Matt Nation is an independent artist from Brooklyn who at some point packed his bags and relocated to Los Angeles, dragging his whole production kitchen with him along with the habit of closing the entire track cycle on his own. His discography lives somewhere at the intersection of R&B, alt-hip-hop and pop sensibility: from the tactile texture of the EP “Undeniably Dope” to newer cuts like “Hollywood X Vine” and “Something’s in the Water,” where the breathing is already West Coast — slower, with different air sitting in the mix.

The occasion for the conversation is his fresh single “April’s Fool.” April turned out to be a deceptive month for Matt: the title plays at irony, while the track itself pulls you somewhere inward, into a zone where you’ve fooled yourself and now have to live with it. In the interview we talked about how his studio logic is built, why voice memos are a genre of their own for him, how a move from one coast to another rewires the sound, what sits inside the word “dope” when he says it without quotation marks, and why his bar — release only what sounds exactly the way it sounded in his head — is cranked all the way up.

Hey Matt! Good to finally talk. I’ve had “April’s Fool” on repeat for the past few days — and there’s this feeling that the track exists in some parallel time zone. April as a month is a treacherous thing: it promises warmth, green, a reset — and then hits you from the inside with something completely cold. So you take this title, “April’s Fool,” and on the surface it reads as irony, a joke, something light. But inside the track, everything is wired differently. There’s weight in there. I want to start at the very beginning: at what exact moment did you realize you had this song — that it had already taken shape as an idea, a mood, a thing that needed to be recorded?

I think I knew what the song was going to be from coming up with the first line “April fools, jokes on me” which kinda hit like this self-aware taking of an L, but at the same time, understanding that some blame lies with the person being lied to, in a way, it’s about fooling yourself. I believe a song’s quality is directly tied to how easy it was to write it, this one especially felt like it was just flowing out, maybe that’s the truth in it, cutting through the confusion of creation. This story is a lived experience, documented in song, once that first line was written, it had to be made.

You grew up in Brooklyn, played live in Manhattan, Long Island, headlined New York venues — and at some point you left for Los Angeles. I always think about how a move breaks your internal soundtrack. In New York, sound is literally physical: sirens, the subway, other people’s conversations through the wall. In LA, everything is built on pauses, on distances, on the silence between houses. You put out “Hollywood X Vine,” “Something’s in the Water” — tracks that already breathe differently, at a different speed. How did the move to the West Coast rewire you? Did you start hearing something that simply wasn’t there in your mixes before?

I think a lot of what shaped my sound and production choices in NY stemmed from the cool stuff that my friends were listening to, or from what I would hear was working at the clubs we would go to. It was a very experimental phase to find what was exciting, but I was a lot more prone to  attempting creating stuff with an underlying trap-ish vibe, or more “urban” approachable. After moving to LA, I felt like I had a lot less of that reference or affirmation of sound, which was freeing, going more for the edge of what a song can be, without thinking about if people I knew personally would like it. Things like “Hollywood X Vine” or “Something’s in the Water”, I honestly would’ve been too scared to create back then, so maybe what you’re hearing is freedom.

I’m curious about your production logic. You write, you sing, you produce — the entire cycle is closed within you. In a time when people assemble tracks from presets in ninety minutes, your “Undeniably Dope” had a very tactile texture: the 808s on “Ms. McGuire” sounded like they’d been run through some kind of analog mess, and on “Blue Dream” the atmosphere was constructed in layers, slowly, almost obsessively. Do you start with the beat or the melody? Or with something else entirely — a phrase, a scrap of lyric, a voice memo to yourself?

“Undeniably Dope” was the epitome of throwing music at the wall and seeing what sticks. During that time, it was button mashing, midi typing, loop searching, tutorial watching, and just trying stuff out, that’s the fun part of not knowing what the rules are. McGuire I knew had to have a certain whimsicalness, but also had to hit like a banger, so the 808’s had to give support but also feel “zippy” and with some reverb at certain parts. On “Blue Dream” messing around with some cool synths until I created that bounce with that main lead. At that point in time, I always went with a compelling melodic motif first, then build around it, then write to it. I still do, but sometimes I might think of a compelling lyrical hook, I’m like, gotta record this immediately to my phone, then I’ll write a whole song or at least a chorus, then build production to what makes sense for it. Voice memos are a gift.

You’ve got “Rose Gold” — dark in mood, trap soul, introspective. And right next to it sits “I Don’t Need You” — hard, brash, all edge. It always fascinates me when an artist can flip emotional registers that sharply and still stay recognizable. Do you build that polarity deliberately — like, here I’m soft, and here I’m pushing you away? Or does it happen organically, on the principle of “I recorded what I was feeling that particular evening”?

Oh yeah, these are very in the moment vibes. With “Rose Gold” I was really trying to come up with a track as if I was producing for SZA, “Love Galore” had me in a chokehold at that time. But coming up with my own perspective, being a guy who during that phase in my life would indulge but was bad with emotional availability. With “I Don’t Need You” I was trying to produce that emo trap sound that was resonating that year for like Juice WRLD or Iann Dior. Writing that, I was still mad over someone from yearrrrss ago doing me dirty :(, so this one was more like a healthy release of anger. I guess that spectrum or change up was organic, the story from that dynamic detached situationship being a result of being hurt before.

