Lawrence Matthews is Just Gonna Keep Going

The Memphis-raised songwriter and visual artist chats about his new LP and the family bowling team

Lawrence Matthews with assistance from Martin Matthews // graphic design by Thomas Euyang

The first time I heard Lawrence Matthews’ just-released LP, Between Mortal Reach & Posthumous Grip, I was blown away. It’s an album of unrelenting ingenuity: a blend of sample-driven rap, the all-knowing spirit of generation-spanning blues, the past-obsessed fiction of a book like Absalom, Absalom! When I caught up with Matthews —who was raised just outside Memphis — ahead of the release of Between Mortal Reach, I was all the more impressed. He’s got the right mindset to find some success in this absolutely torched industry. “The difference between figuring it out and not is in whether you continue our not,” he explains. You just gotta keep going and keep caring more than everyone else. It sounds corny as hell but it’s the only way to find an audience outside of going viral or offering up sacrifices to some content marketing wizard. It’s part of the reason I found my chat with Matthews so enjoyable. His approach to finally putting out music under his own name reminded me of what it took to finally get this endeavor off the ground.

“Once the ball is rolling, you have to roll with it.” Do the thing and adjust later. Tweak as you go. The only way to figure out what’s working is to see what doesn’t. Obviously, it’s a bit different when you dedicate multiple years to a single body of work, but the praxis is the same. Matthews, for what it’s worth, has had a bit of practice. He’s been dropping music for close to a decade, previously as Don Lifted, but this first release under his own name marks the start of something new. It means something different, bearing the name he was given at birth, recorded in the home he was raised in. Even the aesthetics of the project, from the album art to the truly cinematic music videos, honor the culture that raised him.

During our conversation, we touched on the origins of the album, growing up in an amalgamation of Southern cultures, the villainy at the heart of Memphis’ leadership, his family bowling league, and plenty more. Check it out below, and please buy Matthews’ new LP here. It’s worth your time.

On “Once More & Again,” Teco raps about succeeding for everyone in his family tree. I feel like that’s a big theme of this album.

Lawrence Matthews: We were making that track not really understanding what we were making. We just knew we wanted it to be great. But there was so much happening in the world and in our lives that everybody caught the right energy and the right spirit in the studio. That’s the thing. There’s a lot of potential for a lot of people. This is a business where so many dreams don't come true. People stop dreaming or tell you to stop dreaming. We’re encouraged not to dream. Like, ‘Why are you wasting your time with that? I didn't do it. Your grandfather didn't do it. This person didn't do it. That person didn't do it, so why would you?’ There’s this protective close-mindedness that creeps in from so many different perspectives. Everyone on that song is someone who is still fighting for that. We want greatness on our name and to add something to the canon. We want to add something to music, add something to history and to our communities. Teko coming out and saying that set so many things in motion in a way that was really special.

What I applied from that to the entire record is this idea that it takes risks. It takes a willingness to be like, ‘This might work, it might not, but I have to do it or else I'm not going to be able to live with myself.’

Is that how you always approach songwriting?

LM: That's how I'm approaching life at this point. I was laughing as you were saying this. We made that in 2021, 2022. I've made so many choices since that moment. In making the project, risk has been a big part of it. You can't sleep at night without making these choices, without going for these things that you're going for. They could, in theory, ultimately lead to your destruction, but not if you keep doing it. You know what I mean? Once the ball is rolling, you have to roll with it. If you don't, it'll end in your destruction. The difference between figuring it out and not is in whether you continue our not. You just keep going and going and going.

All the stories that we hear about somebody failing is because they stopped or something stopped them. If you just keep going, then eventually you will get there or you'll die trying. That’s the whole thing. My songwriting process is so subconscious and so spiritual at times that I don't always have concrete structures or know how it manifests. I think a lot of that happens in my production and how I'm choosing to structure a record and put it together and what parts I want to exist. “Once More & Again” was definitely the record where I was like, ‘Okay, I really understand what this is now.’ I did four records before that and I just wasn't sure. They were all over the place.

