Founding Mood Magazine NYC contributor O.J. Galloway sits down with Decatur artist and producer LoKii AD to explore the discipline behind his sound, the freedom and weight of self-production, and the purpose that keeps him creating.
By O.J. Galloway
Contributor note
Meet a founding member of the Mood Magazine NYC editorial staff: O.J. Galloway is the Founder and Chief Creative Architect of Bedford & Bomar Media Holdings. Confirm the company’s exact styling and O.J.’s preferred title before publication.
Shot by @amandaalea_ (Amanda Turner)
Atlanta has established itself as one of hip-hop’s most influential creative centers. Trap, snap, crunk, R&B, and generations of lyrical innovators have all helped shape the city’s sound. That history creates opportunity, but it also creates pressure. Every emerging artist must decide how to honor what came before without becoming confined by it.
LoKii AD is building his answer from both sides of the studio glass.
The Decatur artist began behind the boards, developing the technical instincts of a producer, engineer, mixer, and creative problem-solver before stepping forward as a recording artist. In our conversation, he spoke about the family influences that planted his first creative seeds, the artists who sharpened his ear, and the discipline required to build a catalog that sounds like his own.
His story is one of artistry inherited, studied, tested, and transformed.
Setting the Mood
Before the full interview, I asked LoKii AD a rapid series of questions designed to reveal the instincts beneath the polished answers.
When asked about a favorite lyric from his own catalog, he chose a playful run of wordplay built around Atlanta geography, food, attraction, and improvisation. The scheme matters to him because it emerged during a freestyle. Its value was not simply complexity; it was the surprise of finding a double meaning while creating in real time.
He named “Buddur,” from his 2024 album For Those Who, as a song he believes deserved more attention. He remembers recognizing how naturally he could move between melody and speed on the track. That moment gave him confidence that his artistic voice could stand on its own.
His answers also showed his willingness to reconsider earlier work. He identified “Unapologetically,” released in 2020, as a song written from anger and betrayal. He does not erase the emotion that produced it, but he recognizes that he would express the feeling differently today. That distinction is part of artistic growth: keeping an honest record of who you were while taking responsibility for who you have become.
A Top Five as a Creative Map
An artist’s list of influences can function like a creative map. It reveals what they listen for, what they study, and what they hope to carry forward.
LoKii AD’s top five included Drake, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar, and J. Cole. Each name points toward a different part of his musical thinking: versatility, detailed storytelling, technical command, conceptual ambition, and a respect for hip-hop as a living art form.
His appreciation for Drake suggests an interest in moving between rap and melody without treating either as a secondary skill. Jay-Z and Lil Wayne represent layered writing, wordplay, and the ability to make a line reveal more after the first listen. Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole reflect the importance of narrative, perspective, and responsibility to the culture.
These influences help listeners understand the possibilities in LoKii AD’s music, but they do not place him inside a box. They establish the language he studied before developing his own accent.
Atlanta Made the Environment
LoKii AD also traces part of his production imagination to Metro Boomin’s early work with artists including 21 Savage and Future. The influence appears less as imitation than as an appreciation for atmosphere: the producer’s ability to build a world around a voice.
That is central to Atlanta’s wider musical legacy. The city has repeatedly turned regional experimentation into culture-shifting sound, from earlier Southern rap movements to snap and trap. For an Atlanta-area artist, that history is present in the room whether it is quoted directly or absorbed through years of listening.
LoKii AD’s task is to take that inheritance and make something personal from it.
From Behind the Boards to the Microphone
Shot by @bookthekodak (Kay D)
Starting as a producer gave LoKii AD an unusual route toward becoming an artist. Production taught him to listen structurally. Engineering taught him to hear where a vocal sits inside a track. Mixing and mastering demanded patience with details that many listeners may never consciously notice but will still feel.
That technical background now shapes how he writes. He thinks about rhythmic placement, the articulation of syllables, the space between phrases, and the cleanliness of the finished recording. The beat is not simply a surface for lyrics. It is an architecture that tells the voice where it can move.