Let’s talk about the phrase “dope vibes.” It’s your calling card — “Here to make some dope vibes.” And the EP is called “Undeniably Dope.” The word “dope” has traveled a long road: from street slang to marketing cliché and back again. You use it with this sincere directness, no quotation marks, no irony. I’m interested in why that specific word became your anchor. What are you putting into it when you say it in 2026?

Dope is a word that I needed to use for the EP title, for lack of better words. How I felt about the music I put on there, I couldn’t describe it with anything else, because it wasn’t just happy, sad, emo, hopeful, hype, it was all those things. It was many sides of the human experience, felt fully, that’s what dope means. In the big 2026, I probably use it to describe when I feel good about creating and sharing something, and hope the listener feels dope hearing it too. 

You started producing your sophomore year of college, then came College Music Festivals, then the live scene in New York. A very DIY path, very ground-up. Right now you’re sitting at close to 50,000 monthly listeners on Spotify — for an indie artist, that’s a real number. But I want to ask about a different moment: was there a specific show, a specific night, when you first felt the audience hearing you the way you wanted to be heard? When the energy came back to you?

That’s a powerful question. I think it was when I played at the Bowery Electric, it was one of those times it felt like a real venue in the big city, and luckily things were opening back up after COVID. I was playing in front of an audience, a mix up of strangers and some friends. I played “Kiss Me in the Dark” which I had it in my heart as a good song, and everyone was bopping to it heavy, receiving it as I imagined. I think everything culminated to just a really good night, and you could feel it, it wasn’t like we were just getting started anymore, this was a real thing. 

Something that caught my eye — between 2023 and 2025 you released singles at a steady clip: “New Moon,” “Right Here,” “Hollywood X Vine,” then “Pressure,” “Something’s in the Water,” “Over the Horizon,” “Dirty White Vans,” “Self Ctrl.” Almost a metronome. Do you treat releases like a diary — capture a state, tag it with a date, and let it go? Or is there some deliberate strategy behind this sequence, an arc that the listener can only see in fragments so far?

Oh man, I probably have like 7 song ideas almost fully made for each 1 that even gets recorded. I think I just have a really high filter for what gets finished and what gets released. Some stuff will be workshopped for YEARS before it comes out. Sometimes weeks/months if it’s all flowing. I don’t want to release a song until it is exactly as intended or as close to possible, I don’t want to give an audience something where I’m thinking, “Well, they’re gonna know what I was going for”. No, you are going to hear what I was hearing in my head. Once it does sound like that, I try to get it packaged for release as soon as possible. 

Your music constantly drifts between genres — R&B, pop, rap, indie, alternative hip-hop. You’ve described it yourself in three words: “vibey, electric, melodic dream.” Genre fluidity is both a superpower and a trap at the same time, the way I see it. Streaming algorithms love clean categories, playlists want a legible sound. Have you ever felt the pressure to narrow down, pick one lane and stay in it? And if so — how did you deal with that?

I do understand the reality of this music ecosystem we are in. People, platforms, and curators want to know what to expect. But now we are at a point where a lot of stuff isn’t discernable, and especially now with AI music, things get broken down into a formula. The magic is in finding that area where you can invite someone into your world without making it too unapproachable for them, they’ll get the “you” that’s in it from your choices, your sound selection, your words, and your art. My lane has always been “Do I mess with it, do I think other people will mess with it, and is this me?”. If yes to all three, then it’s a go. As for genre, it’s always been “honesty”.

You’ve mentioned that your lyrics often revolve around the pressure of being in your twenties — trying to figure yourself out, figure out relationships, figure out who you even are. “Ms. McGuire” was about the one who left and what you’d say if you ever got the chance. That’s a very specific emotion, a very narrow window. Now, a few years and a few moves later, are you still writing from that same place — that same vulnerability? Or has the source shifted, and “April’s Fool” is coming from somewhere else entirely?

I have to be careful sometimes when writing the song, sometimes I’ll write thinking it’s partly more of an exaggerated story, and then the thing will happen to me. Happened while finishing “April’s Fool”. Some songs may have a similar tone of yearning, and maybe heartbreak or trying to rekindle, but I think the power is in the nuance. “Ms. McGuire” was coming from a place of naivety in resparking potential. “April’s Fool” comes from an awareness that somethings were better left alone. I used to think these emotions were novel to being in your twenties, dealing with being a small fish in the big ocean, none of that structure you would get from a school, the pressure of trying to be stable in so many different facets. I realize now, that part never really goes away!

You’re sending “April’s Fool” out into the world as an independent artist — no twenty-person team building out your rollout. There’s a sense that for you, control over the process is a matter of principle, and not simply a consequence of circumstance. Where are you taking Matt Nation next? Is there an album in your head, an EP, a visual project — or are you in “one track at a time” mode right now, with the planning horizon ending at the next single?

I come from the philosophy “Hit them hard, and over the head”. That’s how I’m taking everything. No “Well, I guess they might like this”, nope, whatever comes out, it’s gonna be fire, so every song I put out is with the mindset that it will be the one. I’ve learned a lot from the sound, the process, what makes sense, and how the ecosystem responds. Let’s just say the mode is, keep hitting them, and make sure they see it too.

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