Welcome to BuzzMusic! What's the story behind Cupid Valentino and the Lovely Imperfections?
When I first started I was fresh out of college El was doing his family man thing and Artillary was just getting into his job at Beoing. I wanted to start a band I quite sure what I wanted to do genre-wise but I knew I wanted to make music.
I’ve always been a fan of Dungeon Family Roc-Fella, Flipmode and The Neptune’s 36 Mafia and all that they were doing. I’m also a huge fan of OutKast and that whole NY/VA/ATL scene at that time in the early 2000s. One of my all-time favorite albums is Speakerboxx/The Love Below. I always wanted to do something like that Make an artistic musical album that wasn’t the normal way that you would hear music at that time but change how you look at things in life. I feel that the album changed how I looked at music/World in so many ways. So I decided that I wanted that and went out and hit up my friends I knew could do it all sing rap dance etc.(El, Artillary, Catfish McGee) Our band name comes from a lyric Andre 3000 said in the intro to the song “Happy Valentines Day” “I'm Cupid Valentino the modern-day Cupid”. I added the Lovely Imperfections at the end as a way to describe the band members' uniqueness we all bring to the music we were putting out at that time they couldn’t figure out what to classify us as. We’re we Hip Hop, Pop, Alternative, Rock, R&B they didn’t know but they did know it was really really good. So we put out the first EP (The Love and Waffles album) which caught a lot of buzz overseas with songs like (O.T.O.T.W., Sunshine (To all the Girls...) and the Melodically symphonic Incognegro) with those records we made a valid point to not conform and to make a new sound that the world could enjoy and then the rest was history.
You recently released two new singles titled "Red Velvet Memories" and "bad Monday". How do you fuse genres when creating your music? Do you face any artistic challenges?
Not really like I said before I always tried to make sure that we experiment with different styles of music to attract attention from all fans and consumers of they’re favorite genres so we can get as many ears as possible listening. If we do face challenges it would be to not sound like everything and everyone you hear on the radio and being repetitive or old but also develop a sound that’s uniquely different from what you’re hearing so you have a different perspective It’s a great problem to have.
Do these singles follow a theme?
Yeah definitely they’re songs to show you not to be afraid to express your feelings for the one you may love or care about (Red Velvet Memories) and Bad Monday is a song with the message of not being afraid to do you.
You have a new EP coming this summer! Tell us what we can expect from "All Good Things Must Come To An End".
Expect to dance. A lot. Summer vibes.
For an artist just starting out, what advice would you give them?
In life as well in music it’s more of who you know then what you know. Always network build those relationships with other producers artists Dj’s executives etc. Don’t quit. Stay positive. Work hard good things come to those who wait. If this is what you want then keep at it. Even when times get tough use them as a learning experience for future opportunities that will come you’re way. In the beginning, it will seem like a lost cause you will second guess yourself might even think about or quit (I’ve done this more than once) there’s nothing wrong feeling that way it just understand that it’s not the end of the world all part of the journey The big thing is don’t be disheartened or discouraged if you hear No because the 10th time could be yes.
Listen to Cupid Valentino and the Lovely Imperfections here.