Dreamville’s Lute knows all about the crippling effects mental health issues can have on someone’s life. When he dropped his second studio album Gold Mouf last October, the North Carolina native was bouncing back from a period of anxiety and depression where he didn’t know if he wanted to release the long-awaited project.
“It felt like an exhale releasing it, because of the way that people were receiving it,” Lute tells Billboard on a crisp spring day in New York City. “I didn’t know people were going to receive it in a positive way. It’s rewarding to see my vulnerability and honesty with myself making people feel good. I almost felt like I got my flowers — because early on, I didn’t know where I stood with a lot of this s–t. But seeing those responses and seeing how the things I went through possibly helped someone else was fire to me.”
And though the pressure of telling everyone his business was unsettling, Gold Mouf unpacked Lute’s experiences with self-esteem in songs like”100,” financial dreams on “GED (Gettin Every Dolla),” and romantic aspirations in “Be Okay” and “Ghetto Love.”
Lute had his share of obstacles in the process of unveiling the project. First, he planned a complete rollout anchored by a bevy of music videos while dealing with his sick father. Things came to a screeching halt when the rapper’s father passed, and shortly after, his grandmother died following a bout with COVID. Once again, Lute felt his anxiety and depression coming in the way of him and his album.
“For me, it was just like, okay, I lost my dad, but I’m gonna keep moving. I had to keep doing things, because if I stop and sit in it, I’m not going to be able to recover from it,” he says. “But then when my grandma passed, it was like, ‘alright, f–k all this sh-t.’ I don’t want to deal with it at all. Those two events changed the course of Gold Mouf.”
Instead of languishing in his pain, Lute used the difficult period to tap back into the studio and record six more tracks for the album’s deluxe version. Released last month, the updated edition is in the same vein as its predecessor: the production and tempo are much more upbeat, a sign of him pushing through the tough times he’s endured throughout the making of this album.
“Creating a Deluxe gave me something to look forward to,” Lute says. “It put me in a place where you know, I can appreciate, and I can feel like I’m working and doing something because again, I’m the type of n—a where I work through my traumas — and I got to stop doing that too, because I miss a lot of things that eventually boils over, you know?”
He adds, “We put these songs out, and you’ll understand that I’m still figuring it out, but my energy is different. As you listen to it on a day-to-day basis, I’m still trying to figure out my life and figure out these steps to get to a 90 percent version of myself. Because I’ll be honest, I’m not there.”
