Billboard cover star and the ‘Future of Hopecore’ artist, Flawed Mangoes, is bringing out the emotions through his music. He sits down and shares his thoughts on “Killswitch Lullaby” going viral on TikTok, meeting with Kai Cenat, his creative solo process and more!
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00:00You know what this is? Yes, I know what this is.
00:02I was kind of just posting these guitar riff videos and then people started
00:06messaging me being like, oh, did you know that there's this movement called Hope Corps that's
00:10like really closely associated with your music, like all these posts are using your music in the
00:14background. Oh my gosh, it's him. It's you? Yeah.
00:26Hope Corps is a funny thing to me. It's just this content that's like really
00:31trying to focus on like the motivational, inspirational type of message and spread
00:36positivity through, you know, motivational speeches or like inspiring videos and things
00:42like that. It kind of blurs the line for me between like, you know, music genre and like
00:48sort of just like a like an ethos. I've had a lot of people express to me that it's interesting how
00:52many emotions I can convey without actually using words in music. And I think I've always been
00:59someone who like was always really keyed in on melodies and didn't always pay attention to words
01:03that much. And so I've always kind of been used to like extracting emotions from just the music
01:08itself. That kind of made it a good canvas for people to, you know, put quotes or speeches over.
01:12So that definitely helps. I feel like all of my like sort of I consider them peers on TikTok
01:18who are kind of, you know, creating instrumental music in similar spaces. Like it's funny because
01:22a lot of their content tends to lean more towards the sort of melancholy side of artists like
01:28Vines and One Heart are people who immediately come to mind that are kind of in the same space.
01:34The name Flawed Mangoes comes from I was previously releasing music under the name
01:40Flamingo for the longest time. I had like tons of different artist names prior to this when I was
01:45just kind of releasing music and coming up with different directions all the time. And Flamingo
01:49was one that I stuck with for a long time. And then I wanted to change my name again because I
01:53felt like I needed a new direction at one point. And I was kind of just playing around with different
01:57names. And I kind of thought of Flawed Mangoes as a joke because it's just like a play on words,
02:02you know, like sounds like Flamingo. But it ended up kind of sticking and kind of
02:06rolls off the tongue and is like ambiguous and catchy in a way that I liked.
02:11The first one I ever that ever went viral was the video where I was writing Kill Switch Lullaby.
02:23Which is just like a really simple guitar loop basically. And it was something that I just like
02:28it felt like the kind of idea that I almost like would disregard because it felt so like
02:33basic and natural to like my sensibility. It just ended up like resonating with a lot of people. And
02:40yeah, it was pretty surreal to see so many people like using the sound for their videos.
02:45When I'm working on my music, I don't really share my music around at all. I keep it all
02:49pretty much to myself. I don't know if it's because I'm sensitive and bad at taking criticism. But
02:55it's just I've been recording and releasing music alone for so long. It's just kind of my
03:00natural process. Like I kind of enjoy not having anyone but me kind of have, you know, final takes
03:07on on creative decisions and things like that. We got in touch with Kai because Phantom started
03:19putting on my songs, started putting on Swimming in particular, when they would have guests come
03:24on and they would ask the guests to do like a motivational speech basically at the end of their
03:29time. The first thing that comes off the dome motivational speech that you can just motivate
03:33anybody out there who may be watching, who may be down, the first thing that comes to your head.
03:37And he started putting that on as kind of just inspirational background music. We can work
03:41together and dare I say it, change the world. We were like, wow, wouldn't it be funny if I could
03:48get onto the stream and actually play the song live? And we reached out to them and they were
03:53they were super excited about the idea. Seeing a reaction like that from Kai, it was really weird.
04:00It's funny because I think now that I've started posting videos of myself, like that's the most
04:04sort of forward I've ever been, you know, on the Internet or on social media, like in my entire
04:09life in the last year is just putting up these videos of my face. And so it's it's kind of funny
04:15to me to think that so many people also still just know my music from hearing it in the background
04:19of different things. So having him not actually know who I was until the music started playing
04:23was it was a really fun experience. It was cool that he was genuinely so surprised.
