San Francisco is so gentrified that simply being an artist is an act of rebellion
Interview with SF producer Baghead following the release of his new album "Growth Mindset"—plus listen to his live performance on Lower Grand Radio
One of the best SF-based beatmakers, Baghead recently released Growth Mindset, a 22-track collection of precisely plucked samples, fuzzy stuttering drum kits, and soul-infused instrumental hip hop. Here’s what he has to say about the new album:
“The intention behind it is understanding what a growth mindset looks like, which you can compare to a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is when you meet challenge, you recognize you can’t get above that. But growth mindset is seeing every challenge as a mountain or hill that you can get over. That’s something a lot of people forget to tap into. We constantly get lazy or discouraged. Using growth mindset is a good way to break boundaries, whether personal or social. It’s important to recognize that we can grow and there are better days ahead of us if we work for them.
And it’s an album of beats I love. So if you don’t wanna think too much and just hear dope beats, that’s there.”
Right after his 26th birthday and the release of the new album—not to mention having seen the GOAT Kendrick Lamar perform at the Oakland Arena—Baghead joined us on Lower Grand Radio for an interview and live performance.
Listen to the full show here. Interview—edited for length and clarity—below.
When did your musical journey begin?
That’s funny because lately I've been thinking about how my grandpa on my mom's side loved music. He loved drums and guitar. He came across the border from Mexico, and never had the opportunity to get into music. So I see my privilege to be able to go full force into creativity as me carrying on the sacrifices that he put in. And I'm sure ancestrally that a lot of people have put in so that I can be here doing my thing. And my mom and my dad were both very creative, emotionally intelligent people. They both have done poetry. My mom drew a lot, and they both always did photography growing up. They have a lot of photos of me that are really artsy.
I listened to music all the time as a kid. My mom and dad would say I would stand in the middle of the floor, listening to John Coltrane, Sublime, Wu-Tang. And I would just sway back and forth, listening to music. I think one time I tore up a Sublime tape. My dad's friend was like, “he has good taste.”
So throughout my life, my parents have supported me being creative and I've always gone towards creativity as a way to express myself emotionally. When I was six years old, I was in Loco Bloco, which is an Afro-Brazilian bateria group and arts program in the city. They teach kids how to dance and they do Carnival in the city. So at a young age I was drumming and feeling something special through playing music. I also played trumpet in elementary when SFUSD had a better arts program. It’s been around my life the whole time.
When would you say it became more real for you?
Hip hop came into my life when I was in high school. Heavily. My dad had always gone to Amoeba in the city, and three albums I always remember he had on CD in the truck that I listened to on repeat were The Tipping Point (The Roots), Da Baydestrian (Mistah F.A.B.), and Full Circle (Hieroglyphics). I was really into those albums at nine years old.
But it wasn’t until I was 16 when my homie was like, “yo, I torrented all of hip hop, bring your iPod classics. I'll give you all the music.” And then we started watching interviews. We got to see Rock The Bells when we were 17 years old. And then my homie bought a beat machine. I went over to his house and we were like, let’s do hip hop and we’ll be rappers and we’ll be producers and we’ll be in a group. And it hasn't stopped since.
Were you Baghead since high school?
Yeah, it’s funny. The meaning behind that name has changed. It started off as a joke because my real name is Sachiel. It's spelled differently than the word “satchel” but that’s how it sounds. My two friends and I were just sitting in the dining room or the kitchen and “Baghead” came up as a joke. We were trying to make SoundClouds that we could put out the beats we were making. And I had put on the name “Baghead” on the SoundCloud and I've kept it since.
Pretty soon after that I was like, yeah, I’m really quiet and shy. I'm behind the scenes and I don’t want to talk and I'll let my rapper friends do the talking. So I see Baghead as this alter ego, as a person that has this bag on to hide their face. And it’s not crazy, but refuge is behind that bag and I’m talking about being yourself. There’s this quote like, “the real test of character is what you do when you're by yourself.” And I feel like we got to get really comfortable with ourselves by ourselves before we can even start to do that in person. Realistically, I wouldn’t say shut yourself in a room and be by yourself forever, but start to really process who are you truthfully in your interactions with yourself, with your emotions. Baghead is me doing that for myself.
You talked a lot about the new album Growth Mindset during your set. So I won’t ask a ton of questions since you already answered a lot. But one thing that comes to mind is that, unlike a lot of other instrumental hip hop, your beats aren’t just beats. Are you intentional about making sure there’s meaning behind your music?
Yeah. I feel like the producer/beatmaker in me is not separate, but that’s one skill. My mom always tells me I’m a great writer and I feel like I have another part of me that can be used via my music, my beats, and my production. I have thoughts about the world that I want to express.
One way I express and feel is through my beats, but then I also want to give people context. So if you really tune into Baghead and you tune into these podcasts or you come to the shows where I talk or we have conversations in person or you really listen to all the little bits and pieces I put in from random interviews throughout my albums, you might actually catch on to what I'm putting down.
