Cuco

“When I'm writing, I just kind of put myself in a place, in a certain time period in my life.”

“I had always wanted to come to South by Southwest. It's really fun.”

“There's no secret crazy backstory. I actually suck at writing. It takes me forever to write a song.”

“I never had connections at any point to the industry.”

“I'm the only child of immigrant parents, you know? So all the pressure is just kind of on me: You have to make it. And I was like, 'Well, let me make it in music.' They were like, 'Nah, you gotta go to school.'”

“It's cool to be in your feelings, and it's cool to be sad, and it's cool to feel all of these things.”

“If you want to be expressive about something, do it. If you want to keep something to yourself, keep it to yourself. I have my own ways, people have theirs.”

“I was like a hermit; I didn't really have a lot of homies I would kick it with. I was in high school, I was failing all my classes, and I wanted to make music.”

“It's cool to see a bunch of brown kids in the crowd. I wanna be a brown artist that they look up to. I didn't see that many artists with my same culture that I looked up to when I was growing up. The industry has always been whitewashed.”

“Love songs just kind of come out very naturally, me being a very romantic person.”

“I just always wanted to play guitar. I though that was, like, really dope. And then in high school, I learned how to play trumpet and, like, French horn because if the instrument's right in front of me, I'm going to just teach myself.”

“I would try to run when I was barely learning how to walk, so I would just fall.”

“I value companionship. I like being with my girlfriend, my best friends. I'm hella clingy. And I'm hella emotional.”

“When I was, like, 16, I had, like, my first, like, bit of software and stuff. So then I started, like, making music and all that.”

“I don't really follow genres. I have a bunch of really poppy tracks and then another super-low-fi, tape-recorded sound. It's actually really random.”

“My parents took me to Sam Ash, and I got a pretty cheap setup - a MIDI keyboard and one of those cheaper mixers - but it was dope, though; it was something. That was kind of how it was: just going to school, skating back home, making music, telling my parents I did my homework.”

“I'm not a singer. I double-track my vocals. I'm just not secure in my voice. I can't do single-track - I sound weird.”

“I will wear chinos and Vans, and sometimes people will get confused. They're like 'Are you sure you're here to perform?'”

“My parents love what I'm doing. Like, at first, they were so skeptical, dude. Like, I would be ditching school and, like, do music. And I'd be telling my parents I'd be in class.”