04:31It's also so chaotic, like they were trying to pierce his kid's ear and they were like,
04:36get in there, like go motivate the kid. And I was kind of just back there, like trying to play the
04:40song. And it felt like I was like, like, am I just like overwhelming this kid right now? Like
04:45it was it was a crazy moment. My first exposure to music was doing classical piano as a child.
04:52I didn't really enjoy it. It was kind of a forced childhood activity. But, you know, it's one of
04:58those things where you're kind of you end up grateful that your parents, you know, forced you
05:02into it. Picked up guitar around middle school and started just that was when I was starting to
05:07listen to music that I actually enjoyed, too. So I was learning like all these Green Day songs on
05:12an acoustic guitar and just playing along. I was so into like just all these bands that
05:18teenagers love, you know, that are also guitar centric. I was just so willing to like put in
05:23endless hours as a as a kid after school just to learn all these songs. Towards the end of high
05:28school, I was starting to become sort of fascinated with the idea of like releasing music on the
05:35Internet. One of the communities that I first found was like the the Vaporwave community way
05:40back then, because that was just like the most accessible music community out there. And so that
05:45was my first sort of foray into producing music and making sort of electronic sounds and things
05:52like that. And then I started to really lean more heavily into producing and recording on my own
05:57once I went to college. Heyman Paula was super formative for me. I remember when he released
06:06like Lonerism and I found out it was all one guy. Crazy. I was like, wow, maybe I could do that. Like
06:12that seems easier than meeting people and recording with people. When I started sort of using social
06:19media to market myself, I was pretty much just releasing music into the void and hoping that
06:24a playlist would pick it up or that people would randomly come across me or something. Once I
06:28started getting like attention and traction, like by posting these videos on TikTok and Instagram,
06:34that's where things started to snowball to the point where I was considering, you know,
06:37maybe I could actually make music a career. I read a lot of the comments, not all of them,
06:41obviously. It's definitely that's very surreal to think that people are actually like having,
06:46you know, significant moments with my music and kind of having impact from it.
06:54The visualizers are part of a really close collaboration I have with two good friends
06:59of mine. One of them is my friend Rauf Sanyaev, who is this incredible artist who I've known since
07:06I was in elementary school. For Kill Switch Lullaby, when I needed kind of artwork to match
07:11the song that I wanted to put out, I reached out to him. He had this idea to do a bunch of watercolor
07:16paintings of my face and do like a stop motion animation with them. And that came out to be one
07:22of the coolest like visualizers I've ever done and seen. And then from there, I was like, OK,
07:27I want him to be doing paintings for all my artwork because it just feels so timeless and like
07:32special and unique. And then I reached out to this other friend of mine,
07:35Justin Kaminuma, who's just one of the best like videographers in the world. And he just puts
07:43together these incredibly special like collage style videos where he's just sourcing footage
07:51from all over the place, from like his own recordings, from his friends, from the internet,
07:55and just layering them with Rauf's paintings to create these like textures and these gradually
08:01morphing like landscapes. And it's just it's turned into just one of the most like unique
08:08sort of signature visual styles that I love being able to tap into so much. I'm looking to put out
08:14another album in this next year. I'm really excited about it because I'm going to be trying out a lot
08:18of new directions. I'm going to be doing more vocals on the album. I'm going to be doing like
08:23more full instrumentation and things. But then I'm also trying to find ways to like blend it with the
08:28old sound because I think there's more to give from that that side as well. I think the thing
08:35that I'm most proud of is having so many people reaching out to me every day that my music has
08:41had a significant impact on their life because I've felt that way, you know, about certain songs
08:47or albums or whatever. And like I'll think like, wow, like this music is truly like making me think
08:53differently and feel differently about life. And that's such like a like being able to influence
08:57somebody's life in that way. It's just such a crazy like thing to have happen. And the idea that
09:02I'm having that effect on even one person is just like really special.