A Raw Conversation on Music, Loss, and Identity

Early Noise, Before It Had a Name

There’s a moment during my conversation with 1lilsunny where the room feels quiet in a very specific way — not awkward, not heavy, just honest. The kind of silence that happens when someone isn’t searching for the “right” answer, but the true one.

Music didn’t arrive in his life as a revelation. It existed before it had meaning. He started freestyling around eight years old — on school buses, at school, with friends who didn’t see it as anything more than passing time. Back then, it was just sound. Just energy.

That changed in 2021.

He remembers hearing “30 Round Clip Kreayshawn” by Black Kray and feeling something internal shift. Not motivation. Recognition. By 2022, recording alone in his room became routine. Necessary. His sound was raw. Rash. He didn’t understand mixing yet. But that didn’t matter.

“That’s when I needed it,” he says.

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Becoming 1lilsunny, Leaving the Shadow

Before 1lilsunny, there were other names. One of them — bbyshyne — came directly from his admiration for Black Kray. He’s honest about how close that influence got.

“Sometimes I blurred the line between inspiration and copying.”

Instead of leaning into that shadow, he stepped away. In late 2023, he chose the name 1lilsunny — not as a rebrand, but as a reset.

People had always described him as bright. Energetic. Magnetic.

“Just like the sun,” he explains, “people orbit me. They feed off my energy. But they don’t stay long. You can’t look at the sun too long or you’ll go blind.”

It doesn’t come off as ego. It sounds like lived experience. Light attracts — but it also overwhelms.

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No Lane, No Box, No Permission

Trying to reduce 1lilsunny to a genre misses the point. His versatility isn’t calculated; it’s instinctive. Different flows. Different beats. Different emotional ranges.

“I don’t have one set genre,” he says. “I’m versatile in lyrics and sound.”

What surprises people most, though, is how much of his humor and freakiness shows up in his music. He doesn’t censor himself for comfort.

On Even Angels Cry, he drops the line “Bad furry twerking at the rave.” It wasn’t written. It wasn’t planned.

“I just said it,” he shrugs. “And kept it.”

That spontaneity is core to how he creates.

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Freestyle as Survival

Most of his songs start with a beat. Ninety-five percent of his catalog is freestyled — driven by emotion more than structure. Writing lyrics down sometimes feels forced, even though he admits the end product can be stronger when he slows himself down.

Emotionally, his music lives between two poles.

One is melancholy — present in most of his work whether he intends it or not.

The other is euphoria.

“Like performing in front of a thousand people,” he says.

His lyrics come from real life, with slight exaggeration. He doesn’t imagine worlds. He processes this one.

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Death Isn’t Abstract When It’s Local

Loss has been a recurring presence in his life. Friends he once argued with at football practice lost to violence. The Walmart shooting in Chesapeake — a store he used to shop at, steps from where he lived. A friend killed at a Rally’s in Newport News.

These aren’t distant tragedies. They’re locations he recognizes.

But one moment permanently altered everything.

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The Day Everything Felt Unreal

In Hampton, Virginia, he was crossing the street with his ex-girlfriend and her best friend. They were high. A car sped up.

He escaped by inches.

“One went over the car,” he says. “One went under.”

All three of them could have died that day.

“That didn’t just change how I make music,” he tells me. “It changed how I view life.”

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Building Without Shortcuts

He’s never bought promo. Never paid for artificial growth. Never outsourced belief. He knows others in his scene have grown faster because they chose differently.

But that was never his path.

“I want it to be real,” he says. “I want it to be mine.”

When effort doesn’t match numbers, he doesn’t spiral.

“I try again.”

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Why Fame Isn’t What People Think It Is

He’s thought about quitting. Taken breaks. Stepped away. But quitting has never stayed.

“I’ve been through too much,” he says. “There are people counting on me.”

What frustrates him about the underground isn’t competition — it’s illusion.

“A lot of what people call fame is really infamy,” he explains. “People feed off negativity.”

He’s had viral songs — Venusian, Motivation, #Back4You, Kelly Rowland / Dilemma — and viral moments beyond music. But he doesn’t worship virality.

“It’s a moment,” he says. “Like building a house on sand.”

Slow growth is stone.

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Social Media: Reach and Surveillance

Social media gave him reach he never would’ve had otherwise. It also gave people access.

Former friends. Enemies. Lovers.

“People watch,” he says. “They compare. They get envious.”

Early meme clips of him went viral. People assumed clout chasing. In reality, he was just having fun — promoting a Discord where he livestreamed music nightly with friends.

Eventually, he stepped away.

“Lack of respect,” he says.

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Loneliness as a Repeating Theme

Isolation, loneliness, heartbreak — these themes surface whether he invites them or not.

“I’m trying to process my whole life through music,” he tells me. “None of it feels real yet.”

What he wants listeners to feel isn’t sadness.

“I want them to feel infinite.”

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Redefining Success

When I ask him what success looks like, he doesn’t point to charts or numbers.

As a kid, his dream was performing in front of people. He’s done that — multiple times.

“That’s success to me,” he says. “Dreams are real.”

He hopes to make happier music one day. Less sadness. But he doesn’t force it.

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For the Kids Who Were Counted Out

His legacy is clear.

It’s for the abandoned kids. The outcasts. The ones labeled weird.

“I want them to know that being rejected can mean you have a gift.”

There’s a line he repeats often: “Love from above, hate from below.”

To him, love comes from God. Hate doesn’t.

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Lost, But Not Without Direction

When I ask him to define his current era in one word, he pauses.

“Lost.”

Not lost without purpose — lost outside the scene.

“So I built my own building,” he says.

He calls it SunBoyz2007.

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Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud

Before we finish, I ask him what he’s afraid to say.

“I’m lonely as hell,” he admits, laughing softly.

On his worst days, he thinks about the people who didn’t wake up.

“Life is painful,” he says. “But it’s beautiful.”

And he lives inside that contradiction — still creating, still believing, still shining — even when the light hurts.