Steve Lacy
photo: c elliott · cc0 ↗Steve Thomas Lacy-Moya grew up in Compton, California, picking up guitar through Guitar Hero as a kid before talking his way into the R&B collective The Internet as a teenager, where he recorded parts of their breakout album Ego Death on his iPhone. His solo records — Steve Lacy's Demo, Apollo XXI, and the Grammy-winning Gemini Rights — fuse warped, chorus-pedal guitar tones with falsetto melody and unpolished, homemade production, turning bedroom-pop scrappiness into a signature sound. By his mid-20s he had become one of the most influential young guitarist-producers in R&B, as comfortable behind the boards for Kendrick Lamar and Solange as behind his own mic.
Lacy has called Prince his dream collaborator and said he lifts 'melodic approaches' from him directly, filtering Prince's funk and falsetto sensibility through his own guitar-forward, genre-blurring writing.
listen forCue up Prince's falsetto hook on 'Kiss' next to Lacy's own falsetto turn on 'Static' — both ride a spare, funky groove and let the voice do the flashy work instead of a big arrangement.
Lacy has named Mac DeMarco as one of his biggest influences 'in regard to production' — the warbly, chorus-drenched, slightly detuned guitar tone Lacy built his early bedroom recordings around traces straight back to DeMarco's lo-fi aesthetic.
listen forListen for the same wobbly, tape-warped chorus pedal on DeMarco's 'Chamber of Reflection' and Lacy's 'Dark Red' — both let a queasy, slightly-off guitar tone carry a laid-back, unhurried song.
Lacy cited Thundercat among his biggest influences in a Fader interview; Thundercat's jazz-schooled bass runs and airy falsetto sit inside the same neo-soul/funk-fusion lineage Lacy draws his own harmonic sense from.
listen forCompare the loping, chord-heavy bass groove and high falsetto of Thundercat's 'Them Changes' with Lacy's 'Helmet' — both use a sweet, almost featherweight vocal over a surprisingly knotty chord progression.