Photo by Nabil / Design by JP Consuegra
The Internet co-founder, Odd Future alum, and solo R&B star discusses the artists that have helped her fall in love with music—again and again.
August 10, 2026
BY Will Schube
The immediacy—the precise arrangements, earworm hooks, and sharp songwriting—of Syd’s Beard was created by…waiting. She spent the past few years in sessions every day, sketching the outlines of her stellar third solo LP, but it took a change of pace for the project to cohere into what we hear today.
“When you’ve been in the studio for six months, there’s not much to write about except for being in the studio,” Syd explains to us over Zoom. She received a demo from Van Hunt, which eventually became the first track on the album, “Walls.” It took two or three years, though, for the idea to turn into the final version—which was co-written and produced by Hunt. “The words just hadn't come to me yet—the appropriate words,” she explains. “It took going through life stuff, trials and tribulations, mostly, to find the words for it.”
Paradoxically, it was only once she stopped actively making music that the final puzzle pieces began to fall into place for Beard. “I do have a one-track mind, so I compartmentalize my time. When I’m making music, I’m making music. When I’m not, I’m really not.” This maturity allowed her to live, to make mischief in the world and see how it would pan out. After that foray into the real world, Syd “added the last two songs to the record that really made it what it needed to be.”
This less direct approach, an ability to let the music come to her, has been a development that’s taken years. She’s able to separate music as a passion from music as work. “I'm no longer obsessed with my job, which is nice. I’m obsessed with music, but I feel creatively free,” she explains. Check out all of the artists she’s obsessed with below.
What’s one record that was essential to the making of Beard?
It’s tough, but off the top of my head, CUBE’s album exposure therapy. It came out while I was on tour with Billie Eilish, and I listened to it a lot. I love the attention to detail. I find his music to be very detail oriented and also reminiscent of things that I grew up loving but modern at the same time. I’ve been searching for that—for something modern. I’ve been searching for more modern sounds lately. It inspired me towards the end of the album.
If we discovered a family tree for Beard, which albums would be included as the relatives?
Van Hunt is definitely on there. Raphael Saadiq is definitely on there. James Fauntleroy is on there. But, I was more inspired by my collaborators than by anything else. I’d probably put all the people that helped me make the album on the family tree.
Who’s an artist that shaped your teens?
Probably N.E.R.D. My cousin Malik introduced me to them. He’s eight, nine years older than me and he was living with us at the time. We only had one computer in the house and it was in my room because I’d just gotten a used MacBook Pro for school. My English teacher wrote my dad a letter saying, ‘Get her a computer for school so she doesn’t have to go to the library all the time.’ He went on Craigslist and found one and it had GarageBand on it. I had just started messing with that. LimeWire was popping at the time and Malik was really into Lil Wayne and N.E.R.D. at the time. I found it on my laptop and was like, ‘What is this?’ I think the first song I found was “Am I High.” I remember not knowing how I felt about it at first, but being intrigued because I had already heard “She Wants to Move.” They had played it on late night or something.
It wasn’t until I found “Am I High” on my 10th grade laptop that I was like, ‘Wait, I’m going to play it again,’ just to try and understand it. By the time I felt like I understood it, I was like, ‘Oh, I love this. This is different.’
Did you bond with the other Odd Future kids because of N.E.R.D?
I think I discovered Odd Future on Myspace and we were in the same city. By that point I was selling studio time out of my room and then my parents’ guest house. I was active and they were active. I was a fan of the music I think because we had those similar influences, but I connected with them by chance. I connected with them through my little brother, Travis. He had been hanging out with them on Fairfax. At the same time, just before I met Tyler, I had done a session with Hodgy. There was another rapper and he paid for the studio time and brought Hodgy. Me and Hodgy just hit it off because Hodgy could rap all day all night and I could record all day all night.
My mom made us burgers at the end of the night. Then Hodgy told Tyler that he had found a new studio. One day I walked outside and Tyler was there with a bunch of other people asking if he could use the studio.
Growing up in LA, figuring out what CDs are gonna go in the car player is very important. When you first started driving, what's an album that you had in regular rotation?
