This week, we were able to catch up with upcoming Hip Hop artist Shy High, a new, genre-making and genre-breaking act who we suggest you get acquainted with ASAP. He first caught our eye on TikTok with his release rollout for “independent films” (now at 3.5 million streams), through videos that highlighted the numerous flows and cadences that he’s able to include within just one song. It was Kendrick-esque, and definitely grabbed our attention. Something that we’ve also noticed is that he takes his craft seriously enough to make room for fun, too: Our favorite song of his to date is “Clam Chowder”, which recently surpassed 1 million streams, and showcases bars that, while incredibly fire, are truly outside of mainstream Hip Hop’s usual vernacular. These unique lyrics, combined with his stellar production skills, makes for a true piece of art. You’ll just have to give him a listen to understand what I mean by that.

Check out our interview below!

Decker: First off, tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you, and where are you originally from?

Shy High: First and foremost I’m Shy High. Technically I was born in Los Angeles, Woodland Hills to be specific, but I moved to Oregon when I was like 6, so I claim Oregon. It’s a small town in Oregon called Albany, like an hour south of Portland.

Decker: Very cool. How did you get started in music?

Shy High: I’ve been involved in music since I was little. My dad was in metal bands when he was younger, so he had me and my brothers playing guitars and drums and shit since I was 5 or 6. I remember hearing a lot of Beastie Boys around that time, I think that was a big influence on me musically from a young age. I put my first original song on YouTube when I was 12, on some Justin Bieber Shit, and got into production at like 16 because my older brother had an Ableton license. On the real, I’ve been pursuing music since I was like 11, doing open mics and bars and restaurants and stuff, but I wasn’t really a hip hop artist until I started making my own beats and shit.

Decker: Who and What are some of your largest musical influences?

Shy High: Pharrell. Lorde. Beastie Boys. Frank Ocean. I feel like those are my pillars, all for different reasons, but I think those are the artists who have impacted me creatively the most. Ye and Baby Keem are up there too. Frank Ocean is special though, not only for his own work but the stuff he’s done with Blonded Radio has impacted me as an artist, maybe more than anything else. He’s fucking amazing at curating authenticity on that radio and that’s what I love about it, there’s little regard for genre or era, it’s about putting people on to pure and honest music. When I’m on that type of vibe, I’m at my best as an artist, and I feel like that’s the most important thing to pursue and strive for as an artist. When your shit is real and honest, it’s so much easier to figure out the world around it, and to match the energy of it, because it's nobody else’s energy. Just your own.

Decker: What have been some of your favorite moments with music so far?

Shy High: I love it whenever I run into someone in real life who knows my music, so much of what I do right now exists virtually so it's just different when it’s a real person who randomly sees me somewhere and wants to say something or grab a pic and shit. I’ve met people in my hometown, on campus at OSU, hella people in Portland, it’s just a vibe.

Decker: Your manager Danté tells us you’re about to drop a new project, an EP, tell us a little bit about the meaning behind the songs and your creative process.

Shy High: Yessirrrrr, back on the Beastie Boys influence, my favorite project from them is Hello Nasty, just the energy and disregard for rules in music are so inspiring and beautiful. So I guess I’m doing sort of a tribute EP, you could say? It’s called “goodbye delicious”, just a summer vibe really, some fun experimental shit. It’s also gonna have my biggest TikTok song on it, which I’ve been holding onto since November, because I wanted it to drop when the sun was out. Shit got like 2 millions views and I still haven’t dropped haha the timing wasn’t right back then, though. It’s also my first time dropping anything other than a single, so that’s hype too. Some real Shy High shit, honestly

Decker: Awesome. We look forward to it! So, what’s next for Shy High?

Shy High: Whatever I feel like doing honestly, hard to call it, I wanna do more shows though. Steady working on getting some merch available. New music always, always always making new different shit. Probably some cringe TikToks too. I kinda wanna start a YouTube channel with some cool behind the scenes type stuff so look out for that too. It’s a Shy High summer, regardless.