I’m happy to announce the next focusonthe release will be DIVDRILL2K22! Despite not being label artists themselves, I wanted to test the waters and try new things with focusonthe. We’ll be releasing the album on CD, as well as their next beat tape together, which will be included as a bonus for any fans 🙂
This album is absolutely phenomenal and I’ve been a fan of these guys for a long time. I’ll do a more detailed write-up on-release 🙂
I spent some time with Chapters226 and Bootlxgg, asking some questions related to their new release as well as some questions about their influences on their new album!
When and how did you two first meet?
Bootlxgg: We met on a children’s coding website in like 2015-2016. I was like 12 carter was prolly 10. We made animations and games, stuff like that. Didn’t talk for like 4 years and then reconnected in 2020 and found out we both made music, started sending stems back n forth and made DIV_0 – VOL_1 and the rest is history fr.
Chapters226: It was more like 2019 cuz I did the cover for your ep back then. wait naw im trippin it was 2020 that period of my life gets mixed up time wise often mb.
Bootlxgg: it was def 2020
Your sound has changed a lot since your release of VOL_1 as DIV_0, what has happened between then and now that influenced your change in sound?
Bootlxgg: We used to be more into making these long experimental tracks together but for DIVDRILL we just wanted to keep things kinda simple and just do our version of sample drill. We wanna return to our experimental collabs again sometime though.
Chapters226: I think honestly, its also just change in taste. There was a weird transitional period where we were working on a full length DIV_0 cloud rap / trap project but that idea got kind of put to the side for DIVDRILL but I think this project wouldn’t have been possible without that period of just making pretty normal shit tbh.
To each of you, what is your favorite album of all time and why?
Chapters226: Veteran by JPEGMAFIA. I heard it pretty soon after it came out due to some twitter mutuals I had talking about it and it pretty quickly shifted my view of music as a whole. I was still really young at that point, like 11-ish? it opened my taste up to much more experimental shit that I would fw in the future due to the trap / cloud rap sounds around the album that I was more a fan of.
Bootlxgg: Hard to say but probably Madvillainy? That’s like one of a few albums I really know front to back like that cuz I never rly stopped listening to it since I found out about it. TMS, person pitch, itaots and white album are some other records I’m like that with. Yk like the normal stuff everyone finds out about when they first get into music – Been listening to all that stuff since I was really young.
The powers that b might be a contender actually ngl that’s some real Adderall music. How’d they combine footwork and black metal like that. And then its like all of rides best writing ever – it’s still catchy asf too.
Do you have any plans for the future of your music?
Bootlxgg: Finishing up my album, putting extreme focus on live performance and energy. I want it to translate to those settings well. get people moshing n shit. And I wanna avoid features from any1 besides friends for a while going forward. I’m happy with the Ghais and Cowboy Killerr and Zen verses, but I feel like people got more excited aboutt a new Ghais track than a new Bootlxgg or Chapters release.
Chapters226: Not really anything set, I’m really bad at keeping to my plans due to the fact I’m busy as fuck outside of music shit with school extracurriculars etc. I wanna have a Chapters226 EP / tape out by my birthday though, that’s about the furthest. hopefully a DIV_0 release soon if possible, but overall jus working on my craft.
If you’d like to spend some time listening to the duo’s previous work, I’d definitely recommend listening to VOL_1. Really interesting listen the first time I listened to it, and it still holds up today.
