“I’m going to make music in my room until I die” -YSN Fab
YSN Fab is Winnipeg’s best kept secret. For those of you who are unfamiliar, YSN Fab is a viral sensation, with over 12 million streams on Spotify alone. Although Fab wrote rhymes in school, he never considered making music until an injury forced him to leave football behind. Despite the fact that Fab’s only been making music for 2 years, he is one of the few artist’s who’s been able to breakthrough and earn respect in Winnipeg.
Fab went from struggling and surviving on water alone to paying his bills and then some with his music and yet he doesn’t plan on leaving his hometown any time soon. Fab states, “I’m going to make music from my room until I die,” claiming he prefers the intimacy and focus of recording at home more than any big studio a label can offer. For now Fab wants to remain independent, but forsees himself signing a 5 million dollar deal in the next 5 years. Such confidence can only come from an artist whose music speaks for itself.
Fab’s journey hasn’t been easy, but he’s already received the highest praise an artist can hope to achieve which is hearing, “your music saved my life.” After consistently dropping singles since 2018, Fab released his debut album and the deluxe earlier this year. Not only that, Lyrical Lemonade labeled him “the Canadian Roddy Rich.” Find out more about Fab in our interview below.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk about how you got started and your upbringing?
YSN Fab: I was never really into music I grew up playing sports. Music wasn’t even really a thing I didn’t even really listen to music it was always sports. Two years ago is when I started to pick up the music because I got injured in football.cI was playing out in B.C. and I came back to Winnipeg. I had freestyles and shit so I was like let me just post some and when I posted it a producer who goes by the name Pascal Beats hit me up. Moved out when I was 17 and a lot of my music is about when I was 16 to my life now but when I talk about the feeling of not being loved that stems from when I was little. Just because I come from a broken home, I was adopted it’s was a lot a lot of confusion growing up. I started taking music seriously 2 years ago at 19.
The Knockturnal: Has your family supportive of you pursuing music?
YSN Fab: Both of my moms are very old-school, they wanted me to go to school, but even before music I was chasing the football dream so I never really planned on going to school or getting a career that way. Now they see where it’s going and are supportive.
The Knockturnal: How old were you when you either wrote your first rapper freestyled for the first time?
YSN Fab: I was 10. I would do a little freestyle for fun. Like in school if my teacher told us to do a science project I would always try to substitute it with a rap instead or poem and present that to the class. I dropped my first real song around 2018 but that was supposed to be a freestyle.
The Knockturnal: What are some highlights from your career so far?
YSN Fab: Opening for mosey in October, being flown out LA, and Fetty Wap cosigning my music. Tay Keith also reached out. I don’t even see this as a highlight, I feel like it’s more so the purpose of why I make music but the first time somebody said that I saved their life was unbelievable.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk about the process of creating your debut project?
YSN Fab: Been working on my project for 2 years, I saw growth but I was discouraged at first and Pascal convinced me to keep going. I owe him everything. He believed in me when no one else did. It felt good to see it all come together it was crazy. I mentioned I was “meant for more” in a song and it was something that kept recurring in my head, and that’s why I wanted to name it Made 4 More.
The Knockturnal: How did it feel to see your music up on Lyrical Lemonade?
YSN Fab: I value people’s opinions who are at a certain stature so a person of that stature writing about me – I appreciate it.
The Knockturnal: Do you want to sign or do you want to a record label or remain independent?
YSN Fab: Independent. I’m ok with pacing as long as my shorty and the people around me aren’t too money-hungry then I’m good. I’m ok with the long game honestly I don’t think it’s gonna be long before I build up some leverage where I can go to a label and do what I want. But at the point I’m at now they gonna be laughing at me. The most I’ll do right now is a distribution deal, but not a record deal. I envision myself signing a 5 or 10 million dollar deal in a few years.
The Knockturnal: What are you currently working on and what do you have on the way?
YSN Fab: I got 10 songs right now that are just ready to go and 5-8 videos I wanna drop this year.
Photo Credits: FortyDiamonds