A lot of times the music is telling me what to do and I'm not thinking as much, even though there seems to be so much thought. I don't write regularly. I don't record regularly. I have not recorded or written a song in months I work when I feel called to work. When it does happen, it is like a faucet. A whole verse comes out, a whole hook comes out, and I just try to dictate it as best as I can. I try to get on my phone, try to get on the computer, and write it out and make sure I'm being as honest as I can to get that gut body feeling that I don't know how to describe too well.

Where are you based now?

LM: I’m technically mobile. I'm currently right outside Memphis, but the home that I recorded this project in, I sold that house and have been moving around. I'm going to be in New York in a little bit. I go back and forth from Chicago. I'm spending time in Mississippi. My mom and my folks, they stay right outside the city of Memphis. When I'm in town, I'm with them, but I'm floating around for the first time in my life. I was in LA for a little while, a few months ago.

Did you grow up on southern rap music?

LM: Yeah, for sure. I think my relationship with rap music has evolved in a way. My dad mostly listened to other genres, and very old school rap, but there was also Outkast and Tupac. Then I heard old stuff like Run-DMC and Grandmaster Flash. I got access to the TV right around the time of the really huge southern rap boom with T.I., Ludacris, Three 6 Mafia, Lil Scrappy, all those guys. They were just the biggest things in the world. That’s what informed so much of the production of this record — wanting to get back to when Southern rap felt a certain type of way. I know there's been this trap thing, which I'm rocking with, but it's not as musical as some of the stuff from before. That’s the stuff that made me fall in love with music on a level — it’s what made me want to even try to do it. I couldn't sing. I couldn't play instruments. But hearing Ludacris, hearing Nelly, how could I not get wrapped up in it? Outkast and UGK, too, they were just so fantastical, so larger than life, it just imprinted itself onto me. That’s definitely heard in my music. I want it to be heard.

I know you’ve released music under the name Don Lifted. Does this feel like a debut?

LM: I do.

Are you nervous?

LM: Yeah, and I'm fine with being nervous. I have not been nervous about music in a while. I've had dread and anxiety and stuff around music, but even getting ready to do this, I've been working on this thing for years at this point. Getting it into the world has been such a journey. I very much feel like a new artist. I make sure to remind myself that. When I post on social media, the algorithm reminds me of that. I'm always aware of the newness and the beginningness of all of this. Despite my age, despite all my years performing and making art and all this other stuff, this has my name on it. This is me, my life, my story, in a real way that people have not heard. It feels naked. It feels exposed.

What was the first session from this album?

LM: The first song I wrote was “Breonna’s Curse.” That was April of 2021. I have a screenshot in my phone of the lyrics. I was really proud of myself, and I sent it to some people I love who have good taste. I was like, ‘I just wrote this thing.’ It started as a poem and then more kept coming, and I was like, ‘Oh, shit, I'm supposed to make an album.’ I wasn't trying to really do that at the moment. I wasn't sure. I was still signed to another label. I'm independent now, but I was in another deal, and I had not yet put out that album. I was on my last Don Lifted record, and then my brain is like, ‘Hey, here's your next thing.’ It let me know that a lot more was in store for me, and all of it manifested over the next few months. It started with that record.

When did the themes of the album reveal itself?

LM: This is going to sound real ridiculous, but this is how I make music, so just bear with me. I come from a visual art background, studied visual art, got a degree in visual art, have done that alongside my music career for 10 years in a local capacity, at a regional capacity. There’s this artist I really, really enjoy named Kerry James Marshall. I have been pulling from some of the imagery in those paintings for a while, specifically for music videos. At this point, I had written “Breonna’s Curse,” “Green Grove,” and “Limelight Honey.” I got a book of his, and I was going through and I was grabbing different ones, and I looked them up and I printed them all out on sheets of paper that are in a box somewhere around here. I printed out all of these paintings on little sheets of paper, from the book and from ones I grew up studying, and I laid them out on my dining room floor at the time, which was my studio, and I started to organize them. I started ordering them in a way that felt like it was communicating something to me. I wasn't really sure what it was, but I was just following it.

