Q&A: Izzymoney & CYS

By Aakanksha Mehta

“Music for everyone to relate to. That’s the goal.”

Indulging in topics such as love and heartbreak, IzzyMoney and Cys’ latest project navigates everyday life and emotions. We spoke with the singer-songwriters before and after the recording of their new collaborative project; really getting to know the artists and the emotions they want to convey through their music. 

Broken Hearts/Broken Bottles is out now. Listen to it here.

BEFORE

AFTER

A: What does your writing process look like? How do your songs usually come about?

CYS: It’s like, I have like a single line, so I’ll either get a rhythm or a melody or a couple of lines in my head and from there I’ll just take it to the next step. It’ll help fuel a recording session, so I’ll use those lines to give me an idea or it’s really just catching vibes in the studio, working with everyone who’s around me to come up with one thing that's really nice. But when I’m working individually, I take those initial ideas--the melodies, the lines -- and I use the notes app, I have a million notes in them that I don’t even end up using.

CYS: I try to switch up how I record a song. Sometimes it’s just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, the same chorus running throughout the whole song I find that really boring. Sometimes I try to make a song that all hooks or all choruses-- but it still makes sense as a song-- and then a song that might be a minute and a half or two minutes and it's just one verse straight through but it makes sense as a song. I like doing that a lot because it makes me change my voice. 

CYS: When I do that, it forces me to change how I'm using my voice with inflections, yeah it's that pretty much, I'll use higher or lower tones. I like to switch it up a lot.

IS: I’d say my writing process is a bit creative. Usually, I don’t write down any lyrics beforehand so I just go off of what I can think of at the moment which is based on my mood and results in a song.

A: What do you think the biggest hurdle in the music-making process is? The recording? The writing?

CYS: I would say it's all easy--I don't think I would do this if it was hard, for me. I'm not trying to be an egotistical maniac but that’s why we do this. If not, I would have stayed in school and I would have done something that I didn't like to do. But I would say my biggest hurdle would have to be, probably the money aspect of it. I feel like if money wasn't an item, then there are so many other things that I would be able to do.

CYS: But I feel like sometimes when I say that it's an excuse because we’ve done cool things with a restricted budget, so I feel like maybe it's not the biggest hurdle. If I had to pick a second one then I would just say staying determined--staying determined throughout the whole process. One of my biggest things is that I'm deathly afraid of being cornered...like deathly, deathly afraid. I hate that, I don’t ever want to be like...a lot of things make me cringe the way people do things, and I was like “damn if I had to do that myself I’d look like an idiot”. That's how it feels sometimes. 

 IS: The biggest hurdle is making music that I think people would enjoy listening to which would be the writing part of it. Having to balance this with also wanting to fully express myself.

A: Ok so, last question. If you had to pick another path other than music, what would it be?

CYS: Like if I can’t do anything music-related? 

IS: If not for music, I would be a doctor because I get to save lives.

CYS: Um, I don’t know. Real estate. Kill myself. I don’t know. There isn’t much else that I want to do besides this, you know. I think I’ve had plenty of opportunities to pick a different path and I think that like, even little things, like even this opportunity came at a time where I thought it was going to be over for me, and it’s just like little stuff like that that I keep on seeing that’s just like-- “Nah bro, stick it out.”

A: What about if it was in the music industry?

CYS: If it was in the music industry, then I would have to, ya know, I think I would want to start off as--well my end goal would pretty much be to have my own, not even label, but like a mass media production company. I would pretty much want a building like this that has everything for my artists in it, from like a gym. to like lawyers, to like residences...and then you come in, you want to sign me, you don’t have to--oh, your living situation sucks? Cool, we got an apartment, a three-bedroom apartment on the 20th floor, you and your family can stay there for the duration of your contract. Do you know what I mean? Stuff like that. I don’t know, I think stuff like that would help legendary status artists come to light and people who would have the opportunity to pursue that to do that and I think that’s what I would want to do if I wasn't necessarily recording, writing, in the process of making music myself.

CYS: Or I’d be a producer. I like to put things together. Yeah, that’s fun for me.  

Fortunately for fans, IzzyMoney’s music is nowhere near the end. Now that aspirations have been turned into accomplishments, IzzyMoney’s new album has done a great job of portraying their passion and talent. As we spoke with them, their love for the art was evident. 

A: So, now that you have completed recording, how do you think this project came out?

CYS: Isaiah, what do you think? Did we make good music?

IS: Yeah, it’s different. Our music is different. 

CYS: I think we made relatable music. Because in the project we just talked about girls and navigating love situations and, you know, people turn up so we talked about turning up--people get heartbroken, so we talked about getting heartbroken--people fall in love, so you talk about your feelings, talk about falling in love and all that. It’s all there, I think it’s really relatable. 

A: Ok so, what song do you think does that the best in this project? Or at least, what is your favorite song on the project?

CYS: What would you say Isaiah?

IS: It’s either 2 hours or the song we have Speedracer. 

CYS: Oh you like Speedracer like that?

IS: Yeah 2 hours, Her Melody, and Speedracer. But the only reason I like Speedracer is because it’s like a bunch of different flows in one song. 

CYS: Yeah Speedracer is dope. But it’s alright. I think mine would be “Her Melody.” I don’t know, maybe I’m biased cause I kinda got a big part on that in the middle of it, so maybe I’m biased but I thought that one was dope. Cause that one is simple, meaningful, and catchy. It hits a lot of notes for me so I think a lot of people are going to like that one. 

A: Moving on to the next question, if you could spend a day with any celebrity, who would it be and what would you guys do?

CYS: A whole day?

IS: It’d probably be someone involved in fashion. So anybody that’s like underground, making money off music that gets clothes for free. Anybody like that. 

CYS: For me, maybe like LA Reed or maybe like Gary Vee and we would talk about money and the music industry and business. That would be mine. Yea, a whole 24 hours? I would like to see a whole 24 hours of what Gary Vee does because, according to him, he gets a lot done in a day. That would be really dope to see what he does in a day.

A: Alright, is there anything else you guys want to talk about in regards to the project?

CYS: Nah, just it was fun. This whole experience was lit, it was new for us, I learned a lot-- I don’t know about Isaiah. It was nice to meet y’all, work with you guys. I think I learned a lot about recording and the recording process. It gave me a new perspective on making music--how to really hone in on a singular project. That was the biggest takeaway for me is that I felt like for the first time, I reached the goal that I wanted to reach and I didn’t know I wanted to reach it until I did this. It was just like in my subconscious--like “Oh this is what I was trying to do for a minute.” And not even the material itself, like not even the type of music or like the vibe like that specifically, just the fact that I honed in on a project with Isaiah and we did it from start to finish and we took our time with it. That was something I wanted to do for a minute. AND WE DID IT!!