Santigold. I had Seeing Sounds on CD and that was on constant rotation for sure. Those are the two main ones. I had a six disc changer in my hand-me-down car. My brother, when he was younger, was trying to wash the car when the window was open, and he sprayed water on the actual screen so you couldn’t see anything on the screen. I still knew my way around the thing. Oh, and Madonna’s Hard Candy.
Who’s an artist you love that none of your friends listen to?
Probably Damian Marley and the reggae stuff. There’s not a big Jamaican community in LA. Growing up, I didn't know any other Jamaicans aside from people my dad brought around. Outside of my household and the reggae festivals I went to as a kid, nobody else around me was listening to reggae.
It's 2:00 AM and you’re unable to sleep. What music are you putting on?
I could probably sleep to any kind of music, honestly, but the first thing that came to mind for some reason is a song by Sa-Ra called Love Czars. There was a time when I would play that on repeat. It was back when I was on tour with Odd Future. I was really suffering from depression, I wasn’t on medication yet. I would sleep to that. Yeah.
What's a song that reminds you of LA?
Anything by Dr. Dre or DJ Quik. Or Daz Dillinger.
If your life depended on reciting every lyric to a song, what would you choose?
That’s a hard one right now, but maybe something off of Justified or something. Shoot. I don’t know. There are some rap songs that I might know, but it’s random. Honestly, it’s something off of Get Rich or Die Tryin’. I know most of that album word for word.
An alien lands on Earth and you have to pick one song to explain what music is all about. What song are you picking?
What is it called? “Sun Goddess?" You know that song? It goes like, [Syd begins singing] ‘Music, sweet music, queen of my soul.’ I’d probably play that. That’s the first one that came to mind.
If there’s a movie being made about your life, who’s doing the soundtrack
An artist? Or a writer or producer? It’d have to be me. I’d have to do it myself. I wouldn’t trust anybody with all that power.
Which artists have you seen in concert the most times?
Probably somebody I've toured with. Maybe Mac Miller or Anderson .Paak. Somebody I haven’t toured with would probably be Erykah Badu. I’ve seen her a bunch of times.
What’s the most recent concert you went to?
I got to think. Shit. It’s been a while. Probably something with my mom. Matter of fact, my mom recently went to a Musiq Soulchild concert and FaceTimed me from backstage and passed him the phone. Big flex. Her friend is one of his friends, apparently. Actually, the last concert I saw was a tribute memorial concert for my uncle Cat Coore. It was in Kingston, Jamaica. It was the day after his funeral. He passed in February. He started the band Third World with a couple other members. He also used to play in Inner Circle. The tribute concert was just a bunch of people he played with. Damian and Ziggy Marley, Inner Circle, they all played a bunch of songs.
Who's an artist that has shaped your worldview or your sense of self?
Matt Martians. He's my North Star. He gets me back on track—gets me out of my head—when it comes to seeing the bigger picture. We can get obsessive over our careers, especially in this industry. He’s somebody that really helps me to pull myself out of that when I start overthinking.
If you could open for any artist in history, who would it be?
D'Angelo.
What's a perfect love song?
“Love Song #1” by Meshell Ndegeocello.
What’s the last music debate that you got into?
That’s hard. I don’t know if I’ve ever argued about music; I’ve maybe disagreed with someone. Shit. I’d be like, ‘Oh, okay.’ Lately, I have been trying to understand. I really have. Sometimes I don’t, no matter how hard I try, but that’s life.
What’s a song that makes you feel like a superhero?
That’s hard, too. I might go with “Bad Guys” from Beard, because if anything, it makes me feel like a villain. It makes me feel like a super villain. I don’t know if I have a song that makes me feel like a superhero. When I was writing “Bad Guys,” the concept was about being someone else’s bad guy—being the bad guy in someone else’s story arc, even when we’re not trying to be. I was tapping into the idea that a villain usually starts as a good person who is hurt. We all have that in us, I think. We all want to be good. Even the villain wants to be good to somebody. They have somebody they’re trying to please.
We have our intentions, we have our actions, we try to line them up, we do the best we can, but at some point in our lives we will be the bad guy in someone else’s story; hopefully not forever. Hopefully amends can be made, but it’s just a reminder that every bad guy started as a baby.