Meeting LFT: A Q&A With The Rising R&B Singer
Photography by Patricia Aquino
LFT is a rising R&B singer on a mission to achieve greatness for himself and the people who shaped him. His artistic name is an acronym for “Living For Terry” —paying homage to an aunt who had a significant influence on his life, and on every release, he makes sure to credit his small but mighty creative team which includes: producer VerySpecialEd, singer Heartbreak Homie, and Heart of the City.
Still fresh on the scene with just a handful of songs under his belt, there’s an undeniable charm and natural charisma to LFT that’s present in his music and, as I would later learn during our Q&A for this article, in the way he carries himself outside the studio. When we first talked back in February, LFT had just released a two-pack EP, x2, as a holdover while he continues to put the finishing touches on his debut project, Pan Out, and it was evident that the personality he conveys in his music stems from a very real and exciting place.
Presently, he's crafting a consistent release schedule, ensuring that eager new fans can anticipate a fresh musical offering each month until the project is ready. The inaugural single, "Dark Night/Daylight," bears a deeply personal touch, as it was born during a period of introspection while his mother was hospitalized, prompting him to rediscover the elements that held the greatest significance in his life. Here’s what he had to say upon its release:
“Just the way I can tell stories on beats and go record them is such a beautiful thing to me. I hope this record and future songs I drop inspire you all to take your dreams on the fullest extent.”
With his consistent output of high-quality music, it's highly likely that LFT's name will continue to ring out in Chicago's music scene in the coming months. Don't miss out on the opportunity to get to know him below.
Since you're pretty new, I want to start from the basics. You know, where are you from?
I'm from Chicago, Illinois. West Side, born and raised.
When did you start as an artist? And when did you start taking it seriously?
Well, I started doing poetry back in, like, probably my second year of high school. And then I showed a couple of my poems to one of my homies, Rolando, shoutout to Rolando, and he basically was just like, "Man, you should start doing music!" And I just didn't know because I was usually shy, I didn't really like to share anything with anybody. But eventually, I just started. It just came to me, words started to come to me, just music period. And I learned how to sing, write, all those things like that. All the things that you need. So eventually, I just began to do it and it's been up ever since.
Was there a specific moment that you went like, "Okay, I want to take it seriously?"
Yeah, basically, I was with a couple of my homies and I love seeing their reaction to anything I put my time and effort into, whether that be me helping them with anything or talking to them about anything, you know? I just love seeing their reactions to everything. So after I've seen it and they really liked it, I was just like, "You know what? I want to take this seriously. I want to make sure everybody knows I'm taking this seriously and go from there and just continue to get better."
How would you describe your sound?
I will say, you can't put it in a box for sure. But I would say r&b-ish and rap-ish. I really feed off of anything that I think sounds good. I just love music period. So I don't really like to put a genre or a specific type of word on it. I just love to be natural and put out whatever it is. And if people like it, people like it. If people don't, people don't. I love it at the end of the day.
Who were you listening to the most or remember when you were growing up?
Growing up I was listening to a lot of Stevie Wonder. My mom would play him in the car a lot, [also] Michael Jackson and various other artists that I didn't really know. Like, I didn't really know the names of the artists, but I would just hear the music and be like, "Damn, that sounds good." Next thing you know, I grow up, and I’d hear it back out of nowhere on a playlist or anywhere. And it would just sound really good to me. And I'll just be like, "I'm gonna try to implement some of these things into my sound.”
You just dropped that two-pack, right? Tell us more about it.
Shout out [Very]SpecialEd and shoutout Heartbreak [Homie], two artists I find a lot of myself in. Not just how they work, but their sounds and the way that they maneuver through music. I love that especially. So it was cool to just drop those two songs with them. First one's "Fine at home" with Heartbreak [Homie]. The making of both was very original, just do what we always do. We just love to get around each other, create, talk, and just let the vibe come to us. And I think that's what the two-pack is, just letting the vibe come to you and making authentic and real music. That's very important.
You have a bigger project, Pan Out, in the works. Tell us a little bit of the story behind that, I know that you've been working on it for a minute.
Yeah, I've been working on it for about, I guess you could say three years now. We're finally nearing the end point of it. Pan Out is just me just telling the world that I'm taking this seriously; I wanted people to know to never dream small, to remember that it's okay to go through things —to have things happen to them—and just to always be original and always be natural. I think that's very important. And that's what I'm going to try to carry through, not just right now, but through my career as well.