Creative independence also has practical advantages. An artist who can produce, engineer, mix, and master may reduce outside costs and maintain a clearer line between the first idea and the finished record. Fewer handoffs can mean fewer opportunities for the original intention to be diluted.
The same independence can slow the process. Every additional skill requires time, practice, and judgment. As LoKii AD explained, “you have to be okay with putting in that extra time to actually get good at those other things.”
That may be the hidden price of becoming your own creative machine: freedom expands, but so does responsibility.
When the Melody Moves the Pen
Shot by @amandaalea_ (Amanda Turner)
LoKii AD’s production and engineering experience also exposed him to different writing methods. Studio sessions became lessons. While helping other artists shape their recordings, he could observe how they found melodies, built verses, corrected weak sections, and responded to the energy of a track.
He now moves between two approaches. In collaborative sessions, he may use the punch-in method, recording a line or phrase directly in the booth and allowing the next idea to emerge from the previous one. He values the speed and shared energy of that process.
For solo work, he may slow down and write more deliberately. That gives him time to organize lyrics around melodies already present in the beat and to examine how each choice serves the full song. Neither method is automatically more authentic. Each creates a different path into the record.
The flexibility matters because LoKii AD’s catalog does not depend on a single cadence. His music can shift from quick, controlled flows to harmonies shaped by R&B and soul. The technique changes with the feeling he is trying to communicate.
Passion Feeds Purpose
A glorious feeling 🔥🔥🔥
One of the most revealing moments in our conversation began with a simple question: What does creating music do for your soul that being a fan of music cannot?
LoKii AD’s response drew a line between admiration and construction. A fan can love the completed song. A creator also knows the decisions, revisions, frustrations, breakthroughs, and hours that made the song possible. The artist hears both the record and the labor inside it.
That answer resonated with me as a fellow creative. Passion gives a person a relationship with the work that an observer is not required to have. The audience receives the final experience. The artist carries every version that existed before it.
The Songs That Stay Private
Not every piece of music is created for release.
LoKii AD spoke about songs that may never enter his public catalog. Some were created inside anger, sadness, or another intensely personal moment. Their purpose may have been fulfilled in the act of making them.
There is value in the work left on the cutting-room floor. A private recording can become evidence of survival, a measure of growth, or a place where an artist tells the truth without immediately turning that truth into a product. The pressure to monetize every vulnerable moment can interfere with the healing that made the work necessary.
Those unreleased pieces still matter. They may later offer the emotional foundation for a different song, one shaped with enough distance to carry the lesson without reopening the wound. They may also remain private, belonging only to the person who needed to create them.
Legacy Without Confinement
As our conversation closed, LoKii AD returned to legacy: how it is established, how credibility is earned, and how an artist learns to contribute without being trapped by the need to outperform every previous achievement.
No artist remains at the top forever, and perhaps permanence should not be the goal. A healthy creative culture requires movement. It needs established voices willing to leave doors open, new voices prepared to walk through them, and enough humility for each generation to learn from the others.
LoKii AD’s journey shows the balance inside independence. He values control while acknowledging the time it demands. He carries influences without surrendering his identity to them. He makes music for listeners while preserving some creations for himself. He respects legacy while continuing to define what his own legacy may become.
That is the inheritance: not a finished blueprint, but permission to build.
LoKii AD’s catalog now includes the albums In Stone and For Those Who, as well as singles and EPs that continue his movement across rap, melody, R&B, and soul. His 2026 EP Fasho adds another chapter to a career still taking shape.
Listen to the music. Follow the evolution. Join the conversation the universal language keeps creating.
And, as always, stay in the Mood.
Question of the Day
Where is the balance between creative freedom and artistic confinement, and how do we establish our truth within that tension?
Stay in the Mood
Stay in the Mood: Explore LoKii AD’s music and official links, listen on Apple Music, and add O.J. Galloway’s verified Artistry Inherited companion-audio and playlist links before publication.
