It takes a strong, secure guy to date a woman as formidable asNaomi Osaka.
Cordae, like Osaka, is seriously dedicated to his craft.
“We [musicians] ain’t out here selling drugs,” he toldComplex.
But his knowledge of tennis is another matter.
“When I think about tennis, I just knowSerena Williams.”
“I didn’t even know who she was,” he said.
“Omigod, you’re so clumsy!”
she says with a laugh.
“Just give it a week,” the source said.)
Cordae didn’t just offer up comforting words.
But whileGQdescribes Cordae’s music as “fun,” he sees it as an instrument of change.
“As artists we are the gatekeepers of time,” he told GQ.
“We do have some sort of responsibility to speak on the times and things that are going on.
He credits his mother for helping him develop his social consciousness.
“I was always reading Harry Potter books.
In fact, the lessons he learned have stuck with him and inform his musical voice today.
Cordae, to his credit, has managed to avoid this trap.
“I live well below my means.
I don’t own any jewelry.
I’m always looking for what’s next, you know?
Keep tunnel vision to keep pushing, but my gratitude is the highest.
I’m blessed,” he said.
“One of my biggest blessings is I do what I love for a living full time.
My lifestyle’s hella regular.”
Both are vocal advocates of the Black Lives Matter movement.
His commitment to social issues also drives his approach to music.
This is, as he said, by intention.
Y’all are supposed to be our guiding forces.”
Cordae is willing to put himself on the line to be one of those guiding forces.
He’s a perfectionist, and I think that’s sort of what I am too.
So maybe that’s why we get along.”
For his part, Cordae respects her musical sensibilities.
“She has a good ear.
I don’t really trust too many people’s ear like that,” he told GQ.
“I don’t tell her how to swing.
It’s a mutual respect,” he said.
“In that moment, it wasn’t like the nominations came as a surprise.
I had that energy when I was creating this body of work,” he said.
Literally, I said that verbatim."
Cordae doesn’t consider himself one of those guys.
“I don’t give a shot to portray some lifestyle that I’m not living.
I’m not the hardest [man] walking around,” he told theAssociated Press.
“If the situation comes about, I’m going to handle myself like a man.
But I ain’t no gangsta.”
“I’m the man of the house,” he toldGQ.
“Because it was me, my grandma, my aunt, and my mom all in a house.
And so my nickname was Man since I was a little-a** boy.”
He also appreciates the new perspectives that Osaka has opened up in his life.
“Naomi was born in Japan.
So she has a very worldly perspective,” he said.
“I’ve only been traveling the world the last two years.
We’d be recommending each other books and movies all the time.
So, you know, just always feeding the brain.”
“And of course he would play us Tupac and Biggie in the car.”
And his curiosity about music isn’t limited to hip-hop.
“Growing up, I feel like I just heard the hits, you know what I mean?”
“It’s a really interesting thing about him.
He knows the whole catalog of everyone.”
He also found that just watching elite tennis matches was a bit daunting.
“I felt really out of place,” he toldGQ.
“We sent it over to Coach and they executed it well.”
“That’s the people around me that I went to high school with,” he said.
“And I had to learn that s***!
It took a minute for me to truly get that.
But honestly, I keep the circle tight.”
“Awards are a beautiful thing,” he toldInterview.
But the number-one way I measure impact is how it makes people feel.
This one song got me out of a dark place.
That s*** was relatable as f***.'
That’s like 30 Grammys to me."
Part of building that legacy means constantly striving to do better.
“My lyricism is better, my songwriting is better,” he said.
“We only have one life to live,” says Cordae in the TED Talk (viaYouTube).
“110 years maximum if you’re a health guru and you have great health insurance.
How are you going to maximize your time on this earth?
… Each chapter isn’t gonna be perfect, but how do you want your story to end?
In anguish, a bunch of what-ifs, or leaving a legacy?
I choose legacy; the ‘Hi Level’ way.”
Cordae’s TED Talk was extremely successful and wasranked as the top TED Talk of 2022.
