that help each other push on with our careers… from Pop artists to UK producers. Basically, the best way to put it: think of Tyler, the Creator… yup… just like that.

10. If someone listens to this EP and walks away with one feeling, what would you want that to be?

Vulnerability. It’s easy to sit behind a screen and do this or do that… but once you open yourself to the masses and show you’re okay with being judged… that takes passion and resilience.

Something a lot of creators don’t clock until they have to. Being vulnerable is very hard for me… so I want people to walk away with that sensation of, “Wow… that was a story,” because it is.

Concept-wise, the project is built to be listened to track 1–4. I’m now giving a piece of myself to y’all… and that’s literal… this isn’t something I intend to change… Milovay is the one. Or maybe it’s ’cause I’m getting up there in age at 27… I can feel that dirty 30 creeping, haha.

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