There were 12 different paintings, and it looked like they were telling a story. When I started to look at it, I was like, ‘This feels like what I'm going through right now. This feels like my relationship to music.’ As I would make music, I was aware of what the painting in conjunction with it was. I had all of those paintings pinned up on the wall, and I would reference them as I was working. Every single track has a painting that goes along with it.

There are all these symbols in the artwork that evoke certain hoodoo traditions and southern spiritual lore. Marshall is from Alabama, so he’s aware of some of these things. The music was really rooted in this magic. I let that inform each record. From there, I had a list of samples that I was just mining over time. I would look at a painting and spend time with this playlist of samples. Then as lyrics would come to me in my head, I would take it to the side, and then I would chop the sample up. Then I would bring in my producer, CmaJor, who did a lot of the drum programming, to help me put it together. I would take that loop he made, and then I would spend a week with it and I would structure it and do all this stuff to it, and then I would record over it and then bring him back and play it for him.That’s the weird, multilayered approach to putting this album together. I think you're the first person I've explained it to.

What made you decide to sell your house?

LM: I felt like I was in purgatory. So the story behind it is when my parents got together, they lived in California for a while. My dad was in the military. My mom was at Stanford University, and my dad got out of the military. He signed up very young, he was trying to run away from some shit. He was like, ‘I'm getting out of here. I'm not gonna kill nobody.’ They came back to Memphis and got an apartment in this area called Hickory Hill. Then they found a house out that way. That was the house that I was born in. My parents divorced, and then some years later my mom remarried and I got the house. I didn't want the house per se, it's just a thing that happened. I was fresh out of college with a house that I had to maintain and take care of and didn't have the ability to do so at all, financially or otherwise.

I spent years in that house, living bad, eating bad, and then I started making a little money and started to put the house together. Then I got to the point where I was like, ‘This ain't where I want to spend the rest of my life. I've been here for 30 plus years. I need to get the fuck out of here.’ The walls just started to close in. I sold the house at the top of this year. After finishing this project, I realized I have to get myself somewhere else because the demographics of where I'm at is not going to lead to my success, and I want more for this music. My ideas and the things I want to make, the person I am and the things I want to be are bigger than this place. I was starting to overlap with the memory of myself in a really weird way.

All these things start to overlap, mixed with isolation, mixed with poverty, mixed with frustration. That started to distort reality in a way that was really uncomfortable for me. I was like, ‘I have to get out of here by any means necessary.’ I don't think I would be right here in terms of being able to get this record out had I not sold it, because I've been having to fund this thing by myself. We talk about risks and stuff, and I wouldn't tell anybody to do the shit that I'm doing with my life, but I know my life, I know the nuances, and I know the ways that the universe and God and everything else are speaking to me; all the little clues and synchronicities of what this experience is. It’s like, just keep going forward. I can't really explain that to people, but I knew I had to do that thing. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. Once we sold the house, I didn't want to move to New York. I didn’t know where I wanted to be. At this point, with all the shit going on in the country, I don't know if I want to be in America. Thankfully, I'm surrounded by people who give good advice and have told me to stay mobile. The most important thing right now is my ability to get around, especially with this record. Wherever I’ve got to be, I'm going to be.

I know you do visual art as well. When you're not making music or taking photos, what do you like to do?