That’s why there’s two separate parts. Part of me, I just fucking love making beats and me being myself. I love being proud of the things I create and trying new things. So I'm going to put that out. And then on top of that, I have these thoughts about life and the world. And I'll tap into that too.
One of the coolest things has been watching the evolution of your hip hop crew, Family Not A Group. How did it start and where’s it at today?
A lot of us have had relationships through music for years. Some have had relationships through just being friends first. Like me and Professa Gabel have known each other since we were sixth grade. Afterthought and Cali have known each other since they were really young. Those cats grew up in the Fillmore. So we’ve all been in the city for years and we’ve all been going to similar shows.
There were two catalysts. First, Mike Evans is one of my dear friends. He’s part of the group. He's a comedian, but also just a visionary in general. And he’s putting together a a short web series called Rent Check directed by Cereal for the Kids about a young comedian trying to figure his life out in San Francisco. That’s all done and put together, and Mike used that as an excuse to make an amazing collaborative album. It’s going to have a life of its own. Some of the songs will probably be used within the show, but it’s going to be a album of its own. Me and Afterthought executive produced it, so we hosted and ran I think 10 sessions where 15 to 20 people came every time. We tried to think of every person that’s present in the community right now working. And then we had some smaller sessions to get some bigger names in there when they could do it with their own schedule. But during those main sessions, it was 20 artists, and it was a lot of new people every time too. A core formed from that.
Then Afterthought was going to go to New York to do some shows, and he was telling a lot of the folks who were in those rooms, “come to New York with me.” I think probably 14 to 15 of us went out. We were having a lot of fun. We did one show. It was packed the fuck out. All of us were on it. We all did sets. There’s 18 of us, but some are videographers. Mike’s a comedian so he hosts. So it’s not all just rappers and producers. It's a lot of rappers, but it is an artist collective, not a hip hop collective. There’s a lot of mediums that we exist in.
After that trip, we were like, we should be a group, fuck it. And the name came during that trip and we came back and we added some more members based on what we needed. That's just kind of it. Rent Check, New York trip, and boom.
I was talking to this other artist the other day about how the Internet has done away with a lot of regional differences in music. Do you think the Bay Area still has a defined sound?
Of course. I’m around that shit every single day. It’s not a matter if I know it's there. It’s more like, how can I play my role in putting intention behind this movement so that the world knows how dope the Bay Area is.
It’s just a multifaceted, multi-genre explosion of creative genius in the Bay. You have house and footwork music and upbeat and baile, and then you have real gritty hood, hip hop shit. And then you got more alternative boom bap kind of hip hop. La Doña exists, Stunnaman02 exists. It’s all here. And it's all because of how diverse our community is and how well we are able to exist in harmony. I mean, it’s not perfect. There’s still a huge degree of segregation and miscommunication between neighborhoods and communities. But there’s also a lot of the opposite of that. And it’s super beautiful. Besides what genres it is and what skillset, it’s just—the people here are really hungry to build community and they do it from an authentic place, which is hard to do. When we go to New York, or when folks from LA come and visit us, they’re astounded by what we have. “Y’all came out 15 deep to New York and did a show? What? I can’t get two friends to really support me.”
I do know some Oakland folks who have the same grit and love that we have, but Frisco is so fucking gentrified that it’s powerful just to be an artist holding space. So it’s harder to exist. But it gives you that much more power and that competitive nature. Like fuck tech and fuck Google and fuck Facebook and fuck these really rich people who don’t give a fuck about this dive bar or this venue. I'm going to be here and show y’all that we have hella people who will show up for us even amidst this massive change in the community.
That’s not the one thing, but that plays a big role, especially with Family on a Group. We’re rooted in resistance work through creativity. Look at the history of the Bay Area, the Coup, the Black Panther. You can't erase the legacy, and the legacy lives through the people who take up that land in a beautiful way. It lives through us.
Any favorite venues in the Bay you wanna shout out?
We love El Rio dearly. They really open up their doors to the community in Frisco, Bay Area, avant-garde, just creative people. I mean, Brick and Mortar does good stuff. They definitely bring a lot of talent from around the country, which is super dope. And they put on local folks. So shout out Brick and Mortar. The New Parish—the same folks run that. It's tough, man. We lost a lot. I mean, Yolo club exists now, which took over Slim’s. You know what I mean? Support the Knockout. Support El Rio.
Any music you’ve been loving lately?
I found a Ted Kamal album lately that really blew my mind. He produced for Pink Siifu. It’s like a combo of trap and lofi and SoundCloud edit world all in one. I like Pink Siifu a lot. I like Maxo a lot. That whole Earl sweatshirt, that whole vibe. And not to sound like a broken record, but the Kendrick Lamar album is one of my favorite projects of all time. Shit. Shout out Afterthought, Ozer, Grand-O. Surged two times. ASH. Professa Gabel. Our community has hella albums out right now. So tap in.
