San Francisco–based artist Truthlive, also known as Evan Phillips, has spent recent years navigating a wide spectrum of musical styles, guided by instinct rather than genre constraints. With his last two EPs, October Summer and Love & Respect, both reaching #1 on Beatport’s New Releases chart, Phillips has steadily built a growing global presence. His recent single Going Up marks a further push into harder territory, blending techno, hardstyle, electro, and warehouse energy shaped by years immersed in sound systems and late-night club spaces. Alongside this, releases like Surrender reveal a more soulful, melodic side, reflecting an artist comfortable presenting contrast as an honest extension of his creative identity.

Truthlive talks to 6AM about releasing contrasting records back-to-back, rejecting genre limitations, leaving behind a successful rap career, and redefining artistic freedom through electronic music.

 

Hi Truthlive! Thanks for taking the time to talk to 6AM. How are you?

I’m doing pretty well, considering the increasingly dystopian nature of things. I think it’s important to focus on what we can control and try to strike a healthy balance between being responsibly engaged and preserving joy. So bless music for that. I have music. My kid is thriving. There’s love around me and within me. I eat hella good. My home is comfortable. I live in the SF Bay Area in California — what I consider the most special place on Earth, at least of all the places I’ve been in my travels. I’m good, even if also living on a perpetual edge of exterior horror from the things I cannot control.

 

To get things started recently you released ‘Going Up’ on  and ‘Surrender’ within a month of each other, and the contrast between them is immediate. Since Going Up leans into a harder electronic, almost electro direction while Surrender moves in a smoother soulful vocal lane, what made you comfortable showing both sides of yourself so close together?

They really are very different records, at least sonically. They’re both still very much authentic to me as a person and artist. It might not be the wisest rollout. It certainly bucks traditional thinking. But I just want to make and release music I feel good about and proud of. I know it’s easier to find a style, hone in on it, duplicate it over and over, stay in a lane, and manage consistent expectations. Audiences can be built quicker that way. I get why that works. It just doesn’t call to me — at least not right now.

As I mentioned in my prior answer, music is a really important outlet for me and my well-being. I create to feel and release. I share some of what I create publicly. I think people have dynamic musical tastes, and if it’s good to them, it’s good. If I can’t feel okay with what I’m doing, I don’t wanna do it. My hope and belief is to ramp up the release output and find my people — find my audience — through consistency of quality and frequency, rather than consistency in sub-genre classifications. So maybe it is wise these two singles came out back-to-back despite being so different, because now I’ve sort of created an expectation on a spectrum. I have lots of other music that lives within that spectrum that doesn’t sound like “Going Up” or “Surrender.” The more I put out, the more clear it will become, and a lot of threads, themes, and stylistic choices will make sense over time in terms of how they fit together.

I do have some distinct foundational styles and signatures. It’s just gonna take a greater body of publicly available work for that to be more evident.

 

On some of your social channels you have the tagline “I make music. Fuck a genre. I do dope things with dope people.” With that in mind was the contrast between Going up and Surrender something you purposely seek or was this simply a coincidence that reflects your wide range of music? How did you come to this decision to release these two differing tracks so close together?

Yes and no. I do consciously seek experimentation, growth, and progress. I don’t want to limit myself creatively, so that part is very intentional. As for this release schedule, there was no clear premeditation for it to happen this way. But I’m not sure I would call it coincidental either, since my normal creative process naturally led me to this outcome.

I’m always working on lots of music simultaneously. Those two songs just kinda happened to be finished in the same approximate time period — with no intent for that to happen — maybe a few days apart, and they were front of mind at the time, even though I originally started them months apart. I was really pleased with how they came out, so I put them out.

“Going Up” is very fitting to a lot of what I do as a DJ in clubs and at big events, but it’s more of a departure from my usual production. Not entirely, but somewhat. As a beatmaker, I tend to default to sexy and chill, as opposed to hard and aggressive. But I am privately prolific. I have a lot, of a lot. Again though, it doesn’t really matter. I DJ and produce so many different genres and styles that doing so kinda IS my genre and style. It’s just open. Ultimately, I want to make people feel when they play my music.

For those that don’t know you had a rising rap career. When someone hears that you walked away from a thriving chapter in rap, it sparks curiosity. If you think back to that moment, what was the very first internal signal that told you it was time to close that door, even though everything on paper was going right?

Shit. Yeah. That is a trip to think about. Feels like a different lifetime. The quickest way I explain my Rap career is this: you probably never heard of me then, but my trajectory was solid, especially for someone culturally purist about Hip Hop. The last song I was on was a Canibus track produced by DJ Premier. The last album I dropped was entirely produced by Jake One. The last three shows I played were as direct support for Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Jay Electronica — two shows in LA, one in Oakland. I had a music video that was high on the MTV Jams and MTVu charts, especially internationally. Yes, MTV was still a thing then. And I just cold quit. Hard stop. No warnings to anyone. I didn’t even say I was done — I just was, quietly.

The signal was my happiness, my mental health, my honest need for more personal development, and a sense of social responsibility. I needed time and space to step back and better understand myself. I was really depressed but also felt guilty for feeling depressed, like, how dare I? All these great things are happening.

It took time to unravel it all. It’s multifaceted.

I was doing very rappity-ass rapper stuff with lots of sociopolitical commentary. Some of it was good. Some of it was great. Some of it is now cringey. But in general, it wasn’t representative of my whole self or my interests artistically. Being a white dude from Santa Rosa, CA in that space, doing that sort of thing, didn’t create an imposter syndrome, but more of a zealotry. You gotta really hold the line. And all of my feelings about Hip Hop — like actual Hip Hop, beyond Rap music — were real. They still are. But I love other genres and cultures just as much. That depth wasn’t coming across in the music I was releasing. I was doing rigid Boom Bap, and at that time, to be credible, it felt like there was pressure to very securely fit in that box. The truth was that it was all very much part of me, but not all of me. As I’ve communicated here, I don’t want to securely fit in a box.

I was living in West Hollywood at the time, and overall I just felt off. I had achieved my very literal and specific dreams at a young age, yet didn’t feel accomplished. I lacked the personal and professional maturity needed to really make the most of it and appreciate it while it was happening.

And those last three shows I played were eye-opening. I was driven by having a message. Watching Kendrick, Cole, and Jay do their thing made it very clear they were the head of the class. Hip Hop was going to be in their hands, and I felt great about that. They were more talented and more appropriate voices to make so many of the points I wanted to make. Being their fan felt more natural than trying to be their peer.

Also, I co-owned a whole label. Like, a real functioning record label — with salaried staff, indie-major distribution, lawyers on retainer, all of that. Turning my love and passion into a job in an industry that is cutthroat, shallow, and brutal, combined with the other stuff I just shared, made me start to hate music.

There is a longer story about a night I had in LA where it all crystallized. I almost made a life-altering — well, life-ending — decision, and instead chose my mental health and self-preservation over continuing down that path. I needed to recalibrate. So I have. And here I am now, largely because of going back to DJing, embracing electronic and dance music, and restoring my love for the art. And I’ve found other ways to contribute sociopolitically where I still use my voice and message to make impacts that aren’t via Rap songs.

A lot of artists talk about “finding their sound,” but rarely about unlearning old instincts. What habits or mindsets from your rap era did you have to let go of in order to make space for the version of you that created Surrender and Going Up? What have you kept with you to up your producer game within these genres?

That is a really excellent question. I don’t think I’ve unlearned old instincts. I’ve more so stopped trying to limit myself and my creative expression, and moved toward a more holistically authentic place. I am a big fan of unlearning though. True story: my precursor free promo EP, when I was fully in the Rap wave, was called The Unlearning.

I try to keep up with music — period. There’s too much to cover, but overall I take in a wide range of what’s happening: where trends are going, how sounds are developing, what scenes are emerging. I am eternally curious.

When making music, I really just try to be present with myself and allow the music to flow without expectation or judgment. I’ve created some processes to help kickstart that. I almost always start with a basic piano and poke around chord progressions. Then I usually lay a few drums down. It all takes its own course from there.

I’ve been told I use lots of drum sounds and synth choices not typically used in the “genre” of the song. I think you hear my personal experience and tastes as an amalgam across genres.

How did being in rooms with heavy hitters and working for massive clients like Redbull and the SF Giants influence the standards you hold yourself to now, and does any of that pressure still sneak into your current studio sessions?

I don’t make music from a place of pressure. Those days are over for me. I no longer feel any pressure about what I’m making in the studio. “Don’t fight it, don’t force it” is a bit of a personal mantra I go to. If I feel it, do it. If I don’t, stop. I try to work quickly. The basic idea should coalesce in minutes, not hours. 

My DJ career in the public and private spaces has been doing well for a long time. I don’t need to put out original music to survive as an artist. My musical range as a DJ has opened up a variety of doors. I am really grateful for it all. But I also feel that is a blessing and a curse. As brought up earlier, it’s actually easier to be more narrow. People sometimes keep me out because I am too much of too many things to them. I’ve opted to make things harder on myself by doing a variety of sub-genres.

So now — like right now — I don’t feel pressure but motivation and excitement. I am eager to release and share a lot more music. I want to see where this goes. My intention and focus on quality control is more disciplined than before. The plan is to compel more support. 

Thanks so much for talking to us. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

No, thank you for having me. I am still a relatively small and unknown artist. I need all the help I can get to grow this thing. I appreciate the opportunity.

I always have a lot to say about a lot of things. Once you get me going, I don’t shut up. Working on that. But I’ll keep it simple: I have a lot more music coming out. The plan is to release something every 4 to 6 weeks for the next year. Expect the same quality, but don’t anticipate genre.

And lastly, I want to encourage all people doing art, making music, making electronic music, to remember that what we are doing is inherently political. Like it or not, that’s what it is. The time is now, the place is here — make your mark, do what matters, make a difference for the better.

 

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