LM: I'm glad that you reached out about this because I actually have a hobby now. I haven't had a hobby since I was a kid. Everybody needs a hobby, and I've been bowling. It’s the best, but it’s also a challenge, which I need. This shit is hard. You can just throw the ball down the lane, but that's not bowling. I'm in a league. I go to Mississippi to practice. I remember falling in love with it because my granddad and my dad bowl. My granddad is in multiple leagues. He's bowled for years and years, since he was a young person. I spent a lot of time in my childhood in bowling alleys for tournaments and stuff like that. I was just a little kid running around, going to the arcade, breathing in all the cigarette smoke. I have a lot of memories in bowling alleys. Getting into it has connected some synapses in my brain or some shit from my childhood. It’s been pretty healing to be in that space with my dad and my grandfather and bonding in that way. It's been very interesting and very full circle in a way. Also, though, I just love bowling. That shit's fun. And I'm decent.

Are you getting spin on the ball?

LM: Yeah, I'm hooking the shit out the ball for sure. I'm not like pro-level hooking the ball. I can't go all the way to the left and hook that bitch all the way back around, but I got a nice little situation that I feel good about. If I get there, I get there. I look at a lot of those old pros, they had a line that they worked. I want to work my line until I perfect it. If I need to move left or learn the loft and all that stuff, I'll do it. But right now, I've just been focusing on owning my line. I bowl three times a week, including league.

Who’s on your team?

LM: Me, my dad, my granddad, my brother, my cousin, and my uncle.

That's the most heartwarming thing I’ve ever heard.

LM: Hey, it's crazy. I don't know if you’ve had these experiences, but when you're kind of angsty and young or you’re in conflict with where you come from, you avoid what your family likes. I grew up around bowling, but I was just like, ‘I'm not really interested in this.’ We had family reunions, and we would meet at a bowling alley. I'd bowl a few games and whatever, but it wasn't with no technique or no skill. It just was like, I'm just throwing the ball down there. My granddad and my dad, eventually, were like, ‘We're going to join a league. Y'all down to do it?’ I didn't have anything else to do. I was in this space. My granddad got us all bowling balls, and then we started learning. I started bowling two-handed.

It’s also a sport you can age into.

LM: Yeah. I got my ass kicked by a dude last night who was old — old and had ailments. He was hobbling, but he threw that ball down and it hit the same spot every time. My granddad is the same way. He’s an older man, 80 years old. He shuffles down and gets that strike, and I'm just like, ‘Dang, I got to get it together. I'm young. I'm young and strapping and shit. I need to get this together.’

Are you looking forward to being untethered from Memphis for a while?

LM: My whole identity has been tied to place. If you go through all of my art, all of my old music, all these things, they're named after places and spaces that have meant things to me. On this record, I was a little more abstract with some of that stuff, but it is a very place-based album. It is about my relationship to music, but it's also about my relationship to community and geography. The album after this is very much about my relationship to Memphis and this country. Memphis, to me, feels like a sample size of whatever horror is happening in this country. The South is the most potent version of those things. Like, our government just built an AI data center right outside South Memphis. The residents don’t want it, but our mayor is corrupt.

There are so many people here who are in leadership that hate poverty but not the things that cause poverty. They hate poor people. They want to create things that they think are going to eradicate that, but in reality, they're just going to displace people and then they're going to develop those areas. We have a Black mayor who we assumed was rooted in the community and activism. Now, he’s standing alongside the developers and the corporations and handing out tax breaks, because he's a coward. This will poison the people of South Memphis and then later the people of Whitehaven, all for an economic boost that is not going to help the citizens of Memphis.

It's only going to line the pockets of Elon Musk and some of these other people who can make money in that space. These are data centers. There's not that many people working there, and they're not going to hire us because the only jobs that they give Black folks from Memphis are the warehousing jobs, the delivery jobs, the kind of menial jobs that they want us to see us in.

Is that part of why you want to leave?

LM: Yeah, it’s why I don't want to live here. If my health can be altered because of where I live, I need to leave. I’m lucky I can. These motherfuckers that are just trying to make money and are steeped in capitalism and imperialism don't care about the people and don't care about the land. They don't care about people's health, and they just want to make money. They’ll do that by any means necessary. I want to get away from that if possible. I don't know how, but I want to get away from it.