Fayetteville, North Carolina-hailing singer Morray had been making music for years before he broke with "Quicksand," but he'll be the first to admit that before the world could know who he was, he had to find out himself. "I've tried to be the gangsta, I've tried to do the gangbanging, I tried everything," he tells Apple Music in his Up Next film. "And it hurt me that I was doing the same things that I always said I would never do or that I've seen my mom cry about." His music at one point reflected something of a street life fantasy, but he credits his girlfriend with changing his perspective on what he was making. "I would always give my wifey songs like, 'Listen to this song.' And she'd be like, 'It's hot 'cause you're you, baby, but damn, do something different.' That kind of changed my attention of what I was writing about 'cause I started tapping into who I really was." What came from this revelation were songs like "Dreamland," "Big Decisions," and, of course, runaway smash "Quicksand," music steeped in the gospel tradition that Morray grew up absorbing, and then filtered through the lens of Carolina street life. Over the course of the film, Morray shares the intimate details of his come-up, including the soul-searching he did while honing his sound. "A Black man is supposed to teach himself the way of the world through the streets, that's our narrative," he says. "Why?" Also, in an interview with Apple Music's Ebro Darden, Morray discusses wanting to stand out from the crowd, what J. Cole means to their native Fayetteville, and how he got the inspiration for "Quicksand." Watch the film and interview, and listen to Morray's newest mixtape, Street Sermons, along with selections from the rest of the artists in the Up Next series. http://apple.co/-UpNextMorray
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