“What the hell even is a real filmmaker?”

Logic emits a contagious warmth and energy when we meet for this interview. The rapper-turned-real-filmmaker is sporting his signature baseball cap and an easy smile… and with the release of his debut film, Paradise Records, he’s got every reason to be grinning.

There has been a surge, particularly within the last few years, of actors releasing full-length albums, and finding just as much, if not more, success as musicians (see Renee Rapp, for example, who got her start on Mindy Kaling’s The Sєx Lives of College Girls and left the show after two seasons when she released her debut LP). This certainly isn’t a novel phenomenon, but it does seem to be a growing phenomenon.

Seven times platinum, Grammy-nominated Logic is the latest musician trying his hand at cinema; his aforementioned Paradise Records was written and directed by him, and he’s the star, too. Not only did Logic, born Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, create the film himself, he’s also distributing it and promoting it all on his own, too.

I had the opportunity to speak with the 35-year-old artist about what it was like to make a movie, the lost art of the stoner comedy, and his rather admirable feat of maintaining ownership of his own work of art.

Logic’s Smooth Transition From One Pᴀssion To Another

When I asked Logic why he first decided to make a movie, he expressed, with the kind of warm demeanor of an artist who genuinely believes in the power of their art, “I always wanted to make films, but everyone says no. Everyone tells you that you can’t, and I found that pretty disheartening. It just felt like a giant stop sign, like mentally.”

For a while, that discouragement worked. “I continued to make music and focus on that. And really, after achieving all [I could] in music, I stepped away to focus on being a father and a husband, and in doing that, I felt quite empty. I had come to realize that a lot of my idenтιтy was kind of in the process of creation.

“I love music. I make music like I breathe, I have to do it. But with cinema, it’s incredibly difficult; I would argue that it’s a thousand times harder than music. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot that needs to happen in order for you to be successful in music, but with cinema, you’re at the whim of other people who will say yes or no, depending on their personal taste.”

When it comes to making a movie, there are a ton of moving parts, all of which cost money. “Nobody’s going to give somebody millions of dollars [to make a movie] if they don’t understand it, and I feel like that’s kind of what happened with me.”

Quick to lay down the harsh truth, however, Logic does it with humor. “Talking to studios, I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I’ve never written a movie before, but I want to write the script… I’ve also never directed, I want to direct it… I’ve also never starred in anything and I want to star in it. I also personally want to cast the entire film, and grab my best friend who’s also never acted before, and I want you to give me millions of dollars.’ People would be like, ‘ҒUCҜ you.'”

That said, there was definitely some interest, and one studio even made an offer. When he asked his sales agent about the offer, he was told, “It was no money down, they own it for 30 years, and they own all the merchandise, and I have to pay for everything. They don’t tell me what amount of money they’ll put into marketing or where it goes, and that’s what you get if you make something and you wanna give it away—you’re literally giving it away.”

He took a moment to muse on what it would mean to have that stamp of a distributor on your film and how it would make you a ‘real filmmaker,’ before quipping, “What the hell even is a real filmmaker? I think if you’re doing the work, and you’re putting out something you love, that’s all that matters.”

With that in mind, the rapper-turned-film-star made a decision. “I just said hey, it’s either gonna happen, I’m gonna do this now, or never.” With a twinkle in his eye, he continued, “I made the transition because I wake up every day, and it genuinely makes me happy. I have pretty gnarly intrusive thoughts, so the fact that I can put those thoughts in a script, and really flesh them out and discuss them gives me a sense of personal purpose, like something that I can do for me, rather than resorting to a substance or this, that, and the third.”

At the end of the day, his decision to do everything for this movie on his own was bred from authenticity and pᴀssion. “I’m doing this because I just don’t trust anybody else with it in their hands, and why would I give away something when I can own it 100 percent?”

Paradise Records Is The Modern Stoner Comedy, Revived And Redefined

Drawing inspiration from 1994 indie cult classic, Clerks, with a cameo from Jay and Silent Bob themselves, Paradise Records employs some tried and true cinematic techniques, characteristic of the lost art of the stoner comedy. With all the turmoil plaguing society today, Logic created a comedy that touches on that very turmoil in a way that is both serious and unserious, making us laugh at every turn and proving that for his cinematic debut, he did his homework.

“It’s a movie we’ve almost all seen a million times, right? It’s just people hanging out, having fun, smoking a little dope and saying some crazy sнιт, you know, flawed characters, learning, growing… I just write characters that are just who they are, whether you like them or not.” The goal, of course, is to evoke a reaction from his audience.

Logic wrote each and every character with that goal in mind. “I think my least favorite person in the entire film is Uncle Tony, which is just me in an old man suit, and he’s just a complete piece of sнιт. I modeled him after a family member I have, and I think a lot of people know have met somebody like that.”

Uncle Tony wasn’t the only familial inspiration in Logic’s first film; the father of his character, Cooper, was actually played by Logic’s father, Robert Bryson Hall. There’s a really great scene where Cooper’s father, Smokey, comes to the record store, and they sit in the back of the shop, talking, smoking, and just hanging out.

“I knew a lot of that scene was gonna be improv because my father, at 70 years old, was not gonna be memorizing all these lines. So I brought in two cameras for that and literally coached him. Every line that you see my dad say in the film, I would tell him to say it, and then I would reset, and then he would say it, and I would react, and we’d just go back and forth. It was a fun experience, it wasn’t easy, that’s for sure, but I do enjoy a good challenge.”

Between the collaboration with his family and friends on the screen, and the all-encompᴀssing experience of directing the film, Paradise Records was clearly a film that was close to Logic’s heart. “Charlie Kaufman says, if you put yourself in your script, like if you literally put you in your script, whether it’s through characters or behind various masks, you will have something incredibly unique and unlike anything that’s existed before.”

He continued, “I think when we talk about the typical stoner comedy, this is one of the things that makes it incredibly different. I mean, as a white-pᴀssing Black dude, that’s never been on cinema. That hasn’t been on-screen.” When he talks about putting himself into his work, at least in his first film, his idenтιтy as a biracial man is a huge part of it.

The way his character and his cousin T-Man interact is the basis for a lot of the movie’s dialogue, and a lot of that dialogue is predicated on the fact that Cooper is white-pᴀssing, while T-Man is visibly Black. “I think that any form of conflict makes for wonderful cinema. It’s the reason that Cooper and T man are so completely opposite. You know, they’re familial, and they love each other, and while they agree on some sнιт, for the most part, they just spend the whole film arguing with each other. But that’s what we love, right?”

When plugged on his feelings about negative reviews, Logic admits, “It’s human of us to see something and wanna click on it. But I’m just happy to be me. It’s not some plight, it’s not some agenda, not some this or that, I’m just being me.” There’s no doubt that in today’s society, when an artist creates a piece of art that so openly engages with issues of race in the way Logic did in his debut film, people are going to have a whole slew of things to say about it.

That’s what makes Paradise Records so unique, though—it has all the comedic elements of a typical stoner comedy, while opening up the door for real questions and dialogue, all so Logic can indulge himself, have a good time with the people he loves, and throw himself completely into his art in a way he hasn’t ever done until now.

Paradise Records Is Just The Beginning

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Having to do all the heavy lifting himself certainly took a toll on the debut filmmaker. “Sometimes I wish I could get an alleyoop, I wish I had a Wes Anderson whale that wanted to give me $20 million a picture and just believe, that’s just not the world that we live in. Who knows, maybe one day, but until then, I’m going to enjoy this challenge the best I can.”

For Logic, it’s not about the returns or any recognition he may get. “If I get nominated for an Oscar, I’m not showing up. It’s not because I’m not appreciative, but it’s all subjective… I think it’s a great honor to be recognized, or talked about, or whatever, but I’m not there to play those games. I already did that sнιт in music, and [I] was let down, found myself envious, or driven by ego and vanity and all this sнιт that, as I’ve gotten into my 30s, I realize it just doesn’t matter.”

What he cares about is really twofold: getting to create the art that he’s always wanted to create for himself, and creating art that means something to others. “It’s good to somebody, right? And isn’t that all that genuinely matters? If you’re focused on approval and looking for validation in others, you will never be happy. The only validation that I have is from my wife, my children, and my direct circle around me. You can call them yes-men, or this or that, but you don’t know us, you don’t know me. These people kick my ᴀss to try to get the best art out of me, and for me to be the best that I could possibly be.

“It’s brought me to tears many times, happy and sad, moments of discouragement, but that is important. It’s really just more ammunition for the pen when I write or draw from my own personal inspiration for future characters.” It seems that the tears—happy, sad, discouraged, all of the above—are already paying off. The Blu-ray pre-sales for Paradise Records have already exceeded $1 million.

“Nobody buys Blu-rays, you know what I mean? That’s what’s so cool about this. I’m really loving it and enjoying it, and it’s really not about the money.” He went on, “We’re projected to make millions of dollars off this release, and we’re gonna put it back into more films, and help other filmmakers and other people achieve their dreams. That’s my long-term goal.”

The Blu-ray in question isn’t just any regular Blu-ray; it comes with five previously unreleased full-length Logic albums, one of which stars Morgan Freeman, and another is a sequel to his novel, Supermarket. A true jack of all trades, this Blu-ray provides a glimpse into each and every facet of Logic’s career as an artist. You can preorder the Paradise Records Blu-ray here.

“I decided to make this film as my first because it was the one that I knew I could make.” As the skilled creator he is, Logic had many scripts to choose from for his debut film. “I have scripts like black Annie Hall vibes. I have adaptations, Spike Jones and Charlie Kaufman-esque scripts, ideas for films that I want to do, like dramas and dramadies and thrillers and all this stuff.” If things continue on an upward trend for Logic, suffice it to say, there will be plenty more where Paradise